Project Name: Folded Rooms Garden

Location: Bandung, Indonesia

Design Team: RAD+ar (Research Artistic Design + architecture)

Area: 600 m²

Completion: 2025

Photography: Ernest Theofilus

Design Features: RAD+ar has completed Folded Rooms Garden, an experimental residential project in Bandung, Indonesia, that reimagines domestic space through a radical elimination of traditional walls. The 600-square-metre house employs a revolutionary concept of continuous folding, where floors, ceilings, and roofs merge into a single, monolithic plane that undulates through the compact urban site.

Rather than relying on vertical partitions to separate spaces, the design uses elevation changes and strategic folds to create distinct zones of privacy and activity. This tectonic approach blurs the boundaries between architecture and landscape, transforming the home into a fluid spatial sequence that responds organically to the natural topography.

The house unfolds across two primary levels. The Upper Fold houses public and semi-private functions, including a tatami-style bedroom connected to living and dining areas, all elevated to capture panoramic views of the front garden and maximise cross-ventilation. Below, the Lower Fold contains sunken sleeping quarters that open directly onto a private pool and semi-outdoor bathroom, embraced by a shaded bamboo grove that creates an intimate, introverted atmosphere.

Entry to the residence is mediated by a suspended planter that functions as a living threshold, filtering the transition from the chaotic urban context into a secluded sanctuary. This porous boundary exemplifies the project's sophisticated dialogue between solid and void, built form and open space.

Beyond its formal experimentation, Folded Rooms Garden addresses urgent environmental concerns. Maintaining 70 per cent permeable green area, the design prioritises on-site rainwater harvesting, offering a critical response to dense urban planning challenges across Indonesia. The architects envision this compact villa as a prototype for ecological urbanism, demonstrating how small-scale private developments can function as decentralised green nodes that actively contribute to urban hydrological health whilst delivering architecturally innovative living environments.

Design Team: RAD+ar (Research Artistic Design + architecture) is an Indonesian architecture practice that positions design as a provocative exploration of space, culture, and sustainability. Founded by Antonius Richard Rusli, the firm operates at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, research, and development, treating each project as an opportunity to challenge conventional approaches and expand the boundaries of what architecture can achieve.

Led by Dadi Prasojo and Antonius Richard, RAD+ar believes that addressing contemporary challenges requires architecture to be one of the most rigorous fields of inquiry. The practice advocates for a more sustainable and equitable vision of the built environment, grounded in tropical architecture principles and a utopian research methodology.

RAD+ar's portfolio demonstrates a commitment to experimentation across scales and typologies, from compact urban interventions to broader landscape strategies. The firm connects history and cultural narratives, exploring architecture's capacity to mediate between globalization and localization. Through multidisciplinary collaboration and systematic integration at each project phase, RAD+ar consistently delivers innovative work that redefines architectural value beyond conventional notions of space and building, establishing the practice as a progressive voice in contemporary Indonesian architecture.