For many Indonesians, inheriting a home from parents or in-laws often means more than just acquiring a property; it usually comes with a collection of heirlooms and passed-down furniture. From a chest of drawers to carved wooden vanities, these pieces are steeped in sentiment—a gesture that, while touching, can sometimes feel out of place in the new house or, worse, doesn’t fit.
It was this experience—moving into his new home in Bintaro with his mother’s old wooden plate cabinet (“it doesn’t even fit through my doorframe”)—that got Diaz Hensuk, founder of metal-based spatial solutions FORMAT, to see “the urgency of utilising limited space”.
“Nowadays, there are more residential areas being developed, but the houses are getting smaller and smaller. Our relationship with living spaces, and naturally furniture, are shifting,” the 39-year-old mused.
Diaz has primarily worked across branding and design identity since founding design studio SWG Design over 15 years ago. His portfolio includes book designs, campaign collateral for fashion brands Phuture and TANGAN, and designing the installation for the Indonesia National Stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2017. “I originally wanted to be an architect,” he admitted. “But even as a graphic designer, I gravitate towards shapes that are more structured and gritty.”
Last year, he was approached by his partners and founders of Alba to help with their brand refresh. A longtime fixture in steel manufacturing, Alba has been around since the ‘60s, dominating the market with their range of metal furniture for schools and offices. “This year, they want to focus more on reaching a younger audience and establishing a direct connection with customers,” explained Diaz.
He saw this as an opportunity to create something new: a sub-brand that combines Alba’s expertise in steel with modular furniture systems adaptable to any space it occupies. “A lot of steel-based products are still limited to one function. But with a modular system, you can adjust its function to fit your needs—a shelf today, a desk tomorrow, a wardrobe next. The user gets to dictate that.”
At FORMAT’s studio, which shares the same space as Alba’s factory in Cikupa, a two-metre shelving unit claims one corner of the space. “This is the first one we made,” Diaz pointed. Stacked with design books, a printer, and a few mementoes from the team—including the first posters the team drafted for Bintaro Design District, the structure stands as FORMAT’s foundational prototype.
“A shelf today, a desk tomorrow, a wardrobe next. The user gets to dictate that.”
Using this base, the shelf’s configuration can be altered depending on site-specific needs and how it’s assembled, where accessories such as hooks, slanted panels and customisable units provide different arrays of use: whether to hang clothes, display books or store pantry goods.
“FORMAT is very system-based. Once you take it out of the formula, it doesn’t work. And I actually think it’s very graphic; all the parts you see are visual-driven. From the anchoring identity of FORMAT’s ‘plus’ signs, to finishing details like how we leave the bolts exposed, it all adds to the character.”
For a booth the studio installed for Newsroom and Oaken Lab’s booth at Brightspot Mall at Ratu Plaza in June, Diaz, together with his team, product designer Gunawan Wibisono and graphic designer Raihan Rafi, expanded the unit into an 8 by 3 metres structure. With strategically-positioned FORMAT cabinets, benches and credenza, the booth was designed to capture the office workflow concept that inspired the launch of the two brands’ collaborative perfume, while still serving its individual functions as a coffee booth and retail area.
To maintain a cohesive flow between the two brands, the structure was kept open with two entryways, allowing visitors to easily navigate the retail space, with the Newsroom coffee station tucked at the back. “There was a big pillar that took up our booth area,” Diaz explained. “We didn’t want to hide it, so we designed around it, positioning the Oaken cashier right next to it, embracing it as part of the booth’s character.”
Yet even with its durability and multiplicity of functions, making steel a more approachable material for home decor remains an ambitious goal, especially in Indonesia. “It’s understandable. Indonesia has a strong tradition of working with wood. Steel, on the other hand, is still perceived as ‘cold’ or rigid. It’s not as agile or easy to mould, and in most cases, more expensive. But our goal with FORMAT is to showcase its character and materiality, not conceal it or turn it into something it’s not.”
“We wanted people to warm up to the idea of incorporating steel in the home. It’s not as cold or industrial as people often think.”
For the annual architecture exhibition and conference ARCH:ID 2024, they reimagined the use of steel in home interiors through the pavilion, ‘Living with Steel’. Extending the material’s forms and function, the exhibit featured pieces like the Rolling Cabinet, Credenza and Stair Cabinet, all characterised by clean lines and handleless units, while details like the powder-coated finish in beige-brown and subtly rounded edges give a surprising touch of warmth to the steel.
The Rolling Cabinet, set with a pull-out drawer and ventilation holes, doubles as a room divider and a storage space for shoes or books, while the Stair Cabinet serves as a storage unit, and when stacked, transforms into a spiral staircase. “We wanted people to warm up to the idea of incorporating steel in the home,” Diaz explained. “It’s not as cold or industrial as people often think.”
That said, the team of three at FORMAT, fully recognise that metal isn’t suitable for every piece of furniture. “Take a dining table, for instance—metal, particularly steel, can feel uncomfortably cold, especially for those with sensitive skin. For areas in the kitchen where skin contact is frequent, it’s best to avoid using all-metal surfaces,” Diaz shared.
Instead, FORMAT looks at the ways metal responds to other parts of the home, exploring its potential in coffee tables, benches and cabinets. In addition to their modular furniture systems, the team is experimenting with loose furniture pieces, like stackable stools and benches. “When working with a single material, you really have to understand and respect its qualities. With steel, we think in reverse—starting with a flat sheet of metal and considering how it will be bent and folded into its final form,” Diaz explains.
At FORMAT, steel is no longer bound to warehouses and industrial spaces—it’s reimagined as something softer, more fluid, and ultimately, more human.
Whether as a cabinet drawer that neatly stores all the children’s toys (keeping them out of view), a clothing rack with personalised storage options to a bookshelf with adjustable rack sizings, FORMAT’s designs take on new functions as they are disassembled from one form to the next. The flexibility seems to reflect a broader shift in architecture and interior, one that embraces the fluid nature of modern, urban living. At FORMAT, steel is no longer viy to warehouses and industrial spaces—it’s reimagined as something softer, more fluid, and ultimately, more human.
The story of FORMAT evolves with each user as they discover new ways to interact with and expand the functions of the pieces. Perhaps one day, Diaz will also pass on the furniture to his children. This time, he made sure it’ll fit.
