Villa The Putih

The Putih is the one-bedroom villa from Balitecture's Tiny range: a 65-square-metre build on a 90-square-metre plot in Nyanyi, with a double-height glass gable that makes a small footprint feel anything but. Putih means white in Indonesian, and the architecture earns the name, white render, white breeze-block screens and pale stone, warmed through with timber and rattan.

The brief was to get a full villa out of a tiny plot without it feeling tight. The answer was height. An asymmetric, steeply pitched roof lifts the living room into a double-height volume, and a floor-to-ceiling glass gable pulls the garden and the sky inside, so the main space reads as generous even at 65 square metres. The bedroom tucks into a mezzanine loft under an exposed bamboo ceiling, which frees the ground floor for one open run of living, kitchen and dining.

White does most of the work here. Rendered walls and perforated breeze-block screens keep it bright and private at the same time, Jimbaran stone grounds the elevations, and a terrazzo plunge pool sits a step off the living room. Warm timber floors, woven rattan and a stone soaking tub keep all that white from feeling clinical. For most of the year it runs on cross-ventilation and daylight instead of air-conditioning.

The Putih was designed to be built, not just rendered, and the finished villa matches the original concept image down to the rattan hanging chair by the pool. That is what you get when design and detailing happen under one roof. The design has since been featured by designboom, Rethinking The Future and Architizer as an example of how much a small, carefully worked footprint can do in Bali.

• Double-height living under an asymmetric pitched roof
• Floor-to-ceiling glass gable opening to the garden
• Mezzanine bedroom beneath an exposed bamboo ceiling
• White render, breeze-block screens and Jimbaran stone
• Terrazzo plunge pool a step off the living room
• Naturally cross-ventilated, daylight-led living