Immerse Yourself In Art, Nature, And Innovation At Bali’s Nuanu Creative City Resort

What Is Nuanu Creative City?

Welcome to Bali’s sprawling 44-hectare immersive “city” on the Tabanan coastline. Here, technology, art and nature converge in zones of day-to-night experience, somewhere between a resort, an entertainment park and a tech project of the future. Move from forest-side spa to pumping DJ lightshows, quiet curated gardens to AI-infused artworks, elegant degustation to street food in a longhouse—Nuanu’s a constant work in progress (the Balinese origin of its name). In construction near the hotel, I see the enormous bones of what I’m told will become a piazza-like community meeting-place.

Nothing is ordinary here. 

Image credit: Nuanu Creative City, Bali

What’s The Creative Part?

Wandering through Aurora Media Park, an outdoor night-gallery of hybrid digital works from global artists illuminating a 1km strip of forest, someone tells me that art should disrupt the mind.

You enter Aurora via the monolith gateway, or a path downhill from the Magic Garden’s cluster of native plantings, butterflies and an array of over 500 orchid species. Two forests coexist. By day, a peaceful riverside trail with breezes and ancient bamboo creaking. By night, an augmented reality immersion of electricity and sound named for Nuanu’s own AI.

Nuanu’s landscape is interwoven with art, from the THK Tower, a rattan-and-wood viewing promontory piercing the sky (visible even from Tanah Lot temple) to their enormous Earth Sentinels, concrete watchers cast with digital 3D projections. There’s even an arts precinct: dance studio, glassblowing, Labyrinth museum (currently featuring Bali’s first international arts fair) and Indonesia’s first “immersive dome” for video projections. 

Tech and innovation are fundamentals here, with various art and architecture pieces made in collaboration with AI, lending an otherworldly quality.

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Image credit: Nuanu Creative City, Bali

Why Be Hit By Branches?

I never thought I’d describe a spa treatment as “life-changing”, but here we are. Getting wafted, wet and whacked by Eucalyptus branches was my destiny. Parenia, inspired by Slavic practices, is one of the unique treatments at Nuanu’s Lumeira Wellness. Within a thick-walled dome, you lie on a bench in near-darkness beside a hissing steam hearth. Practitioners alternate hot vapours and ice-cold water on your body. You emerge dazed into sunlight, acclimatising to oxygen, your mind as smooth and flat as a still sea. 

At Lumeira, senses shift, intoxicated by heady scents and feelings that focus mind into body. Muscles constrict in freezing plunge pools, then loosen in a flower-strewn bath, private massage or woodfired sauna with floor-to-ceiling forest views. Leave cares (and shoes) at the door.

Image credit: Nuanu Creative City, Bali

Why Does The Nightclub Have A Waterslide?

How else would you reach Utopia’s swim-up pool bar for an ocean-view margarita? (Answer: the stairway, but that’s less fun). 

Luna Beach Club is a choose-your-own-adventure playground of seaside pleasure.

Daybeds dot the sloping amphitheatre before a DJ stage, all overlooked by a monumental installation embodying earth mother-goddess symbolism. At night, she’s aflame with light shows shooting into the darkness, scattering across the waves. 

With Chef James Ephraim’s Michelin-starred background, Luna caters to every taste imaginable. Fishbowl cocktails and caviar delivered daybed-side? Absolutely. Smokehouse BBQ? Beer Garden for you. Dessert bar, post-cigar? My friend, you’re in luck. 

In Restaurant 369, an immense canopy-like space of spiralling latticed wood with a huge wish-crystal at its heart, the flame-grill kitchen contains multitudes: Napoli-style pizza for families in swimwear metres from the 18-course degustation room, while outside couples watch sunsets with duck and foie gras.

A moment for the cocktails: far better than a beach club has any right to be. Tropical sweetness perfectly balanced, classics executed with finesse. Bravo!

Image credit: Nuanu Creative City, Bali

What’s With The Luxury Disco Balls?

Oshom, Nuanu’s boutique hotel, offers the luxury of time and space in a pristine oasis. There are other accommodations at Nuanu, but Oshom has the beachside pampering drawcard.

My sea-view suite has soft couches to nap to the sound of waves, a desk with coloured pencils and iPad, a high-backed bathtub and a personal dressing-room disco ball. So large, one could cartwheel comfortably from minibar to meditation mat. Each night, a bedtime story arrives on my pillow. Guests can also opt for tucked-away mangrove treehouses.

At Oshom, you shall relax utterly. There isn’t a gym, per se, but a Wellness Studio for classes (or DIY Pilates) and Nyanyi Beach below. Slip straight from smoothie bowl to saltwater pool, then a massage in a seaside open-air pod. Everything’s so neat and white it’s even refreshing to look at. 

While guests can wander to Luna nearby, you may find intriguing soirees happening right here, when you visit. Then it’s lights, DJ and disco balls at Oshom’s poolside restaurant, perhaps even an art lecture or aquatic mermaid performance. 

Image credit: Nuanu Creative City, Bali

Why Alpacas And Wolves?

Reject ordinary expectations. Pacha Alpaca offers a guided “Alpaca Connection service” (hugs included), and true alpaca fans can opt for private candlelit dinners. More of a (wolf)dog person? Alpha Wolf Lodge lets you sleep and dine beside their friendly pack. 

It’s all Nuanu’s never-ending quest for unique, captivating disruptions to the everyday. 

Day-trip outside Nuanu, and you’re in postcard Bali. Come back, the world shifts. Nuanu Creative City begs curiosity.

Whatever you’re expecting, you’ll be surprised. Book your visit here.

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