Nusaé at ARCH:ID 2026: When Material Becomes the Starting Point of Design

At ICE BSD City, Nusaé marks their arrival to ARCH:ID 2026 with an inquiry into the relationship of material and design: what if design determines a material’s physicality, and what if material determines a design’s direction?

The Jakarta-based graphic design studio presents an installation titled “designing MATERIAL / MATERIAL designing”  to materialise this explorative relation. To realise it into (a) space, Nusaé brought to fore collaborations with architecture studio Dhaniesal, printing material provider Paperina and art and technology institute Rimpang Digital.

“Material has its own way of communicating—through its physical presence and interaction with space. In this project, we are not only using material, but also ‘listening’ to how it can shape the direction of design,” Andi Rahmat, Founder & Principal Designer of Nusaé said.

The project marks a blooming collaboration with Dhaniesal, as the two studios had worked together, and found a shared perspective through their previous project: that material can go beyond its basic function. In this installation, material sits at the center of their work, building the visitor's experience through direct interaction, rather than becoming a background in design.

Nusaé is amongst the cohort of cross-disciplinary practitioners that enriched ARCH:ID, as the event has become a meeting point between architects, designers, and creatives across the industry. Curated by Trianzani Sulshi (Co-Founder of Studio Aliri), Afwina Kamal (Principal at Hadiprana), and Dhanie Syawalia (Co-Founder of Dhaniesal), the event was held from April 23 to 26.

For Nusaé, a studio long associated with two-dimensional graphic design practice, their participation marks an embrace towards a more spatial territory. Here, they proved that material can be a design language in itself: as something capable of articulating the relationship between people and their environment.