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The Art of City Making

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I came across this link in LinkedIn, a recording of NUS Cities Lecture Series dated 27 March 2024 with Charles Landry, “Where next with the Art of City Making?”. As commonly occurs when I have tight deadlines, of course this kind of distraction successfully diverted my focus as I watched the session right away.

To put in context; Charles came to Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, in 2008 as a keynote speaker in the 2nd Arte-Polis, an international conference on creative communities and the making of place, held biannually by the Architecture Department of Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). It’s the same year when (later named) Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF) held the first Helarfest, a creative communities festival. It was when BCCF launched a community-initiated city branding “.bdg” and slogan, “an emerging creative city”. Helarfest became the first milestone of many that confirmed the significant roles of creative individuals and communities in Bandung as powerful city changers and city shapers. I met Charles again in 2014 at the Bellagio Center, Lake Como, Italy. Together, within a group of city makers & thinkers, we had days-long working sessions on the resilience and livability of complex urban systems. In 2016, we met again in Östersund, Sweden, where Charles delivered a keynote speech during the Annual Meeting of UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN). That was the 1st time for Bandung to attend the Meeting, after joining UCCN as a City of Design in December 2015. Afterwards, there were various occasions: a dialogue on Placemaking in Helarfest 2020, the Creative Bureaucracy conference, and so on.

Every interaction with Charles has always been intriguing; confirming floating thoughts and sparking new ones. Therefore I took no delay in watching this video. Here are a few things that caught my attention.      

  1. Culture matters: it’s like the air we breathe, you forget that it’s there. [It’s very much embedded in the way we conduct our lives that we take it for granted. Culture, with all its assimilation and evolution, should be recognized as a determining factor of how we organize society.]
  2. Creative matters: the first thing on “creativity” is about curiosity. However, no city has a strategy to generate curiosity. [True. A “creative city” should not only brag about its citizens’ achievements in creative fields, but — if it believes that creativity actually drives urban development and innovation — it should be committed to creating an environment that supports such playful yet productive “curiosity”.]
  3. Are we giving young people the opportunity to shape the city? [How much space do we allow them to participate in decision making? How far do we let them influence a cityscape?]
  4. Some cities are OK, some are not. How come? Leaderships! [It does require top-down commitments to establish substantial Changes in a city, to set the priorities.]
  5. Revaluing value beyond GDP. [This notion has been discussed in many platforms, particularly regarding indexes of (creative) cities, and should always be exercised and improved. Indonesia Creative Cities Network (ICCN) has established the “10 Principles of Indonesia Creative Cities” in 2015 and has piloted a Creative City Index dashboard in 2016, the West Java Creative Economy and Innovation Committee (KREASI) has been publishing a Creative City Index annual report for all 27 cities/regencies in West Java Province since 2020; encouraging local governments to improve the 10 determining variables of the index.]

The last part of the lecture offers a list of points, that “Great livable creative resilient culturally vibrant places are:” [We can consider these as a checklist, how do our cities perceive these points? Do we have concrete examples?]

  • Places of anchorage & distinctiveness
  • Places of blending the old & the new
  • Places of nourishment & nurture
  • Places of affordability & access
  • Places of diversity & inclusiveness
  • Places of communication & connection
  • Places of critical thinking & reflection
  • Places of aspiration & inspiration
  • Places of serious fun & celebration
  • Places of bending the market to big picture purposes

The lecture took about 48 minutes, followed by a Q&A session for about an hour. Interesting issues were brought up. Including the one about “brand” for cities: does it encourage superficial labelling, or does it really reflect the personalities of a city? Go on and check it out yourself — you might find different angles, depending on your interests. Thanks, Charles, and thanks to NUS College of Design & Engineering for making the lecture available for public!

BEYOND Conference 2023 London

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BEYOND adalah sebuah konferensi terkemuka mengenai penelitian dan pengembangan untuk industri kreatif, dan telah tiba pada tahun ke-6 penyelenggaraannya. Kali ini, BEYOND yang berlangsung pada 21-22 November di The Royal Institution, London, bermitra strategis dengan British Council, berkolaborasi dalam menentukan tema Global Creative Economies. Konferensi ini mempertemukan audience dari beragam latar belakang (pimpinan bisnis, kreatif, peneliti, pembuat kebijakan, jurnalis dan penyandang dana), dan juga sekitar 30 delegasi internasional (Turki, Ukraina, Uzbekistan, Filipina, Mesir, Maroko dan Jepang). Informasi lebih lengkap mengenai BEYOND dapat diakses di sini: https://beyondconference.org/

Pada BEYOND, terdapat sesi dengan format TEDTalk, dan sesi panel. Saya ditempatkan dalam sesi panel dengan tema “Emerging Trends in The Creative Economy: Perspectives from The Global South”, bersama Daniar Amanaliev (Co-founder and Band Master, ololo Group) dan John Newbigin (Chair, PEC International Council), dan Samira Ahmed (Broadcaster and Journalist, BBC) sebagai pemandu diskusi. Dalam durasi yang terbatas, tidak disarankan menggunakan materi tayangan, tapi Daniar dan saya punya beberapa slide untuk memberi gambaran konteks “The Global South” dengan lebih jelas bagi audience yang mayoritas berasal dari belahan bumi utara. Dan tampaknya memang perlu, melihat dari tanggapan positif terhadap berjalannya sesi tersebut dan konten-konten yang disampaikan.

Inti dari paparan saya adalah tren ekonomi kreatif di pasca pandemi, ketika orang telah menentukan prioritas baru. Di Indonesia, dan wilayah Asia Tenggara pada umumnya, terdapat hal-hal yang menjadi karakteristik dan potensi umum, sehingga Ekonomi Kreatif pun mengarah ke sana, untuk memenuhi kebutuhan dengan lebih relevan, dengan sensitivitas terhadap isu-isu global. Hal-hal tersebut meliputi: keberagaman sumber daya alam dan budaya, dominasi usia muda/produktif, teknologi tepat guna, padat karya, usaha mikro & kecil, dan scale & balance (dalam konteks lingkup usaha, proporsi konsumsi sumber daya, dsb.). Diikuti dengan contoh-contoh kecenderungan karya produk kreatif (yang membawa kata-kata kunci upcycling, food security, responsible fashion, digital for equality, dan material culture technology), Laboratorium UKM Masa Depan, indeks kota kreatif, serta tema-tema utama dari rekomendasi kebijakan yang selama ini diajukan oleh Indonesia di forum-forum global (SDG, informal workers, intermediary, inclusivity, digital transformation, measurement/index, culture-based innovative experiments & future discoveries).

Video dari sesi tersebut dapat diakses di sini:

Video dari sesi-sesi lain dari BEYOND 2023 dapat diakses di sini: https://beyondconference.org/b23/ondemand/

Dari acara itu, yang membuat agak deg-degan bukan berbicara di dalam ruangan yang dipadati audience dari kalangan terpilih, tapi karena ruang auditorium/teater The Royal Institution (Ri) yang didirikan tahun 1799 itu adalah di mana para ilmuwan terkemuka menyampaikan gagasan-gagasannya dan mendemonstrasikan temuan-temuannya, seperti Jane Goodall dan David Attenborough (yang kabarnya juga berkantor di situ). Di ruang masuk utama, terdapat patung Michael Faraday, yang pernah menjadi Direktur Laboratorium Ri pada tahun 1852. Gedung ini dipenuhi koleksi buku, berbagai sampel dan alat peraga, dan foto-foto para tokoh ilmuwan pendahulunya; ruangan-ruangannya ditata dengan setting seminar atau diskusi, langsung mengundang rasa hormat, curious dan eksploratif terhadap siapa pun yang masuk. Rasa keingintahuan yang tinggi, namun dengan kerendahan hati; a humbling scientific attitude. Sangat sesuai dengan tagline The Royal Institution: Science Lives Here. Respect.

tempatsampah.bdg

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Tempat sampah baru di Bandung

Tempat sampah baru di Bandung

Semester ini, MK Desain Berkelanjutan di Program Studi Magister Desain diselenggarakan lagi. Seperti biasanya, di minggu pertama pertemuan, mahasiswa diminta untuk menyampaikan permasalahan lingkungan yang (dapat) dipengaruhi oleh desain, baik sebagai penyebab maupun solusi.

Salah satu kelompok membahas tempat sampah umum yang baru dimiliki Bandung beberapa minggu belakangan ini. Diskusi mengenai tempat sampah yang terbuat dari plastik biodegradable ini mencakup hal-hal pro dan kontra terhadap jenis material biodegradable itu sendiri, namun dalam sesi ini lebih banyak dibahas juga dari segi Desain. “Desain” di sini bukan hanya berarti penampilan visual, bentuk, dimensi, dan warna, tapi juga dalam hal usability, operasional penggunaan, persepsi pengguna terhadap obyek itu sendiri, penempatan, dan sebagainya.

RK hadir lagi di kelas ini, kali ini bukan sebagai dosen tamu seperti biasanya, tapi secara virtual sebagai wali kota di cuplikan berita mengenai tempat sampah Bandung

RK hadir lagi di kelas ini, kali ini bukan sebagai dosen tamu seperti biasanya, tapi secara virtual, sebagai wali kota dalam cuplikan berita mengenai tempat sampah Bandung

Salah satu segi desain yang dibahas di sini adalah operasional membuka-tutup tempat sampah tersebut. Pada tempat sampah ini, orang harus memegang dan mengangkat handle yang terlekat pada tutup tempat sampah bila hendak memasukkan sampah ke dalamnya. Hal ini tidak biasa, karena desain tempat sampah pada umumnya tidak menuntut penggunanya untuk menyentuh tutup atau lubang buangannya secara langsung. Sebab, biasanya, mulut tempat sampah umum cenderung kotor karena tumpahan sampah yang dibuang, atau karena bekas bakaran puntung rokok yang dimatikan di sana. Sehingga, ketika menghadapi tempat sampah Bandung ini, orang yang merasa jijik cenderung harus menciptakan “sampah baru”, dengan cara menggunakan selembar tissue bersih untuk mengangkat handle tersebut sebelum cepat-cepat memasukkan sampah yang akan dibuang (sekaligus lembaran tissue pemegang handle itu) ke dalam tempat sampah tersebut. Akan lebih manusiawi bila terdapat perbaikan desain yang tidak mengharuskan orang untuk bersentuhan langsung dengan handle atau mulut tempat sampah umum.

Hal lain yang dibahas dari segi desain adalah penggunaan kode warna jenis sampah dan icon/ simbol pada tempat sampah tersebut. Bila akan dilakukan perbaikan desain pada tempat sampah ini, kelompok ini mengusulkan agar terdapat perubahan pada grafisnya, yang didahului dengan studi mengenai kode warna dan icon/simbol yang umum dipakai dan dimengerti sebagai kode pemilahan jenis-jenis sampah, namun juga sekaligus lebih akrab dengan masyarakat umum di Bandung/Indonesia sehingga dapat dimengerti dengan lebih tepat, sesuai dengan konteks lokal.

Jadi bagaimana peran tempat sampah ini terhadap isu keberlanjutan? Sebagai langkah awal, tersedianya tempat-tempat sampah di ruang-ruang publik ini mungkin cukup dapat mengajak warga untuk tidak lagi sembarangan membuang sampah ke jalan, taman dan selokan. Sebagai solusi sementara, tempat-tempat sampah ini mungkin ampuh, namun masih ada permasalahan-permasalahan seputar daya tahan, usability, dan visual pada fasilitas ini, yang berpotensi untuk mengurangi daya gunanya di masa mendatang. Artinya, ada banyak peluang dan kontribusi dari segi desain untuk membuat fasilitas ini lebih berkelanjutan.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–mToeCkCjc]

How to change education from the ground up

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Here are some excerpts from a recent talk (published July 18, 2013) by Sir Ken Robinson. Wanting it or not, this speech made me think about our new, ridiculous national curriculum, composed by the government “up there”, untouched by the actors of education themselves: teachers and learners – and how we can actually change them from the ground level. Schools are not factories that print certificate to rank children’s “intelligence”; they should be a pleasant place where children maintain and discover their love for learning.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEsZOnyQzxQ&w=560&h=315]

The basics of education: science, technology and math, are necessary, but not sufficient.

The basics of public education, or why we invest in a system of mass public education, has the following purposes (not labeling, just as a reference, and not in particular order):

(1) Economic.

Education has powerful economic purposes. It does and it should. But the economic system of that day was industrialism, which is why the system looks the way it does. It is not that system anymore for us.

If we are to meet the “economic” requirement of education we need to have a system that promotes creativity and adaptability.

Adaptability: Organizations are not like machines, they are like organisms. They are living entities, made out of people, feelings, motivations, roles, aspirations, passions, and ambitions. And if the organism doesn’t respond to changes in its natural environment – just as in the natural world – it dies.

Creativity: We need companies that are consistently and systematically creative.

Students coming out of college find it difficult to come up with something new. That’s because they are educated on the standard routine of routine testing, multiple-choice tests.

(2) Cultural.

It’s a small enough planet as it is, but it has becoming more and more populated. But in any case, the ethical reasons as well as strategic ones, we formed education that enables people to understand how they came to think as they do, why their values are as they are, why their patterns of lives are as they are, and why other people are different. We need reformed education that helps people to understand their own cultural identity and what formed it and those of other people.

Now for that we need a broad education… the arts, the humanities, to social studies, not just to technical subjects.

(3) Social.

We need a form of education that engages this generation in the processes on which communities are organized and governed. And there are a lot of evidences on disengagements, that people are pulling away from those roles.

“Every generation has to discover its democracy” (on election)

It is very important that we take parts in these civil discourses. You don’t do that in education by giving people lessons on civics. You do it by having a culture which embodies these processes of participation, and great schools do that.

In the end, education is personal. It’s about people. It’s not about components or machines.

And if we know about people: they are different. They’re driven by different talents, different abilities, different passions, different interests and different motivations. One of the signature features of humanity is Diversity. Of course it contrasts sharply with one of the organizational principles of education, which is Conformity.

But if we don’t understand that education is about People and Individuals in all their diversity and multiplicity, then we keep making the mistakes that we make. If we’re treated as a machine… rather than a human process, then we’ll run ourselves into a cul-de-sac.

When we’re talking about changing education “from the ground up”, that’s the “ground” that I mean. Most political strategies start from the top-down: “if we can get people to conform, everything would improve”. And the evidence is quite the contrary: the more the government go in the “control” mode, the more they misunderstand the level of teaching and learning, the more they misunderstand the process of education.

So we have a situation here in the UK now, where most of the major teaching units have passed a vote of “no confidence” of the government’s education strategy. That shouldn’t promote a smug expression of satisfaction on the government. That should keep them awake all night, thinking, “How badly have we got this wrong?” You cannot improve education by alienating the profession that carries it out.

Recognizing that education can be encouraged from the top down is one thing. But it can really be improved from the ground up by the people who do the work. Because in the end it’s not ministers or states who’re teaching all of our children.

“The Empty Space” by Peter Brook: if you’re really concerned to make theater the most powerful experience that can be, we have to decide what we mean when we say “theater”. We have to get back to basics and focus on what is fundamental. And he answers that question in a brief passage in the book by performing a thought experiment. Essentially he says, “If you take a theater performance, what can you take away and still have it? What’s the core? What’s the irreducible minimum?”

You could take away the curtains, you could take away the script, the stage crew and the lighting, you can get rid of the director, definitely, you can get rid of the building. You don’t need any of that. The only thing you can’t get rid of, and still had “theater”, is an actor, in a space, and somebody watching.

Theater describes the relationship between the audience and a performance. That’s the relationship that we mean. So if we want to make theater the most powerful experience that can be, we have to focus on that relationship between the performer and the audience. And, he said, we should add nothing to it, unless it helps. And of course a lot of what we add to theater distracts the relationship and substitutes for it.

It is an exact analogy with education: the heart of education is a teacher and a learner. And we have, overtime, obfuscated that relationship with every type of distraction. We have testing regimes, testing companies, political ideologies, political purposes, subject loyalties, building codes, all of these timetables and schedules.

That’s why we can spend all day long discussing education and never mention teaching or learning. But if there’s no teaching or learning happening, there is no education going. So if we’re going to improve education, we have to improve that a bit. And everything else has to not getting in the way of it.

So the focus on teaching and learning to me is vital.

Now what we know about learners, about children, is that children are learning organisms. Children don’t need to be helped to learn, for the most part. They’re all born with a vast variation of appetite for learning.

You don’t teach your child to speak. Most kids get to learn to speak in the first year and a half or so in their life, but you don’t teach them. They just pick it up. You nudge them, you encourage them, but you don’t teach them to speak. We do teach them to write. That’s a different thing. Writing appeared much later in human evolution than speech.

But my point is: children have a vast appetite for learning. And it only starts to dissipate when we educate them. That’s to say, when we put them in buildings, designed for the purpose. And put them in charade ranks and start to force-feed them information in which they may or may not have interest.

But learning happens anyway, and with the new technology it’s happening more and more. If we really want education to be more effective, we have to focus on the process of teaching and learning. And teaching has become reduced, in the political discourse, to a kind of delivery system (“your job is to deliver the national curriculum”). Teaching has become a kind of delivery system and teachers have become a kind of functionaries in the administration of cash.

Actually, teaching is an art form. It’s not enough to be a good teacher to know your stuff, though you need to know it. But more than that, you need to excite people about the material. You need to engage them. You need to pick their imagination, to feel their creativity. You need to drive their passion for it. You need to get them to want to learn this. You need to find a point of entry. That’s the gift of a great teacher.

One of the ways that we improve education is by recognizing it happens at the point of where teachers and learners meet. If it doesn’t happen there, it doesn’t happen at all, in formal, organized education systems.

So you can’t improve education by ignoring that relationship, or demeaning it. But it also means, if you are in that relationship, you hold the tools of powers right in your hands. You can change the system yourself. You don’t need to wait for anybody to do it.

A school, just like a child, or a teacher, is not a component. They are living organisms. Living, breathing entities. A school is a community or reciprocating individuals who develop their own culture, their own way of seeing things, their own habits and rituals, and so on.

There isn’t a single point of influence. The teachers in the system, the head teachers, are just as influential in their own world as the policy makers. If you are a teacher, if you are a school principle, if you’re a superintendent, if you run a school district, so far as the kids are concerned who go to your school, you are the education system.

If you began to change your practice, if you began to change the environment of the school, if you – in other words – concentrate on your   in the school as a part of the larger climate, eventually you start to affect the whole. That’s how our social movements happen.

Human culture is essentially unpredictable. But it accumulates over the creative activities of individuals feeding off each other. That’s how organic growth happens.

When I said that revolution is needed, and it should start from the ground up, it’s already happening. The system is already adapting. The part of the system that is not adapting is the high level of government policy.

The real role of leaders, when it comes to education: whether you are a teacher, or head teacher, or head of a district – your proper role, if you have a loving relationship with education – is not to try to command and control it, but to recognize your place in climate control. And if you can help to change the climate of expectation in education, if you can change what’s happening at the ground, then you’ve changed the world.

 

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Related posts in this blog:

Passion, Creativity, Element, Energy

Imagination, Creativity, Innovation

“We Provide Solutions, not Pollutions”

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Bike.BDG logo

Several months ago I posted about bicycle line, intrigued by a documentary video about How the Dutch Got Their Cycle Path. And what would you call a dream come true, although it’s not yet perfect? It turns out that Bandung has its own bike sharing facility now, launched on June 10th, 2012. [Here’s a post about Bike.BDG launching event, etc. at BCCF website, in Indonesian]

Of course security and safety are among the main issues here, but we have to start from something, by creating a certain mechanism that works for our specific conditions. The various ground elevations of Bandung might make it less appealing for people to use bicycle as a daily transportation method, for its impracticality. So Bike.BDG offers a service that mainly aims for short rides, to its 10 designated points in town. Anyone interested in using a bike should first sign up as a member, then s/he is entitled to rent a bike for IDR 3000/hour. So far, users of Bike.BDG are mostly people who are spending a leisure time during Car Free Days, where roads are closed for motored vehicles for a certain amount of time (usually on Sundays, from 6-10a.m.), or people who really needs to reach a distance without relying on angkot (Bandung’s public minibus) and private cars.

Ideally, Bike.BDG aims to reduce traffic jams in weekends and holidays by offering these bikes to visitors, who are suggested to park their private cars at the hotels and take the bike instead to go shopping and sight-seeing. Here are videos that promote the project:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aweVcjRc5m8]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0x7hFLrA7I]

Like all newly-started projects, this one is naturally not free from hiccups, but improvements happen along the way. Perhaps, in this stage, the most crucial thing is to let people (re-)experience the joy of biking, and, further, to make it possible for anyone to use the service without having to buy/own a bicycle. Then, hopefully – as with the case in The Netherlands – even politicians, authorities and decision-makers of the city become familiar with the pleasure of having a city dominated by bicycles, so they can create policies that accommodate city bikes.

It never hurts to build up a dream. Salute to all Bike.BDG volunteers and activators, hope the bike sharing system remains and grows!

How it works

All images belong to Bike.BDG. Further info:

Bike.BDG site: http://bikebdg.com/

Bike.BDG Tumblr: http://bikebdg.tumblr.com/

Tas “Pintar” yang Ramah Lingkungan

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PUMA CLEVER LITTLE BAG

Tas “Pintar” yang Ramah Lingkungan

Wantoro | 27111052

Kemasan, dalam berbagai jenisnya merupakan salah satu elemen penting dalam produk. Selain berfungsi sebagai pengemas (bungkus), kemasan juga merupakan suatu identitas dari produk yang dikemasnya dan memiliki dampak pada nilai citra, ekonomi dan juga lingkungan.

Dari “box” ke “bag”

Puma, sebuah sportlifestyle brand ternama dunia baru-baru ini me-launching sebuah desain kemasan untuk produk-produk sepatunya dengan merespon secara “pintar” kondisi lingkungan saat ini dimana terjadi pemanasan alam, krisis sumber daya alam dan energi dengan menganut pada prinsip sustainable design (desain yang berkelanjutan). Desain kemasan untuk sepatu ini kemudian diberi nama “Clever Little Bag”.

Dalam proses perancangan kemasan ini, Puma menggandeng Yves Behar, seorang desainer dari studio Fuse Project, San Fransisco untuk memikirkan kembali cara jutaan pasang sepatu yang dijual setiap tahun dikemas dengan bahan baku dan energi untuk produksi yang lebih sedikit dan memiliki bobot lebih ringan agar mereduksi energy saat distribusi. Proses perancangan “Clever Little Bag” menghabiskan waktu 21 (dua puluh satu) bulan yang didalamnya termasuk proses pengujian, penelitian dan penilaian siklus hidup dari lebih 2.000 ide dan kemungkinan desain dan ditambah 40 prototipe desain kemasan.

Proses yang “pintar”

“Clever Little Bag” sebenarnya merupakan revolusi dari kemasan sepatu Puma sebelumnya yang dikenal dengan nama “Red Shoebox”, yaitu kemasan sepatu konvensional dimana menggunakan bahan karton dus/kertas secara mayoritas. Kemasan terdahulu ini tentu saja membutuhkan sumber energi yang besar, baik pada bahan baku (karton dus/kertas yang notabene berasal dari kayu), proses produksi maupun distribusi. Selain itu, kemasan dalam format box (kotak) cenderung memiliki umur pakai yang pendek karena box jarang dimanfaatkan setelah sepatu digunakan. Sedangkan kemasan dengan format bag seperti “Clever Little Bag” memiliki umur pakai yang lebih panjang karena dapat digunakan pada kebutuhan lain seperti kemasan membawa buah, kertas, alat-alat olahraga dan sebagainya. Selain itu, dengan format bag, tak diperlukan lagi kemasan plastik di toko sebagai pembungkus saat sepatu dibawa. Sungguh sebuah jawaban “pintar” atas permasalahan lingkungan yang terjadi saat ini.

Dengan penggunaan kemasan baru ini, Puma mengklaim telah membantu mereduksi penggunaan :

•  8.500 ton kertas/tahun – jumlah ini setara dengan berat tubuh 1. 400 gajah  dewasa.

• 20 juta mega joule listrik/tahun – jumlah ini setara dengan konsumsi listrik disebuah kota  kecil di Eropa.

• 1 juta liter air/tahun – jumlah ini setara dengan kebutuhan air untuk menyiram toilet sebanyak 100.000 kali

• 1 juta liter bahan bakar minyak/tahun – jumlah ini setara dengan 650 flat pemanasan Eropa

• 500.000 liter solar/tahun – jumlah ini setara dengan kebutuhan solar sebuah mobil van untuk 131 kali berkeliling dunia

• 275 ton plastik/tahun – jumlah ini setara dengan 375 kali luas lapangan sepakbola bila plastik dibentangkan.

Selain itu, penggunaan “Clever Little Bag” juga berdampak :

• Mengurangi penggunaan kardus sebesar 65%

• Mengurangi emisi karbon dioksida sebesar 10.000 ton

Fungsi lanjutan “clever little bag”

Kemasan sepatu Puma yang baru ini sebenarnya merupakan lanjutan dari suksesi pelaksanaan standar sosial dan lingkungan yang dilakukan oleh Puma dan dikenal dengan nama program Puma.Safe. “Clever Little Bag” sendiri pada akhirnya terpilih sebagai desain terbaik untuk kategori Sustainable pada ajang Conde Nast Traveller 2011 Innovation and Design Awards di St Pancras Renaissance Marriott Hotel, London Inggris. Sementara desainernya, Yves Behar mendapatkan penghargaan “Designer of The Year” atas kontribusinya dalam proyek “Clever Little Bag” ini.

Meskipun Puma belum meraih predikat sebagai The World’s Most Sustainable Companies, namun kita tidak dapat mengelak bahwa “Clever Little Bag” merupakan sebuah langkah maju dari Puma dalam upayanya merespon kondisi lingkungan saat ini khususnya di bidang ritel.  Tujuan akhir Puma pada akhirnya adalah untuk memberikan kembali kepada lingkungan apa yang telah  mereka ambil.

 

Sumber: www.puma.com/cleverlittlebag (diakses 13 Maret 2012)

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwRulz8hPKI]

Reclaim the Street; Eat!

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KEUKEN logo

This probably won’t happen in a city where safe and comfortable public spaces are available, where people can leisurely go out and enjoy the space. This probably won’t happen either in a place where rules are applied strictly, when a bit of disorder could quickly gain onlookers’ frowns or, worse, get a penalty by local law enforcers. This will not happen also in a dense urban area whose young inhabitants have no passion, nor creativity, to improve their urban environment in a fun and smart way. But, since Bandung is a city where comfortable public space and strict rules are absent and whose youths are passionate, KEUKEN happens!

Saparua Street, closed from motored vehicles for KEUKEN#2

KEUKEN, a Dutch word for “kitchen”, is a festival involving lots of (of course) food and cooking, but not only that. All kinds of urban communities gather along to enjoy an unusual ambiance of a pleasant public space. So far, KEUKEN has gone through their second festival, but in between, they also have a series of smaller events that serve as a kind of ‘teaser’ for the KEUKEN festival, called Surprise Stove.

In Surprise Stove, a public space is chosen, a set of stoves and cooking tools are brought over, then someone (not necessarily a professional) chef voluntarily cook and distribute the cooked food to passers by. All in a go. No permit gained prior to the event, then pack up and leave right after all the food is emptied out of the plates.

Cooking demo is among the main attractions of the event

Before the first festival, Surprise Stove was held for six times in different spots in Bandung. Among them were a huge intersection where extreme bike and soccer communities gather, an old part of town where a Harley Davidson headquarter resides (one of their members was the chef of the day), a busy shopping street, and a parcel of land used by urban farming community on a harvesting day (the veggies were cooked right after they were freshly picked!).

What is the purpose of this anarchy? The main aim is, as the catch phrase shows, to “reclaim the street”. Lack of adequate public space in the city to socialize and to express oneself becomes the main motivation. Why food? Since it’s easily the easiest thing that we, fellow human beings, have in common. We all eat. We all like to talk about food and eating activity also usually triggers conversations. Through food and cooking in a public space, warm interactions occur. People can feel that they belong to the urban open space again, that the space is actually theirs to activate, and that it is what makes a city pleasantly livable.

The ambiance of KEUKEN#2

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/27552814 w=400&h=225]

KEUKEN #1: The Magnificent Cowbarn (Official video) from Keuken Bandung on Vimeo.

More about KEUKEN, who stands behind it and all, is currently being written as a paper for a conference. For now, please check out their website at http://keukenbdg.com/ and more of their videos at http://vimeo.com/keukenbdg

SecondPage: extending papers’ lives

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SecondPage documents

In a class called SENDAL by students (SENDAL stands for SENi, DesAin & Lingkungan), or Arts, Design & The Environment, taught by five lecturers from each programs at our faculty (Industrial Design, Visual Communication Design, Interior Design, Craft, Visual Arts), we asked students to form groups for their end-term exam. Each group was to bring up an ecological issue and respond to it using their capacities as creative individuals. At the end of the term, they had to submit a video explaining their projects and other documents from their projects (products, photos, posters, etc.)

SecondPage was among the groups that participated in the class in 2011. This project brought up the issues of paper waste, especially the one produced by final year students, who usually have to do several revisions. The first video shows the whole project, the second one gives an introduction to SecondPage, and the third video contains a step-by-step way to produce new notebooks out of used papers. If conducted seriously, this project can be developed into its own business entity, enterprising in taking in used papers, employing (slightly trained) workers, and producing commercially valuable products.

I wish these trees could stay…

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The story of Babakan Siliwangi Forest Walk goes a long way back, although the Forest Walk itself has been around for only less than three months. I won’t go in length here to tell the story, but anyone living in Bandung knows that Babakan Siliwangi (Baksil) has become one of the most disputable areas in Bandung, concerning building rights and ownership status. Being about the only forest in a dense urban area that is gradually being cramped by concrete buildings, roads and automobiles, it naturally becomes our concern to protect it. The concern becomes more intense upon knowing that a developer plans to build multi-stories apartment, a restaurant, and so on. The struggle goes on, especially since the municipal government seems to take on the developer’s side instead of ours.

Baksil Forest Walk

Therefore it was such an opportunity when about 1300 children and youths from 120+ countries gathered in Bandung for the TUNZA event in September 2011, held by The Indonesian Ministry of Environment (KLH) and The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). The venue was SABUGA conference hall, which is actually located within the Baksil area, so it was relatively easy to grab the attention of whoever attended and/or covered the event to the preservation of Baksil forest. Partnering with KLH, Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF) therefore made sure that the following important events happened during TUNZA: the launching of Baksil as The World City Forest, the opening of Baksil Forest Walk, and the declaration of Urban Farming Global Network. Why are these things important? They somehow validated the existence of Baksil as a city forest that needs to be conserved, voiced by the world’s young generations, who are going to face the consequences of what we do today.

Here’s a video that shows a glimpse of BCCF contribution to the TUNZA event.

Back to the Forest Walk. It’s such a shame if you lived in Bandung, especially in the Northern part, and had never experienced the Walk. It was build at the height of the trees, so one doesn’t walk below the trees, next to the roots on the ground, but at the level of the trees’ huge branches, leaf crowns and the hanging, curtain-like roots. The Walk was built without disrupting any tree, giving way for them to keep living and growing by providing holes wherever necessary.

Dhanu's "Apple Birdhouse"

I took our kids to the Walk in separate times. Getting back home, Dhanu (10) who read about the fact (at info boards placed along the Walk) that Baksil is a habitat for various animals, especially birds, right away designed a birdhouse for the birds that live in the forest. Lindri (8), who was very much impressed by her surroundings, spontaneously exclaimed, “I wish these trees could stay forever”.

Lindri at The Forest Walk

Her wish, I’m sure, also belongs to a lot of people who live and breathe the air of Bandung. Baksil is among a few green sites in the city that provide us with oxygen, and whoever plans to demolish these sources must be ignorant of common human rights to have access to clean air and water. Baksil Forest Walk is a design that serves as a form of protest, to show what people actually want and need, as opposed to what the government and the developer have planned. Let’s just hope that the Walk stays intact, or even grows bigger, and that people can take care of it: keeping it clean, safe and comfortable. Let’s express our care for the site by enjoying the space, making it our playground – like HUB!, a community that concentrates on having fun activities at Baksil, does.

Save. Babakan. Siliwangi.

Bicycle Line: Repeating Mistakes?

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As a person who has spent about ten years living in The Netherlands, and as a believer in all the goodness of a bicycle, I got intrigued when an acquaintance posted a link at Twitter to a YouTube video about How The Dutch Got Their Cycle Path.

The video tells the history about how, in the early 70s, The Netherlands was full of cars. Buildings had to be demolished to make ways for cars. A lot of people rode their bikes, but since there’s no proper paths, road accidents bound to happen. It’s similar to our current condition here, where cars and other vehicles are kings, roads and highways are being made and getting wider, with very few considerations toward pedestrians and bicycles.

[Read also the blog: How the Dutch got their cycling infrastructure]

The remarkable lesson from this history is the struggle of the people to fulfill their demand: having proper bicycle lanes, which was also backed by political willingness. Authorities joined in the voice of the people in their demand, and therefore appropriate bicycle lanes could be provided. They started by having car-free days, then gradually changed the road plans (widening the lines for pedestrians and bicycles). As the result, city centers became entirely car-free up to today, and The Netherlands becomes among the most bicycle-friendly countries. Numbers of road accidents have been greatly declining within the decades, and roads become a safe space for children and elderly people.

Watching this video has brought to mind a comment from an exchange student from Germany who currently joins my Design & Sustainability class. We were discussing strategies for eco-design, when he said that Indonesia, as a developing country with a lot of resources, should be able to skip all the mistakes that advanced industrial countries made. The industrial countries are now ‘paying for their mistakes’ by ‘cleaning up the mess they’ve made’ in an expensive way, such as restructuring their infrastructures and facilities to become more humane.

Concerning the bicycle line, cars and roads. We are indeed going to the direction where cars are considered as having more rights to the roads, compared to pedestrians and cyclists. There’s no policy limiting the use and purchase of motored vehicles, not to mention the loose regulations and practices concerning driving licenses. Although people (including children and elderly people) keep using the roads as pedestrians, there’s no guarantee about their safety even in crossing the street or walking at the sidewalk (which, if available at all, are mostly occupied by street vendors). Bicycle paths, if any, are almost impossible to ride on, since they’re merely (fading) blue paints over existing paving block sidewalks, which are lined by electricity poles, etc. – and also are often blocked by parking cars and motorbikes.

Are we really going to repeat the mistakes of the developed countries, or even making worse mistakes? Do we really want to live in a world where human beings worth less than automobiles and motorbikes? Aren’t we concerned about the safety of our young children and our elderly parents?

Whatever the answers are, I’d refer to the lessons from the video: public demands can only be fulfilled if the authorities have the strong political will to change. Like Al Gore once said, during The Climate Project Asia Pacific Summit (January 2011):

“You can always change your light bulbs with the energy-saving ones, but it takes the government’s commitment to change the energy policy, to create significant impacts”

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P.S. I should also mention about the availability and improvement of public transportation facilities, since it is among the crucial factors of successful, well-planned mobility, especially within a dense urban area. But I’m sure you’ve got the point.