ASD Alumna, Nabila Larasati Pranoto, featured on The Jakarta Post, Indonesian Architect Wins Prestigious Coup de Coeur Prize in France
ASD Alumna, Nabila Larasati Pranoto, featured on The Jakarta Post, Indonesian Architect Wins Prestigious Coup de Coeur Prize in France
Nabila Larasati Pranoto (L) receiving the award presented by Justin Ahanhanzo (R)
The Jakarta Post featured SUTD alumna Nabila Larasati Pranoto from Architecture and Sustainable Design on her receiving the prestigious Coup de Couer Award.
Indonesian architect Nabila Larasati Pranoto has won a Coup de Coeur Award in the Architecture and Sea Level Rise category for her work that focuses on how architecture could help ensure the survival and empowerment of communities living along riverbanks.
The award was presented by Justin Ahanhanzo of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission during a ceremony organized by the Jacques Rougerie Foundation and also attended by French Culture Minister M. Franck Riester at the Institute de France in Paris on Jan. 22.
Titled A Living Organism, Nabila’s work aims to explore alternative designs that support the general lifestyle and livelihood of riverbank residents. The 23-year-old architect, who earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture last year, said the topic and theme of her latest work were similar to those of her thesis at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
“My thesis focuses on a fictional speculation about the survival and empowerment of coastal communities that rely heavily on the stability of nature for fisheries and agriculture,” Nabila said last Friday as quoted by tempo.co, adding that such communities were most vulnerable to threats of climate change and rising sea levels.
Nabila, who currently works at Singaporean architecture firm ONG&ONG, then set out to model an alternative design tailor-made for the needs of similar communities – riverbank residents – based on a delta map of the Mekong River, a transboundary river that stretches along several countries in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
The design presented in A Living Organism is an integrated system comprises of aquaculture and aquaponics, among other systems.
“My design explores ways in which [riverbank communities] could restructure their lives and economy through technology, so they may be able to maintain and revive their livelihoods,” Nabila said.