Global Forum: Conscious City (Bandung, Indonesia)

​20 July 2023, ITB Bandung, Indonesia

The AA Global Forum: Conscious City is a series of three global seminars that will bring together industry professionals, academics, students and local populations in Indonesia (Bandung), Brazil (Sao Paulo), and Germany (Berlin). The three geographical locations set the stage for an exploration of three themes in response to a rapidly changing natural environment – planetary architectural challenges regarding the relation between global production and supply chains, the forests and the city, and the metaspaces. Events are free and open to all, and they can be attended in person or online.

Global Forum Bandung will explore City making as a form of Geo-engineering, shaping the earth through production and global supply chains. Bandung and the wider region of Java are currently at the centre of a struggle for power in which global supply chain networks play the central role, and this entanglement of globalisation logistics and the urbanisation that is born out of them is framed by a dramatic loss of rainforest. Urban planning and construction has to become a form of geo-engineering to reverse or slow down the trends of global warming. The current IPCC reports suggests that ‘now is the time to act’, and they indicate the scale of adaptation our lifestyles require. The pact with nature, through the use of plankton, wood, bamboo and other bio-based materials in regenerative practices changing palm oil into bamboo husbandry and other equally radical but common sense transitions, is a chance to address some of the sudden changes as pathways for survival and offer some form of continuity of human life. Technological disruptions, combined with creative industry and design, place architecture and its cosmological narratives at the cultural centre of designing human habitats on this or other planets.

Global Forum Bandung Programme

Morning Session:

09:00 - 09:15: Registration and Welcome Address

09:15 - 09:20: Welcome Speech Dean SAPPD ITB

09:20 - 09:35: Introduction (Chair Prof. Raoul Bunschoten)

09:35 - 09:55: Sofian Sibarani (architect and urbanist URBAN+)

09:55 - 10:15: Dr. Ir. Kemal Taruc, M.Sc., MBA.

10:15 - 10:35: Prof. Raoul Bunschoten (TU Berlin)

10:35 - 10:50: Coffee Break and Networking

10:50 - 11:10: John Palmesino (Territorial Agency) – Online Presentation

11:10 - 11:30: Nahsin Mahtani (Climate Emergency Software Alliance)

11:30 - 12:00: Panel Discussion

12:00 - 13:00: Lunch Break

Afternoon Session:

13:00 - 13:15: Introduction (Chair: David Hutama, PhD, AA Alumni)

13:15 - 13:35: Hendro Sangkoyo (School of Democratic Economics)

13:35 - 13:55: Dr. Allis Nurdini + M. Jehansyah Siregar, PhD (ITB)

13:55 - 14:15: Marc Peeters (Bambu Nusa Verde)

14:15 - 14:35: Defit Wijaya (Ibuku)

14:35 - 14:55: Dr.-Ing. Andry Widyowijatnoko (ITB)

14:55 - 15:40: Discussion Session and Q&A

15:40 - 16:00: Closing Remarks and Wrap-up

16:00 - 17:00: Reception and Networking

The series has been organized by Raul Bunschoten with the Architectural Association and TU Berlin, in collaboration with ITB Bandung, Escola da Cidade, and the University of Sao Paulo.

AA Global Forums provide a space to learn, share and discuss architectural ideas and initiatives in a local context and through on-site meetings, lectures and workshops. AA Global Forums are made up of networks of AA alumni, students, staff, members and Visiting Schools, as well as other prospective students, international researchers, industry professionals and the wider public.

The AA Global Forum: Conscious City series will continue with meetings in Sao Paolo and Berlin in the Autumn.