United-in-Diversity Campus | Willis Kusuma Architects

Located in Kura-Kura Island, Bali, Indonesia, the Kura-Kura Bali United-in-Diversity Campus is a mixed-use facility encompassing an approximately 60 x 140 meter footprint that combines commercial, educational, office, and event programs. The building orients itself in the direction of the sacred Mount Agung, the highest point on Bali Island.
In establishing a general logic on how the plan is defined, the building operates on two intersecting axes, the horizontal axis – giving the building its horizontal language – as well as a skewed axis, pointed at Mt. Agung cutting into it, which diagonally intersects the building’s longitudinal form and orients its space.
The design builds on the ‘Bale’ vernacular, a traditional Balinese thatched hip-roof structure that is often interpreted as a multipurpose hall for people to gather under. Bale adopts its roofed form by symbolically pointing up to the mountains and to the skies. Willis Kusuma Architects has taken this traditional form, scaling it up into a superstructure to create one giant roof that shelters all its programs underneath it.

It adopts a sensitive understanding of its tropical surroundings, embracing Balinese heritage as a reference point to create a modern facility. Inspiring its name, the Kura-Kura Bali Unity-in-Diversity Campus’ range of programs is compartmentalized into distinct brick volumes, hoisted on steel columns that project up to the roof, creating communal open-air spaces—permeable by the weather’s conditions—in and around the solid units.

The ground floor hosts commercial functions and a mini museum. Co-working spaces and classrooms are hosted on the second and third floors, while private office spaces, a function hall, and media rooms are hosted on the third floor. Indoor and outdoor amphitheaters create informal gathering spaces. Closest under the massive roof are decks that provide seating areas, enjoying views of the island’s surroundings. The interaction between the closed brick volumes and all the open-air internal spaces under one roof creates a unique spatial experience, engaging the building’s users dynamically with visual and auditory connections.

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