PSP’s latest project is a short documentary about Bali’s waste problems and grassroots solutions titled ‘Greening the Island of the Gods’. The first screening will be held in Bali on Sunday, January 13, 2013 at Suly Resort in Mas, Ubud. The film screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the director Rebecca Sweetman.

Greening the Island of the Gods Film Screening
Date/time: Sunday, January 13, 2013 starts at 7pm
Location: Suly Resort, Jalan Raya Desa Mas, Ubud (directions to Suly Resort)
Notes: Free entry. RSVP on the Facebook event page.

Gembull Navicula meets an orangutan

Bali based band, Navicula has launched the start of their Borneo Tour (Kalimantan) as part of their orangutan conservation campaign by holding an acoustic concert in Medan, on 24 July 2012. The event titled “Road to Borneo Tour” is aimed to raise awareness about the issues surrounding deforestation, a threat to the endangered species in Sumatera, especially in the area of Tripa peatland in Aceh.

“The concert in Medan is a warm up before we tour Kalimantan this September. During preparations for our upcoming Borneo Tour, we have heard about many pressing issues affecting Sumatera, such as the conversion of the Tripa peatland forest, which is an orangutan habitat. With the support of organizations that are concerned about these environmental issues, we are able to arrive in Sumatera, and chose Medan as the city for the main event,” said Gede Robi Supriyanto, vocalist of Navicula writing from Bukit Lawang, North Sumatera, Friday (20/7).

Robi has travelled to Bukit Lawang to trek through the Gunung Leuser National Park. His trip through the rainforest is a chance for Robi to gain more experience and understanding, to better campaign for environmental issues through music. Navicula’s Road to Borneo Tour in Medan is supported by Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari (YEL), Sumateran Orangutan Conservation Programe (SOCP), PanEco, Sawit Watch, and Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (Walhi) Sumut.

The concert will be held at Rama Gardenia Cafe on July 24, and Navicula, a band active since 1996, will perform an acoustic set. The event will also include an environmental discussion focused on saving the Tripa peatland, as well as a Sumatran orangutan and tiger photo exhibition by Mata Kamera Community of Medan.

Navicula, who has consistently been advocating for environmental issues will leave for a Borneo Tour in East and Central Kalimantan this coming September. The tour is themed around the critically endangered orangutan, facing extinction as a result of deforestation and the massive expansion of palm oil plantations.

Navicula’s Borneo Tour is paid for through crowdfunding projects on Kickstarter.com and Patungan.net. On kickstarter.com, Navicula launched a project with a funding goal of US$3,000, while on Patungan.net the funding goal was Rp.5 million. Both projects have exceeded their funding goal, and the project on Kickstarter.com is still running until 29 July 2012. As compensation for supporting their project, Navicula has offered digital download of their songs, t-shirts, CDs, traditional handicrafts, private gigs, and even a ticket to join the tour in Kalimantan.

“We’re really happy our Borneo Tour crowdfunding project has succeeded in gaining the interest of people who support our mission to use music as a media for environmental campaigns. This is also an example of how independent bands can hold a tour without funding from sponsors or promoters,” added Robi.

In December 2011, Navicula released the song Orangutan as a free download under a creative commons license. Vocalist of Navicula, Gede Robi Supriyanto, wrote the song Orangutan in April 2011. The track will be included on Navicula’s 7^th album, which is still in progress. The album will also include tracks such as Harimau! Harimau! (a tale of the last Sumatran Tiger) which is dedicated for the conservation of the Sumatran Tiger, of which only 400 exist in the wild due to habitat loss.

Navicula has been performing the song Orangutan live from stage to stage, and even on a popular music program on national TV. Since this exposure, many Navicula fans have requested that the band travel to perform the song live in their cities, including requests from fans in Kalimantan. “As a band from Bali, which is far from the center of the music industry, we are proud to be able to tour Kalimantan, one of the last remaining rainforests and habitat to the critically endangered orangutan, and perform the song Orangutan live there,” says Robi.

An International Campaign

The song Orangutan has made Navicula the winners of the International band competition Planetrox. Navicula will be travelling to Quebec, Canada to perform at the Envol et Macadam Festival on the 7-8 of September. “This is one way we can raise awareness about the plight of the orangutan on an International level. Environmental problems, whether in Kalimantan, Sumatera or Antarctica are the responsibility of everyone inhabiting this planet,” says Robi.

To participate in the Planetrox Competition, Navicula submitted the music video Orangutan, which was chosen as one of the semi-finalists. The 10 semi-finalists then competed in an online voting stage, from which 5 finalists competed in a live competition held in Bandung on 7 July. The jury chose Navicula as the winners to represent Indonesia in Canada.

Besides performing in Canada, Navicula is also in the running to record in Hollywood, USA. Out of 500 videos from 43 countries, Navicula has been chosen as one of the top 10 finalists for the RØDE Rock competition. If they win the online voting stage of the competition by 31 July 2012, Navicula will be flying to Hollywood, California to record three songs at the legendary Record Plant Studios. Navicula is currently in the lead for the online voting stage.

The Bali provincial government vowed in 2010 that Bali would be free of plastic waste by 2013, yet plastic waste is piling up at the rate of 1600 tons per day, an increase of more than 200% from last year’s plastic statistics. Villages are polluted and water-ways are choked with plastic. Instead of moving forward, the situation has gone from bad to worse.

Recent media coverage is reflecting a rising tide of public opinion: the plastic waste situation in Bali is dire and dirty. On 22 April 2012, the world’s top surfer Kelly Slater slammed Bali’s dirty beaches, saying ‘the pollution was unbelievable’ and would make it ‘impossible to surf here in a few years’:

The front page of the Bali Daily also featured a photo of a giant ‘ever-expanding’ illegal dumpsite in the mangroves of Nusa Dua highlighting environmentalists’ view of the government-sponsored program as ‘ineffective.’

Of course we can’t forget Time magazines dramatic piece titled “Holiday in Hell: Bali’s Ongoing Woes”.  This negative exposure pressured the local government into investing in two large waste management machines used to clean up Kuta Beach. In addition to the environmental costs, this coverage will take its toll on Bali tourism. Yet the government is yet to respond. So what has the Bali government achieved since 2010 to make Bali plastic-free?

The Perda (Local Government Regulation) to implement the government’s 2010 vision outlined a program that would facilitate and engage communities to reduce, reuse and recycle (the 3 Rs) plastic including ‘stopping plastic at its source.’ It included plans for a task force to supervise recycling, infrastructure to collect it and technology to create fuel from plastic. In the three years to date evidence resulting from these initiatives, that focus reusing and recycling, is lagging.

So what about waste reduction? Surely ‘stopping plastic at is source ‘, rather than creating waste in the first place, would be the most effective method of tackling the waste problem. Instead the government wants to provide incentives to retailers to supply so-called degradable bags. However, promoting degradable bags will actually increase the overall amount of plastic waste as shoppers believe these bags are an environmentally-friendly option, and will not bother trying to reduce their use.

The ugly truth is that degradable bags do not fully degrade, especially in humid climates such as Indonesia. Even in environments where this type of plastic does break down successfully, bags only decompose into microfragments of plastic that remain in the environment. This is merely a cosmetic solution that has dangerous long-term consequences and costs to both human and environmental health.

Degradable bags contain high levels of heavy metals to promote degradation. These toxins are introduced into the food chain; seeping into farming land and poisoning the many animals and marine life that ingest them.

So, what can the Bali government do to make a dent in plastic waste before the 2013 deadline?  One proposed solution is to simply ban the bag. If India and China, the world’s largest emerging consumer nations, can do it then so can Bali.

Last year the idea of a bag ban gained some momentum in Bali via the Responsible Retailer Roundtable, a coalition of government, retailers and green groups. Retailers were willing to comply with the ban as long as the government enforced it. However, the idea was dead in the water when the government took no action to implement the ban.

Banning the bag is an obvious first step in addressing Bali’s garbage problem, but such a sweeping measure requires strong government commitment to enforce it along with widespread public support. At this point in time, the Balinese Government has neither.  Rather, it has an island of 3.5 million inhabitants who have become dependent on single-use plastic bags, and who expect the government to make the garbage disappear.

This state of affairs requires an integrated policy to support a progressive phase-out of single use plastic bags. Such a policy might include an initial bag tax, strictly enforced regulations and fines for illegal dumping as well as increased public education about the obvious need to clean up Bali.

Single-use plastic bags are the #1 consumer item in the world. They are used often for only minutes, but can pollute the environment for over 1000 years.

Bali Cantik Tanpa Plastik campaigns for a plastic free Bali through education and art. One of their efforts is to release the song “Tolak Tas Kresek” (refuse plastic bags) written and recorded by Navicula frontman, Gede Robi Supriyanto (Robi Navicula). The song is available for free download below, and is free for use in efforts to support a plastic free Bali. Download “Tolak Tas Kresek” here:

Name one song with an environmental message. There are a lot. Even one of Indonesia’s national music magazine’s (printed on paper from trees, of course) released one story covering 100 environmental songs in commemoration of Earth Day.

But what does the planet really need now, while facing degradation and destruction? A group of so called artists singing about nature, like the sounds of people celebrating in the desert?

Musicians who wish to touch our hearts and minds need to put in more effort than creating and producing songs, then performing them on stage. Especially in the context of fighting for our environment. Especially remembering our intense social media fever, where people feel accomplished just for being hashtag activists: then keep tweeting about an issue, but that’s all they do. While environmental degradation continues to systematically destroy our environment.

Last year saving orangutans was a popular topic. The hashtag #SaveOrangutans was used often on twitter. The trigger was the shocking news from a number of palm oil plantations in Kalimantan. They were promising a certain amount of money to workers who could kill and bring in orangutans, which are considered pests to the palm oil trees. How cruel. But the reality is that palm oil is considered more important as global resource than the continued existence of this large red ape which shares 97% of the same DNA as humans.

In December of 2011, Navicula released the song Orangutan as free online download. Other musicians, such as Shaggydog have also written songs about the critically endangered Orangutan. Robi Navicula – who has a twitter account, though rarely uses it – wrote the song Orangutan in April 2011. The song was written Navicula’s 7^th album which is in negotiations to be released in the United States. Besides the song Orangutan, this album also has songs like Harimau! Harimau! which is dedicated to the conservation of the remaining 400 Sumatran tigers, which are facing extinction due to habitat loss.

Navicula has been performing the song Orangutan live from stage to stage, and even on national TV stations. Since releasing the track, many fans have asked that Navicula come and tour in their city, especially in Kalimantan. Navicula hopes to bring this song live to Kalimantan, the last tropical rainforest on earth and habitat to the critically endangered orangutan.

Navicula may be considered ‘legendary’ and accomplished, their fan base is grassroots and dedicated, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they are financially successful. Planning an independent tour to Kalimantan may be more difficult for Navicula than recording a popular song. Seeking standard concert sponsor and promoters to fund a tour to Kalimantan may not be the right route for Navicula as they are not an ideal band for cigarette brands wanting to make bring in money through concert promotion.

Financial concerns have been the main factor preventing Navicula from touring Kalimantan. But there is still potential to fund the tour through Kickstarter.com, a platform for crowdfunding creative projects. Crowdfunding is a business phenomenon in the current economic recession which the United States is still recovering from and the bankruptcy of economies such as Greece. Massalution, a research firm dedicated to crowdfunding and crowdsourcing released their Crowdfunding Industry Report earlier this month. The firm collected data from over 170 (38 percent of the total) crowdfunding platforms.

Massalution discovered that throughout 2011, crowdfunding platforms have raised over 1.5 billion US dollars to fund around 1 million projects. These numbers are astounding. But before you start thinking about how much money your going to raise, you should know that not everyone can make a project that is interesting enough to get lots of people wanting to support it. All submitted projects also have to pass through a selection process, and be approved by the portal administrators. Navicula’s project, a Borneo Orangutan tour, has been approved by Kickstarter.com.

Navicula’s project will raise funds to tour East and Central Kalimantan through the target funding of 3000 US dollars, which needs to be raised within 45 days. As compensation for backers, Navicula is offering free song downloads, t-sirts, CDs, Kalimantan handicrafts, private home performances, and even an offer to join them on tour to Kalimantan.

Navicula is the first musician or band from Indonesia who has launched a project on Kickstarter. There have been a few projects on Kickstarter about Indonesian musicians, but the projects were actually by foreigners, not by the musicians themselves. For example a documentary film about one of Indonesia’s most influential punk collectives launched a Kickstarter project with a target goal of US$ 16,000 to be reached within 45 days, and successfully raised US$ 16,450. This project was a collaborative between 3 filmmakers hailing from America, China and Malaysia.

Kickstarter backers must have a US credit card. Of course, these makes it difficult for people in Indonesia to be involved in Kickstarter. Because of this, Navicula has launched a supporting project through Patungan.net, with a funding goal of 5 million rupiah.

And as if there is just not enough you can do for our red ape friends, Navicula has also chosen the song Orangutan to represent them in the International band competition Planetrox. The winning band will be invited to perform at Envol et Macadam in Quebec, Canada. Voting will continue until June 24^th, and 5 finalists will be selected to compete live in front of a jury in Bandung on July 8^th.

Navicula is the only one of the 10 finalists to submit a song in Indonesian. Other Indonesian bands may feel more confident submitting an English track to an International band competition, but Navicula feels their songs in their mother tongue are strong enough as is: Orangutan. It’s in the message, not the language.

Navicula invites you to join their acoustic show and launching of the Borneo Tour:
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Starts at 18.00
At Café Tjikini Jl Cikini Raya no 17 Jakarta Pusat
Performance by: Navicula, Adrian Adioetomo, Balian

Ecological Sustainability Solutions Week at Little Tree Bali
Date: April 16-22, 2012
Address: Jl. Sunset Road 112x, Kuta, Bali
Free entry!

Monday – April 16, 2012
14:00-15:00 – “Indonesia goes organic” presentation by Darsih
16:00-17:00 – “Waste management” presentation Paola (EcoBali)
17:00-18:00 – “Bali Urban Farming (BUF)” presentation by Akarumput

Tuesday – April 17, 2012
13:00-14:30 – Expert Discussion group about Energy
15:00-16:30 – Expert Discussion group about Water
17:00-18:30 – Expert Discussion group about Waste

Wednesday – April 18, 2012
13:00-14:00 – Sustainability in Architecture by Charlie Hearn
14:00-15:00 – Sustainability in Construction by Marcus Bishop
15:00-17:00 – Complementary Currency Systems, dealing with problems in times of monetary crisis
17:00-18:00 – Waste composting by Rodney

Thursday – April 19, 2012
9:00-12:00 – Towards a Sustainable Hospitality Industry
15:00-17:00 – WIKA presentations
17:00-18:00 – CLEAR (Comfortable Low Energy Architecture) presentation

Friday – April 20, 2012
9:00-12:00  – Towards a Sustainable Hospitality Industry
13:00-14:00 – Options of sewage treatment in urban development by Florence Gattin
14:00-15:00 – Big projects as agents of community development by Agus Mantik
15:00-17:00 – WIKA presentations
17:00-18:00 – Permaculture projects
18:00-19:00 – 1000 Billionaires wanted by Alan Bywaters

Saturday – April 21, 2012
10:00-18:00 – Creativity Innovation Workshop by ROLE Eco Learning Center

Sunday – April 22, 2012
9:00-12:00 – Mangrove planting for Earth Day
14:00-18:00 – Responsible Lifestyle Ideas by NAFKA

A designer’s job is to make sure that the model can be converted into a working prototype – a blue print for the manufacturer. However, it is in our nature to measure individuality. Since the 1980s designers have been injecting unique identity “chromosomes” into their products on an industry scale.

High-income earners – which are the industry target – fill the empty space of boredom in their lives by shopping. But possessing the exact same product as everyone else only creates a new kind of boredom. The era of uniform consumerism has ended. Mass products are now being challenged by truly individual designs. Yes, it’s pseudo individualism.

During the 1980s, the concern for environmental damage was no longer exclusive to environmentalists. The call to stop deforestation, environmental pollution, and the green house effect entered into popular culture. Terms such as Eco, Green, and Global Warming were often used, while at the same time the importance of the 3Rs (Reuse – Reduce – Recycle) became ever more apparent.

Recycling can sometimes be too expensive and requires a lot of energy. Which is why some people turn to upcycling, which means converting waste or unused materials into something useful, like the products developed by Freitag. In Bali, Nafka initiated a laboratory for creative designers focused on developing responsible lifestyle products. In June 2011, Nafka showed their first exhibit in Denpasar titled Wonderground. Nafka will once again be showing the creations of their designers at the Ecologically Sustainable Solutions Week on April 16–22, 2012 at Little Tree in Kuta, Bali.

To create designs out of used materials, Nafka designers focus on planning the shapes. Through the process, the used materials can offer unexpected visual surprises. It’s as if looking at a montage or photo collage by artists from the Dadaism era on products such as bags, sofas, room partitions and lamp shades, all made from reclaimed waste or used plastic wrappers. Cut up images, numbers or letters, a build up of colors.

Nafka products seem to fuse the line between art and craft in the shape of everyday accessories. Visually they are attractive. Nafka products are a refreshing surprise in the droll of everyday standard mass-produced products. Nafka products are truly one-of-a-kind.

The products may represent individual expression. But the production process is fueled by a passion for community movement and empowerment. Nafka outsources its production to local handicraft community groups. Handicraft producers, much like other traditional production workers, are marginalized in today’s modern economic distribution routes.

In modern sales systems, the middleman marketing the products can be a necessity. When the producer and consumer are too far apart and there is no access between them, the role of the marketer grows ever larger. The role of the middleman in sales is to dictate the price to maximize profits. The producer has little power to sell at a higher, or more profitable price.

This inequality in the marketing stage is only beneficial to the seller and too often exploits the producer. In Bali, these symptoms have long been visible in the industry, for example in the sales of art or crafts. Art shops in Bali have a very high profit margin, sometimes as high as 60 percent on the handicraft products they sell. By the time they are sold, these handicrafts can be expensive, but the amount the producers receive is too far below the selling price.

The partnerships Nafka builds with local handicraft producers follow fair trade standards. In this way they are supporting sustainability, not only the environmental aspects, but also the social aspects.

It takes hard work to follow the principles of fair trade while also successfully conducting business. To make sure the products are not just salable because they are “fair trade” and pulling on heart strings, but because they are of high quality.

If upcycling has it’s own attraction for consumers, could upcycle product hold special economic value? Anyone can take unused material around them and transform it into something new and useful. So, is there still a market for Nafka products? Here the idea of branding comes into play. A product will not just be valued in a utilitarian perspective or at face-value use. Urban residents want to communicate and declare their individuality in the midst of their lonely disoriented lives. Brands provide this.

Brands become a tool for interaction, a celebration of togetherness, even without having to communicate it. A brand is a message in itself.

From the outskirts of Bandung city, Akanoma is making sure architecture is not only a privilege of the wealthy.

The down-to-earth Akanoma studio is ever connected with the ideals of the architect Yu Sing. He believes everyone should have the right to grow and develop in a house that inspires and is enjoyable. Unfortunately, the majority of the Indonesian public still considers architecture services to be only for those who are wealthy. He believes that the lower and middle class citizens should still be able to work with architects when building their homes. “The role of an architect in shaping a house can influence the different sensations of each room,” says Yu Sung, a fan of the late Yusuf Bilyarta Mangunwijaya, an architect and humanist who is fondly known by the name Romo Mangun.

Yu Sing’s first ambitions to design a house started when he was asked to design a house for a colleague’s uncle. With a budget of less than 60 million rupiah (approximately US$ 6.500), Yu Sing took advantage of reclaimed materials from the old house that was being torn down.

That house, located in Caringin, Bandung, was designed to continually be developed upon so it can be constructed in stages, depending on the finances the owner has available. It is a two-story house, which is useful to conserve land and make sure there is enough green foliage and water absorption around the building. The walls were built with a concrete frame to make it earthquake resistant. Fiber cement was used for the roof, to conserve finances. The roof was also designed to harvest rainwater, which is then directed through a simple filter system so that it can be reused.

Another aspect that makes the house unique is that the left over roof shingles from the old house were used to cover the brick walls of the new house. The random color scheme on the shingles creates interesting visual shapes. “I wanted to help with this design, because even I have difficulty building a house because of limited budget. Since then, I continued helping build inexpensive houses and began writing about them,” he said.

At the end of his book, Yu Sing says that one of his dreams is to design 100 inexpensive houses. “Many people in the lower and middle class really need the support of architects, but do not have the means to access these services. I have made a commitment to help with this,” said Yu Sing.

The published writings on inexpensive housing received an amazing response. “In the first year alone, over 80 families contacted me,” he said.

His potential clients came from all over Indonesia, including as far as Papua and Kalimantan. They would contact Yu Sing via phone and email. “Of the 80 families, I was involved in constructing about 20 of their houses, but not all of them were completed. Sometimes it was because they had used the money allocated for other expenses, so building a house was delayed,” he explained.

To assist in designing these inexpensive houses, Yu Sing charges a service fee of three percent of the total project budget. This price range is applied to all clients building houses with a budget of 250 million rupiah and below. If their budget is higher, they are charged a fee of 5-7 percent, which is the national standard according to the Indonesian Architecture Association.

“Even those who have the money don’t always use an architect, let alone the lower class who are building inexpensive houses.”

The architects at Akanoma studio have another concept to help design an inexpensive house in Dago Giri, Bandung. The new inexpensive house belongs to Uway, a motorbike transport driver. The construction of the new house is projected to only require 27 million rupiah (approximately US$ 3,000). For the design of Uway’s house, Akanoma studio is not charging a service fee. “It is our commitment that for clients with a budget of less than 40 million rupiah, we will create the design for free,” he said.

However, Uway does not have enough money to build this house, and his current house is not suitable to live in anymore. Together with his friends, Yu Sing is gathering donations to help Uway build a small house; the fist floor is only 4 x 6 meters in size.

“We are compiling donations by shopping the design around social networks. So far we have already started receiving some donations. From the total goal of Rp27 million, Uway himself has around Rp10 million, so we only need to collect the remaining cost, which is Rp17 million,” said Yu Sing.

Once all the donations are compiled and the house is built, Uway will return the money through installments. The goal is that once the debt is repaid, it will be used to fund the next inexpensive house project for people in similar financial situations.

Yu Sing feels a sense of satisfaction through assisting people in building houses to match their individual characters. The design of one person’s house is not necessarily right for another person. “A house design should be strong, and suit the context. This needs to be explored so the house is inspiring and enjoyable. An extreme example is that a living space which is too crowded will have an impact on the mentality and thoughts of those living there,” he said.

To spread similar ideas, Yu Sing has formed a network of architects from outside of Bandung. This network can help to fulfill requests for inexpensive houses from people located outside of Bandung. “We now have friends in Jakarta, Depok, Balikpapan, and Semarang who we can collaborate with. Ideally we could have networks in every area, so that the architects can meet with clients, see the location and help oversee the building process,” said Yu Sing.

The network of architects is managed through Internet communication. So that when an architect is available to help design and build an inexpensive house, their work can be easily monitored. “If there is a senior architect who wants to help and for example can take on three houses per year, they can simply let us know through their online status,” he explained.

Yu Sing is optimistic that this concept will work because he believes within each person there is a passion to share. It is this passion that has become his approach in his profession. Staying grounded and having a different approach or being somewhat of an anomaly is an approach which is spreading benefits to other people.

“Love Indonesian Products, If Possible 100%”

This message is written in chalk on a wall on the outside of the kitchen. The folding windows make the kitchen feel like a traditional warung (an Indonesian food stall). The glasses, pots, cutting board, kettle, and an irus, a traditional tool for mixing food from coconut husk, are arranged hanging above.

The warung vibe is even more complete with a long bamboo bench positioned outside the kitchen. Inside, discarded drink crates of yellow and red are arranged as storage space for kitchen spices and food.

The kitchen is located next to the main entrance to Akanoma Studio. Yu Sing Lim (35 years old) along with Benyamin Narkan, Anjar Primasetra, Peter Antonius, Iwan Gunawan, Wilfrid, and Yopie Herdiansyah use a joglo building (a traditional wooden Javanese building) as their main studio space. The joglo has been raised on stilts, similar to traditional house designs in Kalimantan.

The walls of this traditional Javanese building have been modified. As opposed to the wooden walls normally used, they have installed window frames spliced together with colorful chipboard and glass nako. This material is used surrounding the entire joglo.

Inside, the space is open with no separators. Tables are arranged next to each other with computers on top of them. The architects work from this studio in a homey atmosphere. The four pillars inside the joglo multi-function as shelving for books. Old plastic containers, which were used for storing vegetables at the market, have been reclaimed and are used as shelving to store documents.

Bamboo is very visible within the studio design. The plans seem to optimize the flexibility and strength of bamboo. Besides used as floor mats, larger bamboo poles make up the columns of the building.

The use of bamboo is also visible along the walls of rooms towards the back of the studio. There is room to meet with clients, a sleeping area for staff, and guest rooms which are closed with bamboo poles of different sizes positioned both vertically and horizontally, some as small as your finger and others the width of an outstretched adult hand.

Reclaimed used materials can be seen in the bathroom. A combination of used glass bottles and exposed brick wall. Besides functioning as hanging pens, the bottles also reflect natural light into the bathroom.

Yu Sing also uses bamboo for stairs. “It’s cheap and it’s a great alternative,” he said. The right stairway towards the front of the building is enclosed with discarded car windows. The curved windows are clamped in place then tied to bamboo poles using wire. “We needed that area to use transparent materials. It turns out in this village there is a collector of used car windows, so we experimented with them. The cost was quite inexpensive,” says this architect who graduated from Institut Teknologi Bandung.

This two-story building constructed at 700 meters above sea level can be seen towering within the village. The studio itself is built over 650 square meters of land. Far from the city, it is located on Jalan Tipar Timur, Laksana Mekar Village, Padalarang, in West Bandung. The location is closer to the Purbaleunyi toll (Purwakarta-Bandung-Cileunyi) than it is to Bandung city. “This location was chosen because our financing is limited,” explains Yu Sing.

Previously, Yu Sing contracted a house as his studio space. However, the cost of the contract was not cheap. At the same time, Iwan, Akanoma’s drafter, was searching for land and was offered a plot west of Bandung city. “He was looking for land and came across a large plot. So we decided to share it between the three of us and the studio was built using the least expense possible,” says Yu Sing.

The main studio component is the joglo, which on its peak is adorned with two chicken statues from Solo. “We moved the joglo here after purchasing it months ago. We didn’t have enough money to build an office. When we bought the joglo, we didn’t yet have plans to build an office,” explained the author of the book Mimpi Rumah Murah (Dreaming of Inexpensive Housing).

Akanoma studio in a way no represents Yu Sing as an architect. He believes architecture must have roots. For Yu Sing, using a joglo, modified with bamboo, as the main building component represents the current role of architecture in Indonesia.

“I have a dream to create a sustainable city village, to slow the trend of villages being displaced and becoming victims of development. People should have a permanent village where they can live prosperously and comfortably. Our studio is in the village, so we provide a library and social space for the surrounding residents to use,” says Yu Sing, referring to the porch area and public library located underneath his studio.

Unfortunately, Yu Sing explains, the local community has not yet used this social space for their meetings. “If they need it, they are welcome to use the space. What is being used now is the public library, almost every afternoon kids come to read books here. The books in are library are mostly donated,” he said.

Yu Sing has also taken efforts to make sure the building is environmentally friendly. This long-haired architect intentionally extended the roof of the joglo, and attached a number of metal pipes at an angle in a V shape to create a buffer. These metal pipes are connected to the gutters around the roof. They function as a buffer, as well as a rainwater harvesting system by directing rain into a water absorption tank.

Besides being environmentally friendly, Akanoma also makes an effort to produce their own food by planting vegetables around the studio land. “We have planted basil, long beans, eggplant, leunca, chili, cucumber, cassava, cosmos flowers, and more. We also have a pond used to soak bamboo during the preservation stage, which has an additional function as a fishpond. We have already harvested Nila fish for food. Since our studio is quite far away from everything, we usually cook our meals here” he said.

The word Nyepi means silence. And as the name implies, it is a day of silence. For one whole day Bali’s population of 3.5 million choose to give the island a rest. For 24 hours all business stops, the roads are empty, there is no activity; even the airports close. At night, the cities are blanketed in almost total darkness because, in following ancient law, artificial light is forbidden on this sacred day. The concept of Nyepi is to enter into the new year in cleanliness, following the simple idea that if the first day is cleansed and pure then hopefully the days following will be so as well.

One of the most positive impacts of Nyepi is that nature has a chance to rest, even if only for one day, this one day has a major impact. Imagine, for 24 hours how much energy is saved because electricity use is so minimal, how much pollution can be reduced when thousands of cars and motorbikes are not choking the streets of Bali. Imagine how much smog and production waste is reduced because all businesses are closed for one day. For this one day, Bali overflows with positive energy as many residents choose to meditate, fast, and use this time for introspection.

Our planet is old and tired. After a year of being victim to human greed, in this era where ‘time is money’, our earth deserves this moment of rest.

This tradition is still practiced in Bali, passed on from generation to generation. I truly hope Nyepi will continue with future generations and that Bali continues to be proud of Nyepi, a tradition which can inspire the world in similar movements to show our love for nature.

Here is a song about Nyepi from the Bali band Kaimsasikun. Me and Ian (vocalist/guitarist of Kaimsasikun) would often spend Nyepi together. This year his band is in Jakarta recording, but they still celebrate Nyepi in their own way. Enjoy:

Peace and happy new year Caka 1934!