Buildings that know where they stand
In many projects the design decisions come from the images in circulation: a house from a four-season climate, a facade from a country with half our humidity, wide windows from a city whose late sun does not bite. A building like that can stand here, but it only becomes habitable once the air conditioning is switched on.
Atelier Nara works from the opposite direction. We start from what the client cannot choose: the path of the sun, the prevailing wind, the shape of the plot, the width of the road, the setback lines, and the neighbours who were already there. Most of the answer is in the site before we draw anything at all.
01
Climate first, style afterwards
The first decision in each of our projects is not the shape of the facade but the orientation of the mass, the depth of the eaves, and the path of cross ventilation.
The rules we work to, and which can be checked against the drawings of every project:
- Eaves no shallower than 90 cm on the west and east sides. On many of our projects we draw them at 120 cm.
- Every bedroom must have two openings on different sides so that air passes through rather than merely entering.
- The west side gets a buffer layer service rooms, louvres, perforated brick, or an air cavity. Not a solid wall directly against a habitable room.
- Shared rooms are designed to be usable without air conditioning during the day. Air conditioning may be installed, but not as a condition for the room to work.
This is not an anti-technology stance. It is a matter of order: a building with the right orientation needs smaller machines, and smaller bills, for as long as it stands.
02
Materials local builders can work with
We do not draw details that only a certified applicator from out of town can execute.
Exposed brick, exposed concrete with plywood formwork, skim-coat plaster, local timber, standard steel sections, and roof tiles sold at the nearest builders merchant. Not because those materials are cheaper — sometimes they are not — but because the result can be repaired, copied, and maintained by the people who live around the building.
The consequence reaches into how we draw. Our details are made to hand-work tolerances, not factory tolerances. Junctions are planned on the assumption that there will be a few millimetres of variance, and the lines where materials meet are placed where that variance will not be seen.
03
An Indonesian house has rooms no foreign style book contains
Plans taken from foreign magazines almost always lose the rooms that are used most here:
- A veranda that is actually sat on not a one-metre-wide transition.
- A separate wet kitchen because the food actually cooked in this house produces smoke and smell.
- A planned drying area rather than one hidden away and ending up on the front balcony.
- A room for a household helper where there is one, with proper access and a proper bathroom.
- A room ready for ageing parents who may one day move in, on the ground floor and close to a bathroom.
We ask about all of it in the first meeting and draw it from the first plan. Slipping it in later always produces leftover space.
04
Demolition is not the first option
A building that already stands has already paid for its material, its energy, and its time. Tearing it down throws all of that away at once.
Every renovation we take on begins with the question of how much can be kept, not how much can be removed. Sound structure is reinforced, joinery is repaired, roofs are inspected member by member. What is added is made honestly new, so that the old building does not lose its age.
What we do not do
A studio that accepts everything is hard to believe has chosen anything.
- Drawings purely for permit purposes, with no design process.
- We do not offer a paperwork drafting service.
- Redrawing another studio’s design.
- If you already have a design from another architect, please settle it with them first.
- Applying a particular style on request
- without a reason that can be argued from the site. If you want a particular look, we will ask what you like about it, then find a way to reach that which works in this climate.
- Projects whose budget has never been discussed.
- Design without a cost limit only produces beautiful drawings that cannot be built.
We do not believe there is one architectural language that suits everywhere. What we do believe is that every site already gives half the answer, and our job is not to ignore that half.
Tell us about your site
Send us the location, the plot area, and the rooms you need. We reply within two working days with an initial assessment — including if we think another practice would serve your project better.
We take on a maximum of six new design projects a year. Replies during working hours, Monday to Friday.