MASARANG
MY ROLE
Research
Context Mapping
Concept Development
Protyping & Testing
Brand Design
Masarang, based in Indonesia, is focused on empowering local communities by educating them on how to cultivate their forest resources in a sustainable manner. Local people in Kalimantan have the tendency to sell their piece of forest to palm oil companies. This results in deforestation and a palm oil monoculture plantation.
The design team consisted of four members from different master disciplines: Strategic Product Design, Design For Interaction and Integrated Product Design. For two months our project research took place in the Dayak community of Kalimantan.
Our goal was to engage the local Dayak community of Kalimantan in creating a zero-waste solution from coconut to improve their social and financial prospects.
Our team designed and built the low-tech tools for the factory in Kalimantan to create the soap and its packaging in a sustainable way.
Inspired by weaving symbols
A special packaging has been designed to embed the culture in the product by using weaving symbols which Dayak people used in clothes to tell their stories.
One year later…
The final soap is launched and sold in a.o. the conceptstore ShoppingPrince in The Hague. With the purchase of the Masarang Rainforest Soap, customers directly support the people in Kalimantan to make a living off the products they collect and sell from their forests.
