Writing about clicks all the time, it makes a nice change to write about bricks or, in this case, bamboo.
Just caught up with Andrew Dixon, the former banker-turned-hotelier of Nikoi Island fame, who’s right in the throes of building his latest resort, Cempedak, on an Indonesian island he bought more than a decade ago.
Andrew Dixon on location in Cempedak
Cempedak will be an all-bamboo affair, with 20 villas, and strictly for grown ups, no kids allowed. It’s in the same vicinity as Nikoi in the Riau archipelago – you get there by ferry from Singapore to Bintan, then an hour’s drive to a pier, followed by a 30-minute boat ride to Cempedak.
Working with bamboo has turned Dixon into a bamboo lover, and I mean that strictly in the emotional and intellectual sense. It’s also brought out his love for carpentry – it was the only subject in which he won a prize in school actually.
And it’s why he is rather inspired by Steve Jobs not for the usual reasons we might assume but because “his father was a carpenter and there’s a part in the book that talks about what Steve learnt from his father – that when his father made something, it looked as good from the back as from the front.
“And Jobs applied that principle, that attention to detail, to the products he made.”
A total of about 50,000 pieces of bamboo will be used
Dixon is applying that same attention to detail in the building of Cempedak which, when it is finished hopefully by end 2016, will use almost 50,000 pieces of bamboo, some of them 20cm in diameter.
“Everything will be made of bamboo – from the floors down to the handcrafted bamboo dowel,” said Dixon. There are even bamboo bicycles – except for the wheels of course – and he’s challenged his team to make standing fans out of bamboo.
“Our designer came up with a stunning looking fan, unfortunately it doesn’t work that well yet, we have to sort out the aerodynamics,” said Dixon with a grin.
“Bamboo is amazing,” he adds with the fervour of a new convert. “You can do anything with it. It’s got a lovely texture, softer than wood, and it’s environmentally friendly.
“It’s actually a grass, not a tree, so when you cut bamboo, you’re not killing it and it regrows in three to four years.”
Attention to detail in the building work
Construction started a year ago and currently, there are 60 crew living on the island. So far, 20,000 pieces of bamboo have been shipped out to Cempedak from Java and Sumatra.
There was a month of suspense when a cargo of bamboo was supposed to leave Surabaya round about the same time as the ill-fated AirAsia Indonesia crash. “It was supposed to take a week but when we didn’t hear from it for a month, we wondered what had happened to it – was it bad weather or what?
“The navy finally found the captain in the mangroves – anyway, to cut a long and unprintable story short, the bamboo finally arrived.”
If the bamboo hadn’t arrived, it would have cost a year’s delay to the project because “bamboo can only be cut once a year in the dry season”.
Bamboo also has to stay dry at all times and so the architecture and design of Cempedak has to take into consideration wind and weather patterns on the island to make sure the structures stay as dry as possible during rainy weather.
They also had to treat the bamboo against post-powder bug, the only creature that loves to infest bamboo. Hiring an experienced team of architects and builders with knowledge of working with bamboo was critical.
Beyond the uniqueness of bamboo, Cempedak will also boast the only dodo bird in South-east Asia. Somehow, Dixon’s gotten his hands on a dodo exhibit and the link to the island is that the native bird of Cempedak is the Nicobar pigeon “which is the nearest living relative to the dodo”.
Meet the dodo that will find a new home in Cempedak
He’s also discovered the highly endangered pangolin as well as silver leaf monkeys on the island.
The endangered and incredibly shy pangolin
As with Nikoi, Cempedak will be sold mostly through direct channels. “Technology has really allowed small, independent hoteliers to control and sell our own inventory.” It will have a similar price point as Nikoi – two nights for around S$800. It will also be tied to a social purpose and will support the Island Foundation and there are plans to build a learning centre near the island.
This time round, Dixon looks far more relaxed than when he did building Nikoi. Clearly the mistakes he made with building his first island resort have taught him well and like the material he’s using to build Cempedak, it’s a question of staying strong but remaining flexible with any new project, especially one that’s as remote as this island is.
Can’t wait to visit this all-bamboo island.
The bamboo villas are well hidden from view
