Recognising value where extractive systems see waste through collaborative co-design, sacred interventions and traditional knowledge.
Community Development and Creative Industry course by Dr. Adhi Nugraha & Dr. Prananda L. Malasan.
Bandung, July 3, 2025
This book presents various design project proposals by master’s students at the Faculty of Art and Design (FSRD) at ITB. These design projects are an integral part of the Community Development and the Creative Industry (ComDev) course. The creative industry remains a prominent topic within the context of Indonesia’s economic development, not only for its potential economic contributions but also because it fundamentally requires community engagement. That’s why, in Indonesia, the growth of the creative industry is inseparable from the empowerment of local communities.
The central theme of the ‘Kinship through Rice’ project, integrated into the ComDev course, explores how the diverse traditions of rice cultivation in Indonesian society, interconnected with social behaviours, artistic expressions, and material craftsmanship, can be sustained. This is achieved by transforming, redesigning, and merging them with contemporary lifestyles and advancements in science and technology. In Indonesia, this process of cultural transformation is often strongly tied to community empowerment and the growth of the creative industry. Throughout this project, which included fieldwork in Bali and West Java, these three vital elements, tradition preservation, the creative industry, and community development have been skillfully woven together by the students, shaping them into working concepts and design implementations based on social, cultural, and creative economic approaches. This is reflected in their various compelling design proposals.
In conceptualizing these ideas, the students employed a multi-disciplinary approach combined with participatory design. The goal was to generate proposals that extend beyond purely technical or economic concerns to also encompass social, cultural, and environmental dimensions. All the ideas presented in this book are in their early stages and require further development. However, they establish a promising direction and, more importantly, inspire hope. They show that a wealth of ideas can be generated from agricultural byproducts, like rice straw and husks, that can bring significant benefits to local people instead of simply being burned.
Credit: All ideas in this book are regenerative design project proposals by master’s students at the Faculty of Art and Design (FSRD) at ITB. These design projects are an integral part of the Community Development and the Creative Industry (ComDev) course.