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The Indonesian island of Bali is often thought of as the quintessential tropical paradise. For Elora Hardy, it is also a place whose vernacular craft traditions and natural resources have inspired a model for a remarkably eco-friendly form of architecture.

Three years ago she founded Ibuku —a Bali-based design/build firm that uses locally sourced bamboo to construct extraordinary, almost entirely handmade villas and bespoke furniture. “Bamboo is the definition of sustainable—it doesn’t even have to be replanted,” Hardy says of the quickly maturing timber. Working with a team of Indonesian architects and craftsmen, she has now completed eight unique residences for Green Village , a resort community along the Ayung River.

The mostly open-air homes read like high-end tree houses, with dramatically sloping, usually petal-shaped roofs, elaborate joinery, and light-on-the-land foundations. (The latest and largest is six levels and 8,000 square feet.) Modern amenities are far from sacrificed: Many of the bedrooms can be air-conditioned since they are enclosed with tall glass windows and walls made from bamboo planks or tightly woven natural-fiber or paper panels.

Hardy, the daughter of jewelry designer John Hardy, is anything but an interloper in Bali, where she was born and was raised until the age of 14. She spent her 20s in New York City, working for five years creating fabric prints for Donna Karan. But her island upbringing stayed with her. “I realized I wanted to explore what I had seen as a child and do something sustainable,” says Hardy. Exactly how became clear in 2008, when her father and stepmother opened the Green School—a Balinese academy whose structures introduced her to the work of some of the artisans with whom she now collaborates.

Although environmentally conscious architecture is becoming more mainstream all the time, the firm takes it to a particularly high plane. “Most green design now is part of a conventional paradigm that tries to be ‘less bad,’” says Hardy, who intends to launch a more widely available collection of furniture next year. “We have a different mentality. If LEED measured us, we’d be off the charts.” ibukuom

Click here to see a slide show of the Ibuku–designed Green Village resort.