Elora Hardy

Tell us your story – how did you get here?

My parents fell in love with Bali in 1975. Being here gave them confidence that they could have kids while living creative lives. I grew up in the rice fields outside Ubud, and later in Begawan and Sayan. After spending the first 14 years of my life in Bali, the next 14 were in the US: boarding school, University, then working in NYC in fashion. Finally in 2010 I decided to come home. My dad John Hardy and stepmum Cynthia had recently founded the Green School. This coincided with my need to be designing in a sustainable way, which wasn’t happening in fashion. I took on leading the bamboo architecture and construction teams, and over the past 13 years, we’ve built over 200 structures — homes, hospitality projects, an entire campus and wellness centre designs. Now I focus on the IBUKU design studio, and much of our work is overseas combining other local materials with bamboo.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

I’ve become a voice for how nature can come through us to make the future wonderful. IBUKU structures capture people’s hearts; they experience possibility and delight, and something opens up for them about how the world can be. The spaces themselves are designed to inspire brilliant thoughts. Design must be focused on people; we are motivated by ourselves, but design often gets caught up in aesthetics and style above goodness. We’ve been able to shift the world’s thinking about bamboo. In just a decade we’ve revealed the potential of an ancient forgotten material. If we’ve been able, essentially, to create castles out of grass, then what else is possible?

What impact have you made in Bali?

Much of what I have to give I learned from growing up here, and I’ve always wondered how I could be worthy of the childhood I had here, and what I could do to return the love. I’m proud that IBUKU has been central to a green shift in Bali’s identity. The first curving, multi-story bamboo building in the world is our studio. When my dad John Hardy built it as a sample for Green School 17 years ago, bamboo was not believed to be worth building with, or even safe. Curving bamboo roofs are now synonymous with ‘Bali Style,’ with hundreds of structures inspired by our designs and utilising craftsmen whom we trained and methods that we innovated. Bali has been known internationally for a century as an artistic hub, a place that is beautiful and creates beauty, and I’m proud to be part of that lineage and that future. The thing is, beauty only matters when it forever supports Earth as our home.

What does the future look like for you?

Designing and mothering, mothering and designing. Finding the balance.

We have spent at least several hundred years, if not several thousands, building to protect ourselves, and as a default began to shut ourselves off. I’ve noticed the texture is missing. The texture of a floor, it can ground us, it can give us a closeness, remind us that we are part of the world. Can reconnecting with that change the footprint we leave on the world? There is an element of mystery to the future, and being in new spaces makes something new possible in ourselves. A place can change us, can help us become who we need to become, who we want to become. All of this comes back to remembering that we are nature, and it is in our hands to create our future, to create our own future memories, experiences, our future selves. I keep working towards designing the way I wish the future to be.

Our upcoming projects are more often international, and we are excited to collaborate with teams in Central America, Europe, and across Asia to realise them. Often we are approached to create the concept for a resort, home or feature structure, and given the freedom to study and propose the ideal local materials to use. We collaborate with local architects to consider the palette and coordinate with the realities of each local building code and engineering needs. Often, but not always, we incorporate bamboo; it all depends on the possibilities and practicalities of each location, the available techniques or skill of the craftsmen. Even in cold climates, bamboo can play a role in harmony with other materials that insulate, and bamboo projects can absolutely be realised in places where there isn’t a local industry or skill. We often plan hand-crafted elements into the interiors, perhaps sending those from Bali.

We have learned so much from Bali, from bamboo and from nature, so now we’re opening the aperture to interpret many materials, in many places.

What do you love most about Bali?

Magnetism, balance and grace. Alchemy is possible here, creativity and creation. I came back here because of that. My parents showed me that here you can have an idea, and then just make it. By connecting with existing skill, cultivating, and complementing it with innovation, it’s possible to realise a whole new world.

What do you do whenever you're struggling for inspiration?

I’m never creating alone, so I’m never struggling alone. We bring ourselves inside what we know a place needs to be as we create it – what the land is like, the cultural context, what people will need to do there, how we want them to feel there… things then fall into place. It can feel like uncovering, discovering, more so than inventing or creating.

I also walk along a riverside, sit under a waterfall, look at a spider web, the wind around the bend in a trail, or down at the half moon of my fingernail to find inspiration.

Who is your Local Legend and why?

My sister Carina, founder of Elppin, is adorning and empowering women from her studio in Nyuh Kuning next to Mother Restaurant and across the field from Bumi Sehat, where she first amazed me by apprenticing as a midwife’s translator at age 16. A decade later, she’s creating a community through jewellery and breast-casting, reimagining how we can celebrate our bodies.