Live, work, play in Bali eco-city

Digital nomads can ditch offices for designer homes, art, wellness and a beach club in Nuanu

- Claire Turrell

Two 13.7m-tall sculptures tower over the landscape. Part fairy tale, part Mad Max, South African multidisciplinary artist Daniel Popper’s Earth Sentinels keep a watchful eye over Nuanu, a new city in Bali designed for digital nomads.

This blueprint for future living was drawn up during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Russian entrepreneur Sergey Solonin, who found himself in Bali at the start of 2020, thought about what a self-sustaining city could look like.

By March the same year, Nuanu Creative City (nuanu.com) was launched, with co-working spaces, a school and designer residences for sale.

If Nevada’s hippie Burning Man event created a realtor arm, it probably would not be too dissimilar. Nuanu - the Balinese word for “in the process” - has been designed to attract those who would rather spend their time on a tropical isle from dawn till dusk, instead of in an office cubicle.

FROM COWS TO ECO-CITY

Nuanu, which covers 44ha of land, is striking and ambitious. The former cattle-grazing land is now a mini metropolis of architectural bamboo domes, shimmering mirror-clad buildings and villas in the style of hobbit homes in The Lord Of The Rings series (2001 to 2003).

Built on the coast of Tabanan in Bali, Nuanu is a 30-minute drive from digital nomad hot spot Canggu, and close to the 16th-century temple Tanah Lot.

The Nuanu team has pledged to leave two-thirds of the landscape to nature. “We try to build around trees or relocate them,” says Nuanu chief executive Lev Kroll, a Russian who lives in Bali.

This “15-minute city” - where residents will be able to reach most places via a 15-minute walk or bicycle ride is now being used by holidaymakers.

But when Nuanu, where cars are banned, starts to open its residences in the fourth quarter of 2025, it will become a home. Digital nomads and investors from Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and Malaysia were among the first to purchase properties.