Design Expo 2014 Held Seminar of Design & Entrepreneur

Design Expo 2014, the annual event of School of Design (SoD) UPH, is back! This year, Design Expo 2014 was planned with a mission to present SoD to the public through a series of exciting events like seminar, competition and expo. The series of events will be held consecutively until it reaches the peak on 16-21 June 2014. One of the events that was recently helds was the Design & Entrepreneur Seminar on Saturday (21/05).

Paulus S. Whanarahardja, the Head of Department of Interior Design UPH, said that the purpose of this event is to open students insight about the work in the field of design and its business prospects. “We hope they will have more advanced views on the world of design. Thus SoD UPH is attempting to produce a graduate who not only be a follower but a conceiver and even an owner,” he added.

In order to accomplish their mission, Design Expo 2014 have choosen the alumni from SoD UPH as their speaker, they are Suyenni (UPH Design Interior 2005), Owner of LIMA Cafe and Ivan Christianto (UPH Design Interior 2005), Product Designer of LIMA Caf?. ?From these senior alumni,we have the most truthful sources. They have a lot of experiences to share, form practical work and internship, to entering the professional world. This is the process that we want to share with the participants, so they can fully understand the design world and have a vision ahead?, said Paulus.

The two speakers from different backgrounds collaborated together and actualize their dreams. With their combined skills, they created a unique design concept of a coffee shop called LIMA Caf?. Located at Pantai indah Kapuk, LIMA Caf? was designed using scrap materials that are sustainable.

Suyenni said LIMA Caf? started from her dream of owning a small coffee shop with a design concept that suited her character, so that customers can enjoy her art work while visitting the Caf? . ?At first I target LIMA Caf? for people who are into designs, so that they can come here to get a good ambience and appreciate the art work?.

In order to actualize her dream, Suyenni started to find some colleagues that have different design backgrounds. Ultimately, Suyenni collaborated with Ivan Christianto as the product designer, for her dream coffee shop. She started the business, with a five stories store in the fifth block around the Pantai Indah Kapuk area. Inspired by those?five? numbers, Suyenni decided to name her coffee shop LIMA Caf?, simple and catchy.

Each floor of LIMA Caf? is designed with a different concept. The first floor is more focused for the coffee shop with a unique concept design from scrap materials. Some of the scrap materials are used beer botles, used Freon tubes, cable rolls and many others. There are some interesting products like the chandelier made from used beer bottles adn Freon tubes. Ivan explained his interest on sustainable designs, ?Designing with scrap materials is very appealing, of course from price point it is very cheap, but the process of making the scrap materials that are made products to something new and valuable again requires quite a big cost. The prosess of recreating it is not an easy task either, as you must remodel the structure that has been made into something new?.

The second floor of LIMA Caf? is designed for events like artspace and a small shop with some design products. Whereas the third floor is still on renovation for Suyenni?s work space and the other two floors will be further developed in the future.

Suyenni and Ivan also shares some of the experience they get from studying at UPH. There were so many knowledge that they obtained and can be used until being the professional world. ?The most important value in a design is the process, and that process is earned through the university years. The same goes with the LIMA Caf?, it went through a long process and will still be continuing to explore?, said Suyenni.

In the final session, Suyenni and Ivan stressed that in designing this LIMA Caf?, every piece that has been created is expected to make an impact on the customers. They emphasize the value of honesty in designing something. ? The idealist that is poured into LIMA Caf??s design is honesty. If you really want to create a sustainable creation, use real sustainable materials like the scrap material, not the one that?s made up like what most people use. You dont have to keep following the trend in order for people to like it, the most impotant thing is keep honest and we can educate other people though our design work?.

One of the seminar participants, Agnes, Interior Design UNTAR, admits that she have gotten a lot of new interseting informations.? LIMA Caf? has a very unique theme and I think it?s amazing that it derived from a dream so it is not constraint on the existing concept. The choice of using scrap materials really inspired me. After hearing their stories I plan in the future to be able to create something that can inspire a lot of people like the owners of LIMA Caf??, explained Agnes.