THINKING · 2026 · 1 min
On Using Reference, Not Imitation
Why Cap Karoso, The Slow and Aman are on our mood board — and why KAPAL won’t look like any of them.
Every architecture brief we’ve written for KAPAL includes a set of reference projects — Cap Karoso, The Slow, Desa Potato Head, Palm Heights, Aman. None of them were chosen for how they look.
Each one solved a specific problem KAPAL also has to solve: village-scale masterplanning that creates discovery instead of a single arrival moment, a restaurant that functions as a social anchor rather than a hotel amenity, a wellness facility built without spiritual cliché. The lesson is the principle, not the surface.
Each one solved a specific problem KAPAL also has to solve: village-scale masterplanning that creates discovery instead of a single arrival moment, a restaurant that functions as a social anchor rather than a hotel amenity, a wellness facility built without spiritual cliché.
The risk with reference images is that the wrong lesson gets copied — dark stone instead of the spatial sequence it was solving for; a thatched roof instead of the climate logic underneath it. Before any design move gets approved, the question we ask is simple: what principle from these references justifies this? If the honest answer is ‘it looks like somewhere else we’ve seen,’ we start again.
KAPAL belongs to Amed. It should look like nothing that’s been built before — and feel like exactly what this place has always needed.