Sora, a compact two-bedroom villa in Bali by Colvin Haven

Sora starts from a simple question: what if a home were designed only around eating well and resting properly? It is the work of Bali-based creative Andrew Swallow and his studio, Colvin Haven, who earlier built Umah Tsuki, a four-bedroom house on a slope for Swallow's own family. Swallow says people wanted that feeling again, only more intimate and easier to reach, so the brief became one of subtraction.

The result is a two-bedroom house with no corridors. It is arranged instead around two hearths of equal weight. One is the kitchen, where the household gathers each day. The other is a wellness area with private cold tubs, steam rooms and outdoor garden showers. The materials are local or reclaimed: hand-charred shou sugi ban, paras stone and recycled ulin hardwood used structurally.

Swallow's favourite moment is the walk through the house. It runs along an open-air corridor past zen gardens and a koi pond, through the kitchen, then out to rice terraces with volcanoes beyond. His view is that a home should be judged by how it restores people, not by its square metres.

This is a private home and the studio's first built for a client, though Swallow says two more are under construction. Worth reading for anyone drawn to small houses done with care.

Our summary of a story from Wallpaper*, published 16 October 2026. Read the original

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