ITB Students Revive Bandung Film Park and Bawet Field as Public Spaces

By Adi Permana

Editor Vera Citra Utami

Community event "dibawahjembatan" in returning the Film Park and Bawet Field as a public space in Bandung.

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – Four ITB students; Irfan Taufikurrahman Baskoro (14419018), Dheamyra Aysha Ihsanti (15419044), Kenjiro Amadeus Phan (15019086), and Donidarmawan Putra Gemilang (15419032), initiated a community called "dibawahjembatan".

Through this community, they envision turning the Film Park and Bawet Field into a safe, comfortable, and inclusive public space. They hope to create a more sense of belonging to public spaces.
To achieve this goal, they used the placemaking concept. In simple terms, placemaking is turning a public space into a place.

"If there is a place, it has people in it who care about that place. So public spaces are not the only ones usually called 'places'. However, it will also become a place that will have meaning for the people in it," Irfan said Tuesday (6/6/2023).

The placemaking concept was chosen because of its ability to increase community involvement in spatial planning. This concept is one way to achieve one of the SDG indicators: sustainable cities and communities.

The programs carried out by this community focused on two approaches - physical and non-physical approaches. Through a physical approach, they improved the existing infrastructure at the Film Park and Bawet Field. Furthermore, they also negotiated with the local community to use the Bawet Field for activities.

"This was previously used for travel parking, so we tried to negotiate. Finally, for now it can be used as a field as usual. For the Film Park, we have made renovations, the most concrete being the toilets since the last ones were barely usable. Then for others, maybe garden lights toon," Irfan added.

They made a series of activities targeting the local community for the non-physical approach. This activity was held as an activation of the park and field.

According to Dhea, the activities carried out by the community were very diverse. Examples are activities with sustainability,k exercise, and futsal matches, and activities for specific communities such as K-pop Outing.

"We want to show that this public space is inclusive and everyone can come. So each of our events has a different target market, for example, the first one being English Day. We invited several communities to teach English to kindergarten and elementary school children," Dhea said.

Apart from that, she stated that there was also a Dewantara event, a tutoring agenda for high school students to study for UTBK preparations.

Currently, the community has 30 volunteer members consisting of ITB students from various majors, such as Urban and Regional Planning, Architecture, Astronomy, Management, Entrepreneurship, Industrial Engineering, Engineering Management, and Civil Engineering.

The event team of dibawahjembatan consisted of Phineas Timothy (Chemical Engineering, 2020), Rafly Aditya Dwi Putra (Chemical Engineering, 2020), and Mikaila Mazaya (Engineering Management, 2021).

Dhea hoped that the physical intervention that has been carried out could last a long time and that the community would have a sense of ownership of the Film Park and Bawet Field. She also left a message to the community to consistently maintain this public space.

Meanwhile, Irfan hoped that this public space intervention would not only be carried out by the dibawahjembatan community in the future. He hoped that other communities in Bandung City would participate in revitalizing this public space.

On the other hand, Kenjiro hoped that young people, especially students in Bandung, could maximize existing public spaces.

"This is so that public spaces in Bandung can be more active and become a safe and comfortable place for everyone," he explained.

Reporter: Arif Hermawan (Civil Engineering, 2021)
Translator: Hanna Daniela Ayu (Aerospace Engineering, 2021)