Atelier Tanah

Issue 01 / 2026   Yogyakarta

Tropical-modern house with a deep overhanging roof, seen across a courtyard garden

Houses that breathe with the monsoon.

Atelier Tanah designs tropical-modern houses in Yogyakarta. Deep eaves, cross-ventilation, courtyards that hold rain and light. We build for the climate we actually live in. Request a consultation

Approach

Every project starts on the land, before any drawing. We spend a morning and an evening on site: where the breeze enters, where water wants to go in a hard December rain, which neighbour's roofline the bedroom will face. A house in Yogyakarta lives with 3,000 millimetres of rain a year and afternoons above thirty degrees. Those two numbers shape everything we do.

The result is quiet architecture: wide roofs, shaded verandas, rooms that open to a courtyard instead of a corridor. Our clients tell us the houses feel cooler than the street. They are. That is the point.

  1. Read the site

    Sun path, wind direction and water flow are mapped before the first sketch.

  2. Shape for climate

    Deep roofs, stack ventilation and shaded openings replace sealed glass and compressors.

  3. Build with nearby hands

    Javanese teak, volcanic stone and local builders. Honest budgets, no imported theatre.

Selected works

Rumah Angin: a long single-storey house with a floating roof above open living spaces
Rumah Angin Sleman, Yogyakarta / 2024 / 348 m²
Villa Kabut: a hillside villa with timber screens opening toward morning mist
Villa Kabut Kaliurang / 2023 / 512 m²
Rumah Cahaya: a narrow city house lit from a central skylight over a planted void
Rumah Cahaya Kotagede / 2025 / 187 m²

The house stays cool at two in the afternoon without a single air conditioner running.

Ratih Kusuma, owner of Rumah Angin

Studio

Portrait of Rendra Wicaksana
Rendra Wicaksana Principal architect Fifteen years of tropical housing. Teaches building physics one semester a year at UGM.
Portrait of Ayu Paramitha
Ayu Paramitha Design director Leads every schematic phase. Formerly of a landscape practice in Ubud, and it shows.
Portrait of Bagas Prasetyo
Bagas Prasetyo Project architect On site more than at the desk. Knows every teak supplier between Jogja and Jepara.

We take on six houses a year, never more. Each one gets a principal on site every week from groundbreaking to handover.