Ravi Srinivasan visited the RAFLESIA cool homes in South Kalimantan alongside longtime collaborator Beta Paramita — the driving force behind the project — and the local contractor, to see firsthand how occupants live with cool-paint technology applied across walls and roofs. RAFLESIA homes pair that cool-surface technology with indigenous structural knowledge suited to Indonesia’s wetland environment.
By the numbers: 75 homes completed across 6 provinces, more than 300,000 sqm of cool roofs installed across Indonesia so far, with 25 more homes across 2 provinces arriving in 2026.
In 2026, the team plans to publish technical articles supporting the Indonesian National Standard (SNI) for lightweight structures, and to develop a scaling plan — in coordination with Indonesian government agencies — to help advance the national housing scheme of 3 million units per year described by Vice Minister Fahri Hamzah at the Ministry of Housing and Settlement Area.
Thank you to Xiaoyi Jin, Noah Horowitz, and Muhammad Zeki for supporting the program, and to Universitas Lambung Mangkurat (LPPM) and the University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning for their continued partnership.
Full presentation deck · RAFLESIA in South Kalimantan
The Built Ecologist 