A Month Full of Rendezvous; A Month Full of Design

Held for the first time back in 2017, Bandung Design Biennale (BDB) is a design festival initiated by Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF) and Forum Desain Bandung (FDB). It is one of the commitments of Bandung as a Design City of UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), a network that the city proudly joined in 2015 to create a real impact through its design potential.

Unlike the first time, this year’s Bandung Design Biennale was celebrated for a whole month, from 1 October to 1 November 2019. BDB had 133 participants and 89 events taking place all across the Greater Bandung area and was divided into four districts: Braga, Riau, Dago and Sukajadi. Synergising the fields of architecture, product design, interior design, graphic design, and innovation, the events held were in the form of exhibitions, open studios, design talks, design markets, and so on.

The theme for BDB 2019 was CIRCLE, which represents the whole “circle” of everyone involved in design activities: designers, makers and the public. It also resonates the message of Bandung as the Creative City Capital of Indonesia. This theme was divided into five categories: DIY (Do-it-yourself ), Experience, Sustainability, City, and Compact Living. DIY represents the many forms of experimenting and investigating to find and learn new things that will enhance both design thinking and production steps to create new products and systems. Experience is a bold

approach to take design to the next level. Sustainability comes from our concern for nature and the environmental crisis.

The city and its complexities have always been an exciting subject to learn and explore in order to find new solutions. Design plays big role in shaping a society and it has power to influence lifestyle. Compact Living is a new lifestyle that has spread throughout Bandung.

Through BDB it is hoped that the bond within the creative community in Bandung has strengthened and has opened lots of opportunities for them to collaborate in the near future and be able to inspire others overall. The CIRCLE theme is definitely what this whole month was about.