Jungle Drop

Carved into the hillside or hugged by dense greenery, this pool looks like a secret spring discovered in the forest.

The idea

Jungle Drop takes a slope and treats it as an asset rather than a problem. The pool sits into the cut, with a stone face rising on the uphill side and planting pressing in close on three. The intent is that you don’t see the pool at all until you’re nearly in it — you come down a path, the greenery opens, and there’s water.

Finishes stay dark and mineral: river stone, textured render, timber where it meets the deck. Nothing reflective, nothing pale.

How the filtration sits

Slopes are genuinely useful here. A regeneration zone placed on the upper terrace can feed the swimming zone by gravity, with the return pumped back up — which means the planted area doubles as a visible water feature on the way down. On steeper sites this can be stepped into two or three shallow basins.

Where it works

Hillside blocks in Ubud, Sidemen, Munduk and the ridge country — anywhere with a fall across the site and existing mature planting to work with. It suits properties where the view is into the landscape rather than out over it.

Worth knowing

Slope brings real cost: retaining, drainage and machine access are all harder, and access is usually the constraint that decides the budget. It also brings leaf litter, so skimming matters more here than on an open site. Both are manageable, but they should be priced honestly at the start rather than discovered later.