2021 Bakong Design Challenge
What is the 2021 Bakong Design Challenge?
Last August, Design Center Philippines invited designers, engineers, and creative-thinkers of student and professional backgrounds to participate in an opportunity to conceptualize and showcase an innovative circular design solution. In collaboration with WIP and Circulo, the idea was to challenge design-oriented thinkers (and doers) to construct solution-based ideas in response to ongoing problems and gaps. The challenge was designed to find new and circular ways to reinterpret bakong, a rare aquatic plant found in the heart of Cagayan.
Circulo head Carlo Delantar states “At the core of the Circular Design and this challenge is intention. Can we set out creating intentional products and services through an intentional circular material like Bakong?”
BUT FIRST, WHAT IS BAKONG?
Bakong or the Hanguana malayana, is a hydrophyte abundantly found in Bangalao Lake, which itself is located in the heart of Sta. Teresita, a municipality of Cagayan. A perennial rhizomatous herb commonly known for its fiber, bakong’s durability, flexibility, and narrative was deemed the appropriate material to challenge circular design thinking.
The challenge’s project manager Reinna Biaca states, “The vast potential [of bakong] is virtually untapped and that's the aim [of the project]—stretch the limits of bakong—its materiality and its circularity, to find out where it sits in the Filipino culture while rooted in the values of a feminine economy.”
THE CHALLENGE
From the submissions, 10 finalists were selected to join a two-day circular design workshop between August 28-29, 2021, where lecturers and mentors were able to engage in further discussions on their chosen ideas. However, only three groups emerged as finalists, granted with the following awards: a cash prize, technical assistance from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Fabrication Lab (FabLab) for prototyping, and the chance to exhibit the projects at the first ever Sustainability Solutions Expo on November 18-20, 2021
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The project essentially aimed to work in six ways. First, provide awareness on the wealth of Philippine indigenous raw materials and agricultural wastes and shift the belief towards the appreciation of locally made products. Second, spearhead technological impactful innovation by developing processed materials that cater to the needs of people through available technology in the Philippines. Next, spur economic impact by providing value to waste materials. Fourth, initiate ecological impact by using materials and processes that are sustainable and safe for the environment and do not produce toxic waste. Fifth, encourage legal impact through intellectual property (IP) filing to showcase the complete IP cycle through creation, protection and commercialization. And last but not least, promote circularity.
FOUR PILLARS
The challenge was rooted in four main pillars:
Circularity; zero-waste design, long-term usage, & efficient use of resources
Innovation; solution-based and responsible designs that are adaptive to consumers
Culture; grounding the narrative in our creative culture, history and community
Femininity; birthing empathetic solutions rooted in feminine core values
All four pillars coalesce to form the premise of the challenge, which itself took inspiration from the very composition of the prompt.
FINALIST SELECTION
The judges for the competition were ED Rhea Matute of Design Center of the Philippines, Carlo Delantar, and Noreen Bautista. For Delantar, innovation starts with tinkering with possibilities. As such, the finalist selection criteria is addressed with this idea in mind. “[Circular Design] explores systemic thinking by zooming out on system needs while also zooming on user needs. You can trace out that any movement or creation starts here.”
For the finalist selection, judges were given a standard criteria for deliberation, from which the top 10 groups were chosen based on their overall score. The criteria entries were: Capacity to Design, and Build a Bakong Solution (30%), Strength of Initial Idea, Passion and Interest in Circular Design (30%), and Commitment of Applicant/s & Team Composition (40%).
Talking about the three finalists, Biaca claims that the selected groups were chosen due to their faithful reinterpretation of the project’s four pillars. “[The chosen ideas] were deemed to be the most feasible given the current manufacturing and material constraints.” said Biaca.
The three finalists were Modabako by Leslie Angbue-Te and Angelo Raymund Uy, Malayana by Alyanna Carrion and Jam Cubelo, and Brakong by Jason Perchado, Minnie Pangilinan, and Marc Paul Lopez.
The final exhibition will be held on November 18-20, 2021 at the first Sustainability Solutions Expo. Delantar beams with an idealistic thought, “We’re excited about Bakong's capabilities and uses for the Circular World”—believing that we’re merely at the tip of the iceberg for a circular design-led future.