Weaving Magic

Ten years ago, product designer Masulin Lim was looking to do something distinctively Indonesian. ‘I was looking for people who were part of Indonesia’s heritage who could strengthen their skills,’ he says. ‘That could involve wood or mining, but the craft that spoke to me most was weaving because it very easily crosses over into design thinking, architecture, business, master planning, government and law.’

Weaving has been a part of Indonesia’s craft tradition for centuries, but when Lim travelled overseas, he realised just how undervalued it was. ‘I saw how pieces done for some of the biggest brands in the world were actually from Indonesia, and how pieces that were sold for sixty thousand US dollars were made here for one thousand.’ He began asking himself why Indonesia hadn’t invested more in developing its weaving techniques. ‘When we talked about weaving, it was only about fulfilling an order, rather than improving techniques based on future needs. That’s how we started.’

Lim ended up launching BYO Living, which creates woven furniture for high-end hotels, restaurants and residential complexes. Lim’s work went even further when he took part in House Vision, a 2013 Japanese-Indonesian exhibition that looked into how residential architecture could have a broad social impact. Lim was introduced to Indonesian architects Andra Matin and Yanto Effendi, and they began exploring how weaving could be incorporated into architecture. Effendi was particularly interested in using woven materials as a screen to reduce the solar gain of his buildings. Another architect, Iklim Tanumihardja, looked to BYO Living to create a building facade based on a traditional batik Peranakan weave, giving his building an unmistakably local texture. More possibilities soon began to reveal themselves. For one project, a building for one of Indonesia’s telecom companies, BYO Living created a woven facade from discarded plastic, revealing a new use for the waste material that plagues Indonesia’s waterways. In another project for auto giant Toyota, the firm created a 4,000-square-metre breathable ceiling made of natural rattan. ‘It was quite a challenging project,’ says Lim. ‘We didn’t know for sure whether the material was insect-proof or moisture-proof, so we had to do research and develop a new weaving technique.’

But that opened up even more new doors. BYO Living’s latest work can be seen at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, where Andra Matin designed Elevation, an installation made from a type of rattan called rumpum that isn’t normally used for weaving. ‘We have millions of hectares of this in Indonesia, but people don’t know how to use it in weaving,’ says Lim. Although projects like this are hand-crafted by up to 200 master weavers in various rural communities, they’re also backed by parametric design programmes and a research arm that makes use of material innovations like aluminium fibre, recyclable HDPE fibre and steel slings.

‘The grand scenario is to be sustainable from the starting point to the end,’ says Lim. ‘We use the hand of the master weaver while still conveying the idealism of architecture, and the whole project is meant to serve the needs of society.’ That message seems to be getting across: Elevation won a Special Mention award in Venice. ‘Architecture can be very robotic, very computerised, but here in Indonesia we can do something very indigenous, very authentic, and that projects a kind of heritage,’ says Lim.