Bau and I are like family. Growing up in Kuching city, I always awaiting every sunday where I visits my grandparents at Bau, the outskirt gold mining little town. In my memory, Bau equals to forest, the wooden house and the smile on my grandmother face. The lifestyle in Bau is slow and calm, which leads to a concept of “Downshifting”.

The intervention to change a house into homestay is to built on intensive research on local lifestyle and vernacular architecture, from the poetics of local material to building technique, the new blocks design maintains the essence of traditional language.While conserving the old wooden & concrete structured house, another four block building was design to construct of eco friendly materials, powered by natural energy sources,roof top garden & farm and a self sustain fish pond. First approach to the entrance of stone staircase with ponds of fishes, to the left will be a cafe with workshop space, to the right will be the homestay with outdoor landscape-hammock, barbeque pit and the concrete casted pipes as jacuzzi pool.

Wake up each morning to palm fronds swaying in front of blue skies, visitors are exposed to locality and cultural relevance through interior finishes and the vernacular structure. Remember all those days your great grandparents live in the kampung, they’ll find joy in ordinary, because happiness is homemade.