What to Ask a Bali Architect Before You Sign

By Talisa Dwiyani — Founder & Principal, Pulau Studio · Reading time: ~6 minutes

The short version — Most people choose an architect in Bali from a portfolio and a price. Both matter, but neither tells you what the next eighteen months of working together will actually be like. The questions below do. They are the ones I would ask if I were hiring a studio here — including mine.

Why the portfolio isn’t enough

A portfolio shows you finished houses on their best day. It doesn’t show you how the studio got there: how decisions were made, how problems on site were caught, who was standing in the mud when the roof went on. Two studios with similar portfolios can be completely different to work with — and in Bali, where you may be building from another country, in another language, on land with its own rules, the how is most of what you’re buying.

So ask about the how. Any good studio will enjoy answering these. Hesitation is itself an answer.

1. “Walk me through your process, stage by stage.”

You’re listening for a real sequence, not a mood. Ours, for example, runs: site analysis (climate, context, culture), material research, design development, construction drawings, and construction oversight. The names matter less than whether the stages have boundaries — what you receive at the end of each, and what’s decided before the next begins.

The red flag is a studio that jumps to renderings. A beautiful image before anyone has studied where the sun and rain hit your land is decoration, not design.

2. “What do you need from me before you draw anything?”

The honest answer is: quite a lot. Your programme of rooms, how you actually live, the site documents, your budget range, your timeline. A studio that starts sketching before asking is designing a house, not your house.

(This is also why we offer a limited early mood board rather than a free concept. A concept produced before the questions are answered is guesswork with nice graphics — whoever produces it.)

3. “How often will you be on my site — and is that in writing?”

Supervision is where tropical builds are won or lost. Drawings do not lay bricks; site visits catch the moment the ventilation gap gets bricked up because it looked unfinished. Ask for the visit cadence, what a visit covers, whether shop and site drawings are included when the builder needs them, and — crucially — whether all of that is written into the agreement rather than implied. We work with supervision of up to 3-4 monthly, stated as such; whatever a studio offers, it should be on paper.

4. “What exactly is excluded?”

The uncomfortable question that prevents the expensive argument. Structural engineering? Permit drawings? Interior detailing? Furniture? Coordination documents for the contractor? None of these answers is wrong — but every one of them should be explicit. A proposal that lists only what’s included is half a proposal.

5. “How do revisions work?”

Every project changes along the way — that’s normal and healthy. What you want to know is whether the studio has a defined revision allowance and a clear way of handling changes beyond it, agreed before you sign. Unlimited revisions sounds generous and usually means undefined; a defined allowance means the studio has thought about how projects really go.

6. “How does this house handle heat and rain without machines?”

This is the Bali-specific question, and it sorts studios quickly. You should hear specifics: orientation, cross-ventilation, roof overhangs, where the afternoon sun lands, what happens in a downpour with the doors open. If the answer is “we’ll add AC sizing later,” the climate is being treated as an afterthought — and you will pay for that every month, forever. (I’ve written about what passive cooling actually involves if you want the detail.)

7. “Who are you, professionally?”

Not a rude question. Ask where the principal trained, what they’ve built, and whether they belong to Ikatan Arsitek Indonesia (IAI), the Indonesian architects’ association. Ask who, by name, will work on your project day to day — the person in the meeting is not always the person on your drawings.

8. “Can I speak to a past client?”

The simplest test on this list. A studio proud of its process has clients happy to take the call.

What I’d take away

None of these questions requires technical knowledge — they’re about whether a studio’s answers are specific. Specific process, specific deliverables, specific site cadence, specific exclusions, in writing. Vague answers now become expensive surprises later; specific ones become a calm build.

And if you’d like to hear how we answer them: start a conversation. We’ll tell you exactly the same things in person.

Quick FAQ

Do I need an architect at all for a Bali villa? For anything beyond the simplest structure, yes — and beyond the design itself, permit processes require proper drawings. More importantly, the climate punishes buildings designed casually.

How early should I involve one? Before you finalise the land, ideally. An hour of professional eyes on a site can change what you pay for it — or whether you buy it at all.

What if I already have a design from overseas? Bring it. But expect it to change: designs made for other climates routinely fail here in ways that only show up in the first rainy season.

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