The Arc at Green School
Bali, Indonesia // 2021 // role: Project Architect // Ibuku
“The Arc is the new crown jewel of the world-renowned Green School in Bali, Indonesia. The school has a 12 year history of breaking boundaries and expanding horizons and the Arc is the newest benchmark in that history, raising the bar for sustainable education around the world. The first building of its kind ever made, The Arc at Green School is built from a series of intersecting 14 meter tall bamboo arches spanning 19 meters, interconnected by anticlastic gridshells which derive their strength from curving in two opposite directions.” (Ibuku press release)
The building’s design was conceived by Jörg Stamm, the world’s foremost authority in bamboo construction. Ibuku was commissioned by Green School to take Stamm’s concept and execute the design. Neil Thomas of Atelier One, known for his engineering work around the world, such as with Cloud Gate in Chicago, the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore and with tour sets for U2 and Beyoncé.
As Project Architect, I managed the architecture team and oversaw the completion of the design. I coordinated with Jörg Stamm, Neil Thomas, representatives from the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization, our client, Green School, and the contractor, Bamboo Pure. Given that the building’s design is completely unprecedented, we spent six months conducting structural tests at 1:1 scale. Through these tests, we were able to perfect every structural detail throughout the building, and even pioneered new bamboo structural details never before used.
During construction, one of the third grade teachers from Green School contacted Ibuku and told us that he was teaching a unit on engineering to his students. He asked that one of the Ibuku architects be a guest teacher in his class, and teach engineering principles that we were exploring in the building design. I took the role on and created some presentation boards to help teach complex engineering principles to the students. The school provided an outdoor classroom beside the construction site and the class of students were present to watch as the first arch of the building was lifted into place.
The Arc was completed on Earth Day in 2021. Upon its completion, I volunteered to create the press release for the project, oversee interview scheduling and correspondence with publications, and make design award applications. The Arc was published in Wallpaper Magazine, Dezeen, Elle Decor, Architectural Digest and countless others and was featured in CNN’s Going Green. It is the winner of a public vote Dezeen Award for Green Building of the Year, the winner of a Global Architecture and Design award for Iconic Building of the Year, winner of the ArchDaily Building of the Year 2022, and most notably the winner of the Architecture Master Prize for 2021.
“The Arc is a one-of-a-kind structure that was built after months of research and development, and fine-tuning of tailor-made details. The result is a distinctive design with delicate beauty, which stands as a testament to Ibuku’s commitment to expanding horizons in architecture and design. “The concepted structure for the Arc is totally unprecedented. Embarking on a design never executed before required some bravery and optimism. We were creative and stubborn enough to research and develop the answers needed for the success of the project,” says Rowland Sauls, the project architect.”
