The DNA: When invited to create a new hotel and cultural centre in Ubud, Bali, Indonesian architect Andra Matin soon realised that his assigned plot didn’t offer direct access to the street. Set further aback, the building was to be created behind an existing gallery that was taking up the obvious place where a ‘grand entrance’ would be. Yet when asked about the project’s ‘main challenge’, this unorthodox situation didn’t quite make the cut; shifting plans that led to budgetary and timeline changes were the project’s key obstacles to overcome, says the architect. The hotel’s lack of street frontage was seen more as an exciting opportunity, an architectural puzzle, solved by creating a vertical entrance, as the visitor goes up and into a 45m-long, high bridge, on the other side of which is the main Titik Dua complex. Located in Bali’s centre, in the town of Ubud, Titik Dua comprises several functions; conceived as a creative hub and hospitality hybrid, where the arts, film, architecture, graphic design and music can find a home on the ground floor, and hotel guests can stay in rooms on the upper level, the project combines the private and the public. There’s also an amphitheatre, a multi-functional room, and a bar, as well as a restaurant right under the scheme’s pitched roof – ‘a space often unused in many Balinese buildings,’ says Matin.

Seen: archifynow, Wallpaper*

✅ free Wi-Fi • size matters: 22 rooms (27m2) (291 sq ft) • hotel opened: 2020 • architecture: andramatin ✅ free on-site parking • no pets allowed • 24-hour front desk • wheelchair accessible