Bali has a way of collapsing boundaries between art, design, and daily life. Spend a day in Ubud and you feel it immediately, one moment you are sipping Kintamani coffee, the next you are standing in a bamboo cathedral or tracing your hand across centuries of handwoven cloth.
Our morning began at Bambu Indah, where Cynthia Hardy welcomed us over coffee and introduced the vision, creation, and philosophy behind the living experience - and experiment - that is Bambu Indah. We were lucky enough to get a personal tour of her favorite joglos (traditional teakwood houses from Java), perched on the ridge, high above the Ayung River. These houses (that double as hotel “rooms”) sit in harmony with bamboo structures that rise organically from the earth, architecture that is alive. The vision belongs to Elora Hardy, whose Ibuku Studio has reimagined what bamboo can do.
The family’s creative streak continued with Carina Hardy, who offered a preview of her fine jewelry line, featuring pieces that celebrate the female form, handcrafted with the eye of someone who has lived life bouncing between Bali and New York City.
The journey unfolded with easy rhythm. At Gaya Ceramics, shelves shimmered with glaze experiments, records of curiosity, on their way to refinement. Not far away, we wandered through a villa designed by Popo Danes, the noted Balinese architect. House of Lights, once abandoned, now carefully restored by two Hungarian filmmakers who coaxed its old bones into radiance.
By midday, it was time for lunch at Moksa, where plates of vegan cuisine arrived like edible sculptures. This sense of reverence continued into the world of Kuluk Gallery, its walls draped with antique Indonesian textiles, maps of the archipelago’s traditions. A conversation on the painstaking process of batik deepened our appreciation. Just beyond, Pak Made’s secret warehouse revealed an archive filled with statues, carvings, and antiques gathered from across Indonesia, stacked up, fragments of history.
Fashion pulled us back into the present at Quarzia, where Simonetta, the Founder, unfolded hand-painted silks and invited us to observe the makers in process.
Living Light, a modern vision of communal living provided the final piece of the tour. A compound of homes that sit gently on the land, disrupting nature as little as possible. Here, residents share wisdom, resources, responsibility, and friendship, creating a community that is both sustainable and deeply human. An experiment in how to live - lightly, meaningfully, together.
As the skies opened, rain chased us into Kawi Ubud, a hidden cocktail bar. Dim and secretive, proof that a downpour in Ubud is part of the performance.
The discovery of design is not a checklist. It is a current you step into, carrying you from homes to studios, kitchens to galleries, until you surface, utterly changed.
In a copy-paste travel world, Robinson & Roam is the remix. Bold and meaningful journeys in a space that’s drowning in generic.
