With the theme "Rethinking Public Spaces", the organizer hopes that the building designs made by students at this exhibition will not just be designs but can open people's minds to new solutions as an effort to adapt to the pandemic.

"This pandemic has changed many aspects of human life from various aspects, such as the economy, the environment, education, social, and others," said the Chairperson of the 2021 ITB Façade Exhibition, Dita Zulu Oriza (Architecture, 2019)

Dita said that the ITB Façade has a common thread about how humans interact. Most of the public spaces in Indonesia do not support the way humans interact during the pandemic. The organizers then try to find a way to adapt by designing public spaces that suit the community's needs.

The students' work in this exhibition results from closed judging that produces the ten best designs. The designs are presented for open evaluation. The concept of organizing this exhibition was adapted from the music phase, namely intro, chorus, and outro.

Uniquely, the concept of a phase of music is visual and a stage concept in the exhibition. Each song in the intro, chorus, and outro is also different. It adapts the message to be conveyed.

The intro section contains an introduction in the form of poetry and videos that describe the background of the problems raised in this exhibition, namely changes in human interaction during the pandemic. The chorus, the core or climax of a song, contains the students' works in this exhibition.

The solution in the form of a building design that is adaptive to the pandemic and brings elements of sustainability is divided into three, namely commercial, productive, and recreation. Commercial contains 11 designs of trading places, such as cafes, food courts, night markets, and markets. All participants included adaptation solutions in the form of building design, room arrangement, light openings, air circulation, and operational technicalities for the commercial premises.

Productive contains three building designs that function as co-working spaces and libraries. As the last part, Recreation contains eleven building designs that function as recreation and memorial places, such as music parks, huts, dog parks, and burial buildings for Covid-19 victims.

All designs in the chorus have site analysis, design concepts, such as looks, cuts, materials, and rendering. Meanwhile, the last part, the outro, is the exhibition's closing containing a poem that describes the organizers' expectations for the issue that is the theme of this exhibition.

In closing, Dita hopes that the ITB Faade will produce innovations in concepts and designs for architectural ways to respond to the post-pandemic Covid-19. He wants this exhibition to ignite the awareness and sensitivity of architecture students to the state of society by using building design as a solution to problems. That way, architecture students will be able to contribute to the progress of Indonesia through ideas and innovations in architectural concepts.

Reporter : Mirmanti Cinahya Winursita (Region and City Planning, 2019)
Translator : Billy Akbar Prabowo