Greta Elsa

UPH's Interior Design Graduate, the First From Indonesia to Receive "Asia Young Designer of The Year" Award

‘Rumah Kopi’, a communal house concept to accommodate local culture of Buni Kasih village in West Java, created by Greta Elsa, UPH’s Interior Design cohort 2014 alumni, succeeded in winning the international award, Asia Young Designer Award (AYDA) 2019/2020 for Interior Design category. Greta’s achievement becomes both School of Design Universitas Pelita Harapan (SoD UPH) and Indonesia’s pride as she is the first from Indonesia to win Asia Young Designer of The Year at this AYDA international Summit 2020.

Greta succeeded to surpass 700 other contestants from 15 countries during this competition. Greta admits that her achievement is owing to all knowledge and character she’s learnt from SoD UPH. ”Studying at UPH does not only develop my designing skills that I already have, but also shapes my character to become a reliable designer through experiments, exploration, the bravery to fail, the bravery to try new things, and the perseverance to keep striving for betterment,” says Greta enthusiastically. Greta manages to show the extraordinary strength and character of Indonesia’s culture through the design she produced. This further proves the education excellence at UPH’s School of Design, which are strong in design discipline aspects as well as in character building to become a reliable designer. Rumah Kopi’s concept started as a noble goal of a youth group at Buni Kasih village for the welfare of their society, by utilizing the agricultural potential that grows in the area, which is coffee. The communal house concept Greta has designed is aimed to conserve local culture by using local materials as well as minimalizing it’s environmental impact. By the existence of Rumah Kopi, the sustainability cycle at Buni Kasih village is expected to not only survive, but also develop culturally, socially, environmentally, and economically. The principles to becoming a reliable designer taught at SoD UPH supports Greta to create ‘Rumah Kopi’ a creation admitted by the judges to show the extraordinary strength and character of Indonesia’s culture. Furthermore, she receives praise from the judges as a work that exceeded their expectations with the level of detail and vision and design Greta presented in her work. As a reward of her achievement, Greta is granted a scholarship woth of USD 10.000 at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.