Grounded in esoteric principles that strive for harmony with the natural environment, Japanese and Balinese architecture share many traits. They both emphasise communal areas and the use of negative space, with minimalist interiors that promote functionality and mindfulness. Buildings are fashioned entirely from brick or teak, accentuated with bamboo, natural stones, paper or textiles. Gardens also play a seminal role: carefully curated with water features, rock formations, meandering pathways and shrines that fuse the relationship between landscape and architecture.

A small but savvy clique of developers in Bali are now marrying the two related schools of design to create hotels and villas that are novel and unique. Here are three worth writing home about.

Seiryu Boutique Villas

At street level, Seiryu Villas in the beachside district of Seminyak resembles a mid-century luxury home punctuated by two frangipani trees, one of which, by sheer coincidence, resembles a giant bonsai. A floor-to-ceiling wooden pivot door takes guests down a long brutalist concrete corridor and face-to-face with a replica jade statue of the Buddha.

From there, a sliding door inspired by “shoji” screens — Japanese dividers made of wood and translucent paper — leads to a Japanese rock garden peppered with petrified wood art. Polyptych paintings of Japanese dragons and cherry blossoms cover the walls, while lashings of teak run along the floor. The rock garden is sidelined by a public lounge with futon-like sofas where guests can sip tea while contemplating zen.

Seiryu has eight private residences: self-contained Japanese-style homes with high trapezium-shaped ceilings to promote airflow. Inside are four-poster beds, kitchenettes and living rooms with low-lying blonde-wood furniture. The gardens sport decks with futon-style sunbeds and traditional Balinese gazebos overlooking plunge pools.

seiryuvillas.com

Hoshinoya Bali

Japanese architect Rie Azuma had already enjoyed a long and distinguished career when she was commissioned to design the first overseas hotel of Hoshino Resorts, a Japanese firm that has owned and managed “ryokan” inns in Japan since 1914.

Her task, to create a full-service resort that was distinctively Japanese while at the same time incorporating Balinese culture and charm, had never been done before. With no documentation to steer her research, she spent months on the ground in Bali observing Hindu temples and traditional homes. She also studied metal, stone, wood, and batik, a textile art, at workshops throughout Indonesia.

Completed in 2017, Hoshinoya Bali is a master class in cross-cultural beauty and design set on the outskirts of the island’s spiritual capital Ubud.

The restaurant, which projects over a 170m deep jungle gorge, makes guests feel like they’re floating over the canopy and serves a mash-up of Balinese-Japanese cuisine. There are only 30 rooms, small two-storied villas that blend open-sided Balinese living with Japanese spatial design. Floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding doors offer jungle vistas in nearly every direction, while futon-like beds, Balinese wood carvings and soft batik surfaces add veneers of understated luxury. And every villa has swim-up access to a communal swimming pool that connects nearly every part of the resort — a nod to the “subak” irrigation canals that nourish the famous emerald-green rice field of Bali.

hoshinoresorts.com

Villa Aishiteru

An hour’s drive from Ubud in the rapidly gentrifying greenbelt district of Tumbuk Bayu, Villa Aishiteru is the only free-standing Japanese villa in Bali and reminiscent of Mr Miyagi’s cottage in the The Karate Kid.

A zen-like garden with peaceful little nooks and crannies has been meticulously integrated into the overall architecture of the compound. It is centered by a Balinese gazebo with hand-carved awnings, Japanese lanterns and screens and a little red footbridge that crosses a fishpond.

The attention to detail inside the villa is palpable. From a replica Samurai sword slung on a wall, to wooden Japanese bath buckets and hanging prints, to sake sets and a rendered ceiling that facsimiles shoji screens, every frame of vision is an Instagram post about to go viral.

The bathrooms feature bamboo, wood and stone, while the bedrooms, of which are two, have king-size beds elevated on wooden platforms. In place of the “Japansy” furniture used at Seiryu Villas, there’s an authentic low Japanese dining table with oversized floor cushions. And the biggest surprise: the pool is not in the garden as in every other villa in Bali. It has been squirreled into a courtyard adjacent to the combined kitchen/living dining room and wallpapered in river stones to create a replica of Japanese-style “onsen” baths.

Villa Aishiteru is the brainchild of an Indonesian family who describe themselves as Japanophiles. “My parents love Japanese culture and architecture and have visited the country many times,” says Kevin Sutedja, who manages the property.

“This is actually the second Japanese house they built. The first is our family home in Batam, an island near Singapore, though the result was not the best because they couldn’t get the right materials and advice. But in Bali, we were fortunate to find an interior designer who loves Japanese culture as much as we do, and who threw himself into the project.”

instagram.com/villaaishiterubali