Jakarta Vertical Kampung Review

OHS Surabaya, Indonesia T +628563107662 E bintang.chairul.putra@gmail.com orangehousestudio.tumblr.com

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Behind the Event

JVK website banner

Jakarta Vertical Kampung Initiator

Jakarta Vertical Kampung is arranged by SHAU, and hosted by Erasmus Huis, Embassy of the Netherland. JVK is an International event focusing on the creative design exploration of the ‘Vertical Kampung’ concept in Jakarta. This event embodies a master class which is a 12 days long workshop, and then followed by a conference to present and discuss the workshop result, and closed by an exhibition showing the results.

SHAU itself, is an architecture firm based in Netherland, founded and directed by Florian Heinzelmann and Daliana Suryawinata.

Company

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The Good In-tention

The Vision of Combining Kampung and Verticality

The idea was inspired by Jakarta city itself, where the urban crises are mostly related to over-population or over-density. Which causes the growing amount of slums. And since horizontal expansions are no longer feasible, due to the urban-suburban distance issues, and the fact that the Greater Jakarta is already too big for the populace, the other alternative is to expand vertically. Stacking the ever-accumulating population on top of each other seems to be the closest alternative short-term solution. 

While the long term solution of the over-population issue is actually quite simple, if you don't want things to accumulate, you should spread it, redistribute the population to all area of the country. But at the same time, the implementation would be a little bit tricky. Because it would require the spread of the capital (as in money) to the whole nation, in order to lure the people to transmigrate to a more remote areas. Unfortunately, decisions involving capital, is as politically sensitive as ever. It can very easily be diverted into an ideological debate such as capitalism vs. socialism. Thus putting the execution out of our (engineers) hands. So, let's cope with this short-term solution for awhile.

First of all, started with Daliana’s presentation, she showed her concern about the top-down social housing development. There are numerous social housing projects in the world that end up in dissappointment. She used some examples such as the Pruitt-Igoe project, Kowloon, and De Biljmer project. All these vertical housing end up

demolished due to it's failure to provide a decent social environment for the residents.

Pruitt Igoe, Detroit

De Biljmer, Amsterdam

In the contrary, from the bottom up perspective, there are some communities who managed to organize themselves vertically. She used examples such as the Torre David project in Venezuela. A non-formal, vertical housing project documented by Alfredo Brillembourg of Urban Think Tank. Participatory development such as this, may give more benefit to the community, but it is not yet considered as ideal. As it has its own technical disadvantages. Most of the time, the capital gathered by participatory funding were not enough to afford standard architectural requirements, such as safety, and adequate materials.

These trade-off's for each of the development method demands us to study wether it is possible to find something in between both the top-down and bottom-up development.

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Torre David, Caracas

She concluded that, mono-functional structure such as pruitt igoe, De biljmer, and Kowloon is no longer considered sustainable. What Jakarta need, along with other developing cities, is a multi-programmatic structure based on community oriented development and cultural context. By considering these aspects, we can hopefully create an in-between alternative, to realise a sustainable vertical housing in Jakarta.

“What Jakarta need, along with other developing cities, is multi-programmatic structure based on a community oriented development and cultural context.”

Lesson From Existing Kampung Studies

Kampung however, is not a strange subject for researchers. There has been a handful of rigorous studies on the matter both by local and foreign researchers. Here, Shau invited some of them to give a short presentation/lecture about their study. Thus giving the participants a general picture of how kampung can be treated from the eye of an engineer. They are:

Ciliwung MerdekaFORKIM (Forum Pemukiman Jakarta)Yuli Kuswanto

They did provide plenty of useful information about the kampung. Especially on the socio-spatial perspective, which is one of the most significant aspect in designing any community spaces. They documented how kampung people adjust themselves in a less adequate environment (according to the industrial standards). And how a fixed rule is actually non-existent. Because kampung people tend to improvise, they are able to make use of various objects regardless of their original purpose. They continuously redesigns objects according to their need. Pointing out the fact that pre-designed object is less of a priority in kampung.

All of the projects done by the researchers above are also built from a communal consensus. They collaborate hand in hand with the local inhabitants and made their opinions matter. In Yuli Kuswanto's project for example, the people were given the chance to design their own houses. And the children are encouraged to speak out their dream of what is ideal housing by making a drawing of it.

It is vividly apparent that to develop an effective social housing requires community involvement. It is by their presence, an environment, a character, and a culture is built. Making the community (who the people are, what they do, where they are) as the meta-physical foundation of every kampung.

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The Masterclass

The Masterclass is a 12 days workshop involving young architects from anywhere to experiment on the possibilities of vertical kampung. The participants were then divided into 6 groups. Varying from 4 to 5 people per group with the addition of 2 teachers. There were six sites spread across Jakarta that are chosen for each group. They are:

Semanan - Our groupNagrakRorotanPenjaringanPenggilinganCibesut

Semanan county location on Jakarta Map

On the first and second day of the masterclass, the participants visited the site for roughly 3 - 4 hours. In order to cultivate as much information about the circumstances such as the existing building, community, commodity, economy, etc. and use the data for the design development.

Site location on Semanan County map

Each of the site offered unique situations. In case of the Semanan site, we found a very rare commodity for a metropolitan Jakarta, which is a paddy field and vegetable gardens. This green space occupied more than 80 percent of the site. The remaining 20 percent or less, is filled with non-formal village of the local farmers. There also happened to be a popular commodity from the nearby kampung, which is tempe (soy bean cake). 

Site map, showing agricultural area

Site map, showing non-formal residencial area

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The Awry Method

Designing Semanan, Vertically

Non-formal residence on the site

Given the agricultural dominance on the site, I assumed that we would create something to accommodate both the people and the agriculture at least 50-50. I assumed wrong.

Off course, the government had requested some very specific conditions for the site, such as: the number of residents, the maximum storeys/building height, they even provide the future master plan mapping of the site. Based on these data, it was clear that the government did not, in the slightest, consider sustaining the agricultural space.

It did not surprise me, these short-sighted-ness has become something of a norm in any government institutions lately. But, what is surprising is that our teacher directed us in fulfilling the government's targets almost unconditionally. With the argument of putting the client in the first priority. 

"In this day and age, we cannot lose anymore agricultural area" - Christophe Girot

By our teacher's guidance, we started designing the structure by calculating the Building Coverage Ratio, Floor

Area Ratio, Building Height, and other technical constraints. All in regards to the official government request and rules of the city planning. And then followed by the building programming.

Still though, Initially, we insisted in experimenting with shapes that accommodate the agriculture space, such as terracing and roof farming. But it had to be put aside once Shau mentioned about the budget constraint. Cheap, is one of the design requirements. Which makes the agriculture preservation even further off the reach.

Building programming process

"Architects and designers have the ability to create beautiful images and diagrams. let's use this to convince the government to do what is good for the people" - Alfredo Brillembourg

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What the Experts Say

There were two review sessions in the masterclass, mid and final review. In these sessions, each group had to present their work. The mid review were attended by Ton Venhoeven. While the final review were attended by handful of architects namely, Eko Prawoto, Budi Pradono, Yori Antar, Nanne de Ru, Stephen Cairns, Pitupong Chaowakil, Bin Kim, and Yonathan Pasodung.

After our presentation, they stood by with an enquiring stare. And judging from their comments we can feel that they didn't seem to be very satisfied with the result. 

"Sometimes, the solution is not in the design"

They were trying to point out that our presentations were too focused on the design. They expected something more from the perspective of the inhabitants. Most of the time, they were asking about the philosophy and concept. Such as what are the basis of the design decisions, what reflects the kampung organic and dynamic environment. etc. Nothing too technical.

If they were to ask our teacher, the answer would be very simple, -- organic and dynamic structures are expensive.-- But we didn't answer that, because it sounded pragmatic, so we explained the few kampung-influenced bits of our design. Which was rather gimmicky.

"Designing an affordable housing doesn't always mean the future of kampung"

It is clear that they view the design proposal to be too similar with the existing social housing structure. By these standards, we might succeed in designing an affordable housing. But they doubt that it would be the future model of kampung.

"It's the attitude to think about the kampung"

Bin Kim suggested that we need to reconsider our perception about kampung. It's still a common thing that people see kampung in a negative way, just like how we portray the word 'slum'. We need to remember that before industrial housing development, we only have kampung. Thus there must be a lot more potential to be cultivated, especially beyond the mere physicality.

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The Result

The View

Site planCommercial area

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The View

Public Spaces

Unit interior

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Conclusion

Although we (OHS) had things figured out even before joining the event, it is still a very remarkable workshop. It acts as the initial step towards a deeper study on kampung. The result from each group craves for further development. And the relationship between Shau and the government could also mean the greater possibility for kampung to be seek after officially. Thanks to Shau for the effort to consider the kampung side of the development, not every agency has the will to even take a look at kampung community. 

By this masterclass, we have the opportunity to learn about both kampung and urban development from diverse perspective, thanks to the great invitee from around the world. So hopefully, from this point forward, urban development will get better for the people in general, with ecology preservation in mind.

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Gallery

Erasmus Huis, JVK venue

Group discussion

Presentation by David Gianotten, OMA

Skype Presentation by Alfredo Brillembourg

Presentation by Pithupong Chauwakul, Super Machine

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Exhibition

Masterclass Group Panels

Our group members

Our Panel

The Studio

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