Borneo Rainforest Lodge

Category: Borneo Rainforest Lodge

13 June, 2011

Borneo Rainforest Lodge: Main Lodge Photos

Photos by Calvin Ng, courtesy of Borneo Nature Tours.

One year after completing the renovation of the Main Lodge at Borneo Rainforest Lodge, here’s what it looks like. To see what it looked like during renovation check out these earlier blog posts.

BRL Renovation – Demolitions
BRL Renovation – Update

We gutted the old place and turned everything around and uplifted it. Two big themes in the design were to improve the feeling of connection to nature and to make the public areas more welcoming

The bar is now in the heart of the building so there is no excuse for the bar staff to miss the fact that you need a top up, wherever you’re sitting.

The central atrium has a feature light installation by De-Lighting of Bali

The lodge may be in the middle of the jungle but you can still look classy, even without high heels! This is barefoot luxury you know.

It’s hard work jungle trekking so why not sit on a day bed and let the nature come to you. From this spot the view’s usually better the other direction, where you can see a jungle festooned river bank and if you’re lucky; hornbills, orang-utans, gibbons and mist.

On the ground floor we’ve brought the environment into the building. The split stones in the wall come from the River in front of the lodge, as to do the floor finishes.

We’ve opened up more of the first floor perimeter to the outdoors. Louvre shutters can close down during downpours and the screen in the background is designed so you don’t see the toilet in one direction but in the other direction the bar staff can still keep an eye on the progress of your drink.

Reclaimed Timber

By Ian Hall

The row of dark brown circles on the timber in the photo above are where bolts used to hold together the structure of an industrial warehouse (below). Responsible specification of timber in building projects gives me a headache. Reclaimed timber seems to be one of the best options but it’s hardly a solution to the mass market. What’s more, it may cost more than freshly cut timber so why should architects specify it?

Most of the timber that we used in the recent renovation of the Main Lodge building at Borneo Rainforest Lodge came from this warehouse. When specifying timber architects should consider the source. The lodge may contribute to the conservation of it’s own patch of rainforest but it wouldn’t be helpful for the building to cause rainforest loss elsewhere.

The advantage of specifying reclaimed timber is primarily to reduce demand for virgin timber. Another advantage is that timber is effectively a carbon store until it is burned or composted. Finally, reclaimed timber is invariably well seasoned which means that it is more reliable to work with and has an attractive appearance. As in the accompanying photos, the appearance can also tell a story about its past life and this appeals to the sentimental amongst us.

The downside is that the vagaries of supply effectively rules reclaimed timber out of the mass construction market. Even in smaller projects the added cost may deter some clients. Virgin timber is cheap because we don’t often pay the full environmental cost of timber extraction. This might include habitat restoration after logging and measures to reduce soil loss during logging for example. Reclaimed timber by comparison can be expensive due to it’s scarcity together with the labour cost of reclamation, cleaning and sorting.

The most viable alternative for a quick solution is to specify timber certified as sustainable by an organisation such as the Forest Stewardship Council. This however comes with no guarantee that you won’t cause damage to a valuable natural resource. The best FSC can do for you is to promise that using FSC certified timber is better than doing nothing.

There are no easy answers. We should try to use reclaimed timber where possible, use alternatives such as bamboo and coconut palm where practical and if we really must use virgin timber, try to make the most informed decision about where it comes from.

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23 June, 2010

BRL 4 Chalets

By Ian Hall

The Main Lodge renovation at Borneo Rainforest Lodge was completed a couple of months ago and I’ll post some professional quality images in due course.

Meanwhile we’re just about done finishing off the remaining 4 Standard chalets and these will be back in use by the start of July.

These renovations are based on two original designs which we have adapted to into four unique new room types.

The design principles have stayed true to our original philosophy of creating cool and comfortable rooms without air conditioning

We have achieved this by following passive design principles of thermal insulation, thermal mass and natural ventilation.

Most of the timber is reclaimed from a former timber sawmill building, water is heated by the sun and light fittings use LED bulbs.

These designs differ to previous rooms in that their location near to the main lodge means that we had to get creative with the windows and balconies to provide privacy but not at the expense of natural light and the feeling of connection to the rainforest around you.

30 April, 2010

Thank You, Sarah

By Ian Hall

Sarah Greenlees is Arkitrek’s 2nd volunteer and came to Sabah in November 2009 to help oversee the renovation of the main lodge building at Borneo Rainforest Lodge. Her contribution was essential as the tight timescale and unpredictable nature of renovation work meant that an architect was required on site full time.

Although the lodge was closed for the duration of the renovation work, luckily for Sarah not all the kitchen and restaurant staff were on holiday. Sumptuous meals on the balcony with contactor and clients became the norm, interrupted only by the antics of wild gibbons, red leaf monkeys and orangutans.

Sarah’s diligence and thoroughness helped us keep up with contractor’s requests for information and on top of this she found time to produce construction drawings for four chalet types still to be renovated plus a landscaping plan for the grounds of the lodge.

The rainforest and it’s wriggly inhabitants are not everyone’s cup of tea but Sarah quickly felt at home in the network of forest trails around the lodge. In her wanderings she developed a fascination for the strangler figs that are a keystone species in the ecosystem. You can find Sarah’s beautiful sketches of fig trees in her blog post.

We tried to tempt Sarah to stay longer with sojourns on tropical coral islands but sadly you can’t travel after your passport has expired and so she had to return to Scotland!

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10 April, 2010

New Straits Times: Staying ‘coolth’ without the air-conditioner

New Straits Times, 20th March 2010
By Marc Lourdes
Original Article here

2010/03/20

KUALA LUMPUR: “Coolth” is not a word often heard.

But, in the rainforests of Sabah are chalets which use natural coolth — defined as the state of being a pleasantly low temperature — to totally do away with air-conditioning.

The Borneo Rainforest Lodge, which has 31 chalets, is cleverly designed to maximise benefits of natural breezes and minimise the effect of sunshine.

Arkitrek Sdn Bhd director, Ian Hall, who refurbished the chalets along green architecture principles, said the main trick to achieving coolth was by keeping the sun out and giving the chalets a lot of natural ventilation.

The result? An average daily temperature of about 29º C e l s i u s.

One of the reasons the low temperatures could be achieved is because the ceiling is insulated with a 10cm-thick layer of mineral wool.

Natural ventilation is allowed via holes in the floor and ceiling.

“This helps the air to flow upwa rds, ” Hall said, adding that the chalets were thus on stilts.

He added that other holes in the walls allowed cross ventilation to circ u l at e .

The bathroom, unlike the rest of the timber chalet, is built out of concrete.

There is a reason behind this, too.

“When placed in the sun, concrete absorbs and stores warmth. Similarly, when in the shade, it absorbs and stores coolth,” Hall explained, adding that the sun was not allowed to shine on concrete or anything else that stores heat.

Hall said in this case, the concrete bathroom, which is sheltered in the middle of the chalet, acts as a cooling factor for the entire unit.

“It retains coolness at night and releases it during the day,” Hall said.

In Petaling Jaya, photographer/ videographer Mark Fallander is thanking his ceiling insulation for turning his home into an oasis of coolness during this unrelenting heat wave .

“It’s been tough leaving the house these last couple of weeks.” Fallander, 53, said it cost h im RM2,600 to put up insulation three months ago.

And while he still uses air-conditioning, he doesn’t have to lower temperatures as much.

Arkitrek Sdn Bhd director Ian Hall has refurbished the Borneo Rain Forest Lodge to maximise the benefits of natural breezes.

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