M Bloc Design Week 2024 (MBDW2024), as part of the annual event M Bloc Fest, carried the theme ‘Daur Rupa’ or loosely translated as ‘Sustainable Design’. A string of events took place from 27 September until 6 October 2024 at a few locations – M Bloc Space, Pos Bloc Jakarta, Pos Bloc Medan, Pos Bloc Surabaya, Fabriek Bloc (Padang), JNM Bloc (Yogyakarta), Lokananta (Surakarta), and Uma Seminyak (Bali) - with M Bloc Space in Jakarta as the centre location.
MBDW2024 featured 5 design fields: architecture, product design, fashion, graphic design, and interior design. More than 20 participants and collaborators presented their works in the forms of exhibition, workshops, talk show, urban sketching, and city walking tour. It offered a collaborative platform where designers, architects and others in the creative industry could share and exchange ideas as well as discuss the future design that is hopefully more environmentally friendly.
The events were attended by not only designers and architects, but also general public who were interested to learn more about sustainable design in a casual manner.
One of the highlights was the Design Conference, featuring four architects who are known to apply environmentally friendly principles in their designs. In a nutshell:
- Antonius Richard (RAD+ar) presented some of their projects in which he believed that sustainability is not only about preserving the environment but also the continuity of the business aspect
- Realrich Sjarief (RAW Architecture) shared some of his projects, including Omah Library, where he prioritised using upcycling material
- Anton Siura (SIURA Studio) shared his experiences in revitalizing public green spaces as well as his unbuilt visions of creating more usable green spaces
- Sibarani Sofian (Urban+) presented the IKN forest city urban planning. It’s designed ideally with a note that this is the country’s first experience of planning and building a city from scratch.