ASF-ID WORK 2015-2016

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Architecture projects

2015 2016 ASF-ID WO R K ARCHITECTURE SANS

FRONTIÈRES INTERNATIONAL ASF-Int was founded as a result of an increased interest in social and environmental issues in relation to the built enviroment and dissatisfaction with ethical standards of mainstream architecture. Architecture Sans Frontières Indonesia figures as one of its active member.

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MAPPING PASIRLUYU

Architects and volunteers have been meeting and working together with the people living in the kampung of Pasirluyu in Bandung, reminiscing the physical and social fabric throughout the last six decades of Bandung’s urban development.

Existing since the 60’s, Pasirluyu shaped the collective memory of its inhabitants.

Dwellers still remember the scattered houses along side the bamboo fields and the river that represented freedom of use and served for public utility. In 1991, the kampung developed into a dense urban settlement, slowly cropped by the newly

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Yayasan Pengembangan Biosains dan Biotebuilt ring road. Since then, ongo- knologi and Kuncup Padang ing urban speculation are evict- Ilalang farm in Bandasari, ing kampung dwellers in favour Bandung Regency, promotes of supermarkets, showrooms, permaculture principles. ASFID, together with the farm staff, shops, warehouses and offices.

ASF-ID works with two Rukun Warga (RW) communities, ini- + YPPB & KAIL tiating mapping and discussions on kampung needs and living conditions, from yesterday to its future aspirations. Collective history, housing mapping, diagrams and sketches are gathered in participatory efforts. This is an ongoing process, seen as a foundation work in order to take actions on necessary self-help upgrading and activities.

Indonesia (ASF-ID), is a non-profit and participatory organisation with commitment to social justice, culture, and environment working through architecture, construction, and urbanism.

ASF-ID was founded on May 15th, 2015 in Bandung by community architects, apprentices and architecture teachers. ASF-ID is working in the fields of alternative construction technologies, bamboo architecture, participatory design and community planning.

Financial capacity is obtained through members fee, donations, and services. During our first year, ASF-ID has been working with communities that are in needs of architects. Through our awareness, ASF-ID takes part in non-governmental public sectors.

[July-Dec 2015]

The Bamboo Biennale 2016, HOPE, to be held in October 1st-22th in Surakarya, will host workshops, competitions, projects, and seminars on bamboo construction. Several bamboo works from artists and architects will be exhibited in the Vastenberg Fort, Solo.

ASF-ID will be designing and building a pedestrian bridge

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BAMBOO MAPPING

A series of bamboo mapping and participatory research were conducted by ASFID in Bandung Regency area.

The research was conducted to understand the influence of bamboo plantings in ecologic, economic and sociocultural aspects in kampung Badaraksa Kidul. The research’s outcome were submitted to Parahyangan Bamboo Nation 2.

Though bamboo displays an important role ecologically and economically, a clear insufficient understanding of bamboo potentials in the modern world remains, engaging few interest in kampungs residents.

Private companies claimed bamboo lands for plantation and open pit mining, resulting in a great quantity loss of bamboo. However, bamboo clumps in Badaraksa Kidul carries an

impact on the soil’s condition and on its ecosystem, residents now face problems in fresh water supply. From an ecological, economical and sociocultural aspect, Badaraksa Kidul has the potential to supply in bamboo.

Entrepreneurship development, knowledge intensification and bamboo plantings treatment could be identified. ASF-ID firmly believes that a bamboo culture would help the upgrading of kampung’s ecosystem and economy.

COHOUSING TONGKOL

The construction of the house in Tongkol, “rumah contoh” built along Anak Kali Ciliwung river beside the colonial fortess in North Jakarta, is a prototype representing the development of an upgrading process in kampungs. The house is a result of self-help organisation and cooperation by kampung people and various parties. In mid 2015, through the Ciliwung river revitalisation project, the government ordered the eviction of riparians, clearing 300 houses.

Anticipating the events, the residents of Kampung Tongkol, Krapu, and Lodan, showed beliefs that eviction is not the only way and delivered various solutions of kampung upgrading. In November 2015, through the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), the Tongkol house project was accepted a grant for the production of prototype houses. Together

with ASF-ID and volunteers, a first 3 storey co-housing prototype was built. Simultaneously, the Anak Kali Ciliwung Community, cut the structure of all buildings for the 5 meters riverside inspection road. Workshops and trainings of bamboo preservation and construction were held with people and volunteering architects. These workshops served as a precious knowledge and skill exchange platform.

[Jan 2016 – ongoing]

+ Bamboo Biennale Universitas Katolik Parahyangan

Workshops

#1 BAMBOO & PERMACULTURE

During the construction phase of the Soreang farm in December 2015, ASFID organised a two day public bamboo workshop. A total of 10 participants from Jakarta, Bandung, and Yogyakarta gathered to learn, practice and discuss bamboo construction and perma+ YPBB

Bamboo Biennale Bridge

PASAR RAKYAT

A 3 day community bazar in Bukit Duri, was organised by Ciliwung Merdeka and Bukit Duri people to assert residents action and status in the eviction-prone kampung. These evictions are part of flood mitigation and Ciliwung normalisation government program.

The bazar was seen social and cultural interaction space with installations, performances, discussions…Taking part in

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the event, ASF-ID organised a bamboo workshop of the Grasshopper Tent for the market with locals and Ciliwung Merdeka.

Grasshopper is a bamboo structure for a tent whose frame consists of two identical modules that leans outward covered by fabricIts which act as a formactive surface. The pair is connected with steel bolts allowing the frame to be dismantled and relocated easily.

MAPPING NANGKASUNI

Community Service (CS) is one of the programs of the Architecture Department Student’s Association (HMPSARS) at the University of Parahyangan held each year.

Students organised this year’s event slightly differently: CS didn’t bring any plans to the kampung, instead, theybrought a blank sheet of paper and an empty mind, a tabula rasa, ready to listen to the local residents. A tabula rasa attitude is necessary to absorb as much information as possible, obtained through observations, interviews and focus group discussion (FGD)

with kampung dwellers. FGD meetings provide an opportunity for each participants to jointly collect, analyse and formulate the problems in the village. FGD, as a bridge, confounds perception bias between students, women, men, and young dwellers. This method called participatory action research (PAR) produced inclusive research documents oriented to design short and long term solutions for everyone involved.

The documentation of the kampung launched the first step of ASF-ID and CS joint intervention in Nangkasuni kampung, Bandung.

STRUKTUR BAMBU

STRUKTUR SIRKULASI BAMBU

Mapping Pasirluyu

Grasshopper Tent at Pasar Rakyat Bukit Duri

[March 2016]

A series of university visits in April and May 2016 started with ASF-ID’s presentation on architecture and participation at the Flores University in Ende. Several lectures followed on community bamboo architecture, bamboo construction and tectonics held at the Universidade da Paz in Dili, East Timor (6th of May) and at

[21-22 November 2015]

the Universitas Widya Mandira in Kupang (10th of May).

Talks on community architecture were also held at the University of Indonesia in Depok on 11th of May. ASF-ID gave a lecture on psycho-social and humanitarianarchitecture at the Indonesian Institute of Architects of West Java chapter on the 26th of May.

[May-June 2016]

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NEPAL FUNDRAISING

On 25 of April, 2015, the valley of Kathmandu in Nepal was hit by a devastating earthquake taking nearly nine thousands lives. Infrastructure was damaged, transportation was disabled; therefore fast response was unable to be delivered immediately.

Through CAN network in indonesia, ASF-ID collaborated with Labo architecture office to collect funds through out major cities in the country. Pecha Kucha nights were held in Bandung and Yogyakarta to present the project Pecha Kucha Night is a sharing night in which assorted speakers present their causes in 20 x 20 (20 slides-20 seconds) Pecha Kucha presentation style. Bandung’s Pecha Kucha Night was

organised in LABO architecture office on the 23 rd of May, 2016 and Yogyakarta’s Pecha Kucha Night followed the 29 th of May, 2015 at the Greenhost Hotel. A donation box was set up at architecture campuses of Parahyangan Catholic University, Gadjah Mada University, at the University of Indonesia.

Fundraising activities were organised at The Jakarta Montessori School and in parallel, ASF-ID launched a fund raising t-shirt sell. Collected fund was handed over to the representative of Kathmandubased Lumanti Support Group for Shelter, during Community Architects Network meetings in Antipolo, Philippines (27/06) and in Jakarta (19/10).

[May-June 2015]

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SCHOOL PLANNING

ASF Indonesia was given the chance, along with a number of Indonesian architecture offices, to participate on the preliminary design of several schools from the Ministry of Education and Culture program: Sekolah Garis Depan.

The program includes the building of new units and the revitalisation of existing middle schools along Indonesia’s furthest borders.

In keeping with architecture

without borders spirit, ASF-ID conducted participatory mapping and brainstorming sessions with schools (SMA 2 Atambua, SMA 1 Tasifeto Timur, SMK Yos Sudarso & SMP N 1) in Ende, Flores and Belu, Timor.

The ongoing design process wishes to accommodate the schools needs, highlighted during the participatory sessions, as well as engaging with local resources, academics and vernacular architecture.

“Reporting from the front” is ASF-ID participation in Indonesialand 2016 exhibition in Selasar Sunaryo of Bandung.

ASF-ID is trying to represent how architecture works with civil society per its spatial complexity and social spheres. Architecture does not only merely work in architectural design corridor.

Architecture intersects with various disciplines and stakeholders by its design penetration and knowledge sublimation. Through bottom-up and participatory works, architecture may offer and provide shared workspace for society.

Unpredictable reports are expected to give feed backs as to how ideal community architecture works, in accordance with ASF-ID’s principles. Various encountered knowledge, disciplines and society complexity become a dynamic platform enabling architects to work with divers variants in community’s imagination. The works are then creating proletariat productionconsumption relations which are no longer considered as elitist by the public’s opinion, just like is mainstream architecture. This work formation surely generates tensions; intellectual, social, economical, and political tensions that accompany the existing complexity.

N°1Transitional shelter After Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

by Bryan Auman The first Brown Bag Session speaker was Bryan Auman, a philipino community architect and team leader at the Institute for Planning and Design from the San Carlos University in Cebu, Philippines. Auman worked on building transitional shelter for families affected by typhoon Haiyan. On November 8, 2013 the typhoon battered Philippines central region

[May 2016 – ongoing]

Brown bag sessions

These artefacts will convey how countless information is coming from the fronts.

This contextual architectural paperwork will be delivered as visual artefacts. Conceptually, the architectural paperwork is in close proximity with the grass-root society, with whom architects build together. The paperwork is participatory and legitimatised as shared efforts, various disciplines, multiple stakeholders all in an architectural space.

Reporting from the front then gets its appropriation space to be presented as an exhibition format. This presentation (artistic, cultural, social and political) will be compacted in a spacetime compression.

“Reporting from the front” embodies a number of productions and activity processes done by ASF-ID in Jakarta; therefor presenting a sectional model of the Prototype House in Kampung Tongkol as well as the Grasshopper Tent from Pasar Rakyat Bukit Duri momentum in April 2016 at the exhibition.

The kampung atmosphere will be materialised through a soundscape installation between the two models. As of works in Bandung, ASF-ID will present a bamboo construction of the bamboo hall farm (see #4) .

And lastly, a catalogue of black and white photos and panels of relics will

“The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” is an american documentary by Chad Friedrich about the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project in the 1960s St. Louis, Missouri, USA. The massive housing project was demolished before it reached two decades of occupancy. Its downfall has often been seen as the failure of modernist architecture.

The film exposes the social, the racial and the economic context of America’s public housing program at that time.

ASF-ID contacted the director of the acclaimed documentary to be granted permission to screen the film as a response to the unimaginative and obsolete policy of public housing in Indonesia.

Indonesian subtitles were written for the wider understanding of the film, and a screening kit was distributed and made accessible to public for fellow communities or civil society to conduct screening all around Indonesia.

A first screening was held at the Architecture Department of the Institut Teknologi in Bandung.

Since, viewing sessions have been held in Yogyakarta, Solo, Makassar, Semarang, Depok and Jakarta.

INDONESIA The Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia.

Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is the world's largest island country, with more than thirteen thousand islands. With a population of over 258 million people it is the world's fourth most populous country as well as the most populous Muslim majority country. Indonesia's republican form of government includes an elected legislature and president. Indonesia has 34 provinces, of which five have Special Administrative status.

Indonesia consists of hundreds of distinct native ethnic and linguistic groups. The largest – and politically dominant – ethnic group are the Javanese. A shared identity has developed, defined by a national language, ethnic diversity, religious pluralism within a Muslim-majority population, and a history of colonialism.

Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support the world’s second highest level of biodiversity. The country has abundant natural resources like oil and natural gas, tin, copper and gold. Agriculture mainly produces rice, tea, coffee, spices and rubber

wikipedia source Area 1 904 569 km2 Population 255 461 700 hab President Joko Widodo Climate Tropical monsoon Highest peak Puncak Jaya 4 884m Latitude 11°S, 6°N Longitude 95°E, 141°E

These tensions will be reported

by ASF-ID directly from the fronts, straight from the sources tell a silent story of how ASFthat are produced-consumed as ID has been working since the sublimation and metaphor ef- its foundation up to this day. forts of architecture, in multiple visual artefacts.

[Sept-Oct 2016 ] + Indonesialand 2016 Selasar Sunaryo Gallery

ASF-ID 1st General Assembly on 30 July 2016 in Bandung.

The cross-cities screenings are possible for inter-communities work, academic groups, practicing enthusiasts, and civil societies. For any screening inquiries, feel free to contact the ASF-ID Secretariat.

Publications

[June 2016- Ongoing]

PANELS The Puitt-Igoe Myth screening at Jakarta Legal Aid

and exposed the vulnerabilities of vernacular houses. Rehabilitation and reconstruction process will take years to complete, but the safety and security of the inhabitants were immediately needed. I-siguro Da-an (meaning safety first) transitional shelter presents simple plan and design that considers acceptable typhoon risks with reliable method, making it affordable and effective. The Shelter’s open-source design allows adoption by various humanitarian organisations enabling hundreds of units to be built. event hosted by Yenny Gunawan

[9thApril 2016]

-ASFAW, Rhizomatic Kampung proposal panels for Architecture Sans Frontières Award 2015 -ASF-ID at the CAN Manila Workshop 2015 -ASF-ID, Riparian Frontiers for Confronting Informality Symposium 2016, TU Delft

ACADEMIC PAPERS

BROWN BAG SESSIONS

The Brown Bag Sessions series are public lecture sessions held at the ASF-ID secretariat in Bandung.

Cohousing project at Kampung Tongkol.

INDONESIALAND

THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH

+ HMPSARS Unpar, KMTA Wiswakharman UGM, PKN Bandung, PKN Jogja, Montessori School Jakarta, Community Architects Network (Bangkok), Lumanti Support Group for Shelter (Kathmandu)

asf.or.id SIRKULASI UTILITAS

LECTURES AND FORUMS

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Campaign & Discussions

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ASF indonesia

AKSONOMETRI

In the development, ASF-ID then facilitated bamboo exploration for roof trusses and canopies. A 2 day workshop was put together to teach bamboo constructions process for future autonomous construction. The team learned from a hands-on practice with communities as much as communities learned from the team.

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Geography

Exhibitions

Bamboo Hall Farm

+Kemendikbud

home@asf.or.id

Ngopi Sore meetings are afternoon talk sessions organised by ASF-ID in Bandung, that brings together the public with local architectural communities to talk about contemporary issues.

+ UPC & Komunitas Anak Kali Ciliwung

Grasshopper Tent

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NGOPI SORE SESSIONS

April 2016, hosting discussions on school facilities in eastern culture. Participants learnt the Indonesia, as a preparation for bases of construction with local ASF-ID to carry out participabamboo such as bamboo cuttory surveys in east Indonesia ting, bamboo pins making, confor Ministry of Education’s nection rings making and bolt school programs. Among parconnections. Night discussions, ticipants were Papuan students lectures and knowledge sharing N°1 Quinta Monroy Social Hous- and young professionals with were held each evenings. ing regional experience.

The First Ngopi Sore session, [5 - 6 December 2015] held on the 23rd of January 2016, opened with the screening of [January 2016- Ongoing] Chile Barrio: Quinta Monroy Social Housing Documentary

by Elemental followed by discussion on the mater focusing on similar indonesian cases.

BAMBOO ROOF

As part of a river bank upgrading program in Kampung Tongkol, in Jakarta, ASF-ID and Urban Poor Consortium designed a prototype house of 2 floors (see #3 Cohousing Tongkol). Architects assisted the community in building the prototype house using reinforced concrete columns and gypsum bricks, fitting within the river setback to not break any rules.

[March 2016]

+ Ciliwung Merdeka & Bukit Duri resident

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Kali Ciliwung

AKSONOMETRI

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N°2 Primary Education Facility and Architecture in East Indonesia Coinciding with national commemoration day for women emancipator Kartini, the second session was held on the 21st of

[Nov-Dec 2015]

+ UPC & Komunitas Anak

Architecture Sans Frontières Indonesia Jl Kota Baru 32A, Bandung, 40252 INDONESIA

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to be sited on a river nearby the venue. The 18m span bamboo bridge will be one of the entry points toward the exhibition.

ASF-ID encourages the design and construction process of the bridge, to be though together with a team of volunteering architects and engineers as well as with academics.

Bamboo Hall Farm

Early 2016, families moved back in and completed their house with murals, doors, windows and furniture. This project has proved it possible for residents to live in harmony with the river and the heritage fortress, a win-win + HMPSARS Unpar design and upgrading solution, other than harsh eviction or rental public housing. The residents proved their power to selforganise and improve their own environment for the better.

ASF-ID and its people Alfan, Amira, Andrea, Ariel, B.A, Brahm, Brian, Dette, Dennis, Devil, Frans, Gustav, Herlily, Ivana, Kamil, Klaus, Kristo, Maurin, Margaux, Siska, Sri, Vani, Ujie, Usie, Take, Theresia, Yantri, Yenny, Yusni & many more

©ASF-ID, all rights reserved

BAMBOO BRIDGE

Perween Rahman Fellowship 2015

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Architecture Sans Frontières

local workers, and workshop volunteers built a bamboo hall responding to the farms need.

The project explored a sustainable design using biogas sanitation system, solar panels, local bamboo and materials.

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[May 2015 – ongoing]

[May – August 2015] + Parahyangan Bamboo Nation 2

WHAT IS ASF-ID ?

BAMBOO HALL FARM

-Bamboo as Building Material: Early Findings in Badaraksa Kidul Village, for Parahyangan Bamboo Nation 2,

by Usie & Siska, July 2015 -Bamboo Architecture for Sustainable Communities, for Parahyangan Bamboo Nation 2, by Andrea, July 2015

Photo attribution,“ the demolition of Pruitt -Igoe”, courtesy of Ramroth, 1972

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TOTE-BAG CAMPAIGN

LEAFLETS & BOOKLETS

To continue the spreading of good news and spirit from Rumah Contoh KampungTongkol, ASF-ID campaigned a totebag merchandise. The infamous drawing of the Rumah Contoh project (see #3 Cohousing Tongkol) that displays the house section; shared spaces, basic infrastructures, bamboo structure and spatial relationship to the river and heritage fortress are handprinted to tote-bags.

Part of the profit goes to support Komunitas Anak Kali Ciliwung.

[April-June 2016]

Discussion during Parahyangan Bamboo Nation II

# Ciliwung

Belu vernacular architecture survey

-10 Ciri Rumah Contoh, with Komunitas Anak Kali Ciliwung - Kampung Nangkasuni, with Pengabdian Masyarakat HMPSARS Unpar

issuu.com/asfindonesia

blog.asf.or.id

Kampungs in Jakarta

2015 2016 ASF-ID TOPIC KAMPUNG:

This Indonesian term, originally describes a small clustered human settlements, in other words, a village. Kampungs are homes to Southeast Asian communities with well-knitted bond among its members. Human relations are warm and intimate.

Today, this term has been associated with social segregation issues where urban zones expand rapidly eating small and poor communities located in precious areas in the city.

A kampung becomes a wart to hide pressingly.

Vernacular Architecture

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Kampungs have long settled in areas that today represent places of interest and conflict. In Jakarta, Kampungs have grown along the river banks, occupying fragile lands, sensible to floods and are constantly subject to evictions.

Others have found spaces along the railway, next to the highway, under toll roads and bridges.

These informal settlements have rised on difficult, dangerous, noisy and unhealthy lands.

Most of the kampungs settled in Jakarta are found in the old town, kota tua, hidden behind industrial compounds and historical buildings.

Finding access to these houses are quite a challenge, as one has to enter unwanted grounds to discover the magic atmosphere that these kampungs keep away from the dull growing city.

Though nowadays, kampungs might refer to one as slums and shanty towns, they represent all that the city has slowly swallowed. These human settlements still bear samples of historical times, of community and shared spaces, of village life, of human cohabitation.

These villages contribute to the urban character and economy of metropolises, all the more in Jakarta.

Kampungs are the essence of the city, showing off the real meaning of the right to the city, of architecture for the people by the people.

If we zoom in one of the most studied kampung areas by ASF-ID in Jakarta, Kampung Tongkol represents a very good sample of any other kampung issues in the city. Settled along the ciliwung river, Kampung Tongkol is based right in Jakarta’s historical town, and is expanding beside the famous historical Batavia warehouse.

Indeed, like any other unhealthy settlement, Tongkol is subject to evictions, floods and the collapsing of the warehouse.

But this informal little cluster of 50 houses holds various sharing spaces, enhances human relations and neighborhoods interactions among its residents, and shows a great mix of use of space: work, home and social interaction.

With the help of ASF-ID, this kampung has seen a brighter future and new possibilities to stand against imminent evictions. The Cohousing Tongkol project shows that gentrification isn’t the only option, and that the people are able to selforganise themselves to find a compromising solution to gouvernment’s actions and people’s wishes.

Land sharing

one building, four units, three storeys for well-knitted multi-family residence.

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Shared stairs and corridors river

rice paddies

train

urban zone

city limit

kampung dwellings

road network

industrial zone

mountain

industrial & commercial buildings

tree

CILIWUNG RIVER

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kampung zone

Informal urban settlements

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10 commandements: Build your own home

KEY MAP

Rural-Urban Linkage

JAKARTA

in order to get the maximum and spacious living areas.

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Single water supply system

for two bath/toilet units with one septic tank, filtration of kitchen wastewater. One power connection / meter.

#4

Bamboo roof

and canopy trusses, an environmental-friendly building material. The bamboo should be treated to resist pests and fungal attack and made permanent

#5

Sufficient airflows and natural light

for each room to avoid excessive humidity, and the use of lamps during the day.

#6

Reuse of materials

(stairs, wood beams, etc.) from the torn building to enhance cost-effectiveness.

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Community bonding

Adults build and children paint; to strengthen togetherness and the sense of belonging.

Java sea

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City

Historical awareness

Indonesian Flag

to maintain and care for the environment.

As architects, it is vital to constantly redefine architecture’s boundaries.

Global architecture discourse is now leaning to big cities pointing out informality issues and the existence of dense and dilapidated settlements. The architecture field is more and more openned to participatory planning and design knowledge, as well as facilitation expertise.

Indonesian cities are facing dire and latent urban growth. The capital, Jakarta, is experiencing the harshest urban meltdown comparing to other cities in the country. One notion, too often put aside

by governments, has proven to deliver what architecture has long forgotten: informal urban settlements teach architects and politicians a great lesson on modesty and solidarity.

Informality holds potentials.

Far from being helpless and dull, informal settlements have proven to be agile, adabtable and a source of infinite architectural solutions. Informal urban areas present great resilience and offer original sustainable solutions.

Whether it’s in an economical or urban context, informality exists and it spreads everywhere. The specificity of informality is its permeable sheath interacting with its context, showing greater chances of upholding sustainable values.

People living in informal settlements know where to find immediate resources to survive in limited conditions. They know how to rely on each other, great solidarity grows from these environments, their live in total autarky.

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BANDUNG

Bandung, a member of UNESCO creative city forum, is known as a culinary spot, a fashion center, and a weekend fiesta spot for Jakarta upper-middle class dwellers.

The city center was designed during dutch colonialism, earning its nickname: Paris van Java.

Kampungs have settle in Bandung’s urban fabric long before recollection. Unlike the northen and central part of Bandung, the southern part of the city was not built by the colonials.

South Bandung was known during the pre-Independence revolution time as an area of resistance. Divided from the north by the train tracks which cut through the city,from east to west, south Bandung is subject to major segregation and social issues, representing the poorest part of the city. Main kampungs area are found south from the railway track.

Pasirluyu urban kampung located south Bandung, is settled nearby streets named after Bandung youth heroes. The kampung sits on the Cikapundung river banks, the largest river flowing from upper north to southern Bandung. ASF-ID took interest in this kampung, pointing out that formality and informality constitutes an urban reality. Pasirluyu faced important changes over decades slowly tranforming into a dense urban settlement. One major cause is the construction of the inner city ring road crossing over the kampung changing its face quite drastically. Today, the neighbourhood, cut in half by the main ring road, is hidden behind rows of commercials and 90’s newly built housings.

Settled along the river, health and safety issues become reasonable excuses for local gouverment to proceed with evictions.

CIKAPUNDUNG RIVER

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In a post-calamity environment, with both mental and economic scars, residents show their “can-do” ability.

Bandung City may be at a slower pace than Jakarta, yet it is maintaining a connection with the capital city. One eviction incident occurred in 2015 where a riverside settlement of 40 families was moved into vertical housings because they were deemed informal, despite having living there for decades.

Later, their lands were converted by the National Public Works office, into a public park.

City river banks

Kampungs in Bandung

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Taking a closer look at informality is taking a step farther to accepting that informality and formality are intertwined fluids in an urban setting. Living side by side, these two notions are soluble and insoluble.

ASF-ID had the chance to meet people in this very setting, through planning, designing, and construction perspectives.

In two cities, Bandung and Jakarta, 180 km apart, our team walked into different urban context and cases. During 2014-2016 Jakarta’ s informal urban areas faced harsh evictions. Unfortunatly people are not aliens to the potential threats and stigmatisations of these events. Media has shown attention to these ongoing evictions, dividing the public opinion for or against informal urban settlements. As media has all eyes set on Jakarta’s fate, other cities are left for account, victim of unpublicised severe evictions.

People have shown great resilience to evictions and in no time kampung dwellers are back on their feet, ready to rebuilt what was taken from them. This phenomenon happens quicker when the victims are out of the media’s spotlight.

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#9 Ecology

Urban areas on the river banks are spaces of negotiation, contestation, struggle and cooperation. These spaces form and are formed by the working classes, by ethnicity, by politico-economic relations and by multi-cultural differences.

Urban landscape are unquestionable space for globalisation, existing within cluster of infrastructure and through cultural channels created by rapid flows of migration, urbanisation, community, commodity and labours as defined in modern society.

Urban spaces along the river banks are true representation forms of those elements in society’s daily practice, prepackaged in specific administrational boundaries such as city, regency and state.

Daily practices are banal challenges to project the everchanging of life, including when the political powers have to map an area.

Urban spaces on the river banks are spatio-temporal fixes that are contested in blesseddisastrous conditions as well as in capital accumulation that is accelerating in that very same

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Riverfront as shared lawn

Maintaning a five-meter wide river lane inspection. Residents become river stewards: they provide rubbish bins and organise monthly cleaning days.

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Throughout the year 2015, poor communities living in Kampungs were haunted by massive eviction from Jakartan government. Most of these evictions took place in several kampungs located by the riverside, such as Kunir in May, Kampung Pulo in July and recently in Bukit Duri in south Jakarta.

These events alarmed other communities to act fast

The linkage between urban and rural plays an important role in generating income, jobs and wealth. The indicator of sustainability and metabolism, a checking process that connects the urban-rural becomes important to see how this open metabolic cycle will work in the future. The interface of urbanrural gives fragmented working-corridors, organisational inertia and inability to fulfil an inclusive development.

Development orientation and strategy that spins the metabolic wheel of urban-rural must be improved according to the geospectrum character distribution to level the urban and rural.

Information, modern communication technology and digital revolution creates an urbanrural landscape on a social and capital distribution axis that is systematic but untraceable as a steady development infrastructure. Decentralisation and delocalisation contemporarily springs in urban-rural relationship so that dependency from rural to urban as administration, commercial and cultural hub can also support spatial decoupling for urban-rural inclusivity.

Bamboo construction space as a form of state sovereignty. Spatio-temporal fixes are consequences of capital accumulation that desires to detach itself of its contradictory territorial logics. Capital and territorial logics intersect in cooperation as well as collision, because territorial (geo) is stationary meanwhile capital (eco-politics) is dynamic.

Thus capitalism and spaces are related in spatio-temporal fixes with various forms in daily practices of people on the river banks.

The daily practices in certain spaces are social site and rite that can be used to define and understand spatial and contestation dynamics. Spatial contestation encompasses various issues such as people relationship to land use, here, the river banks. In daily spatial configuration level, the people will experience different challenges related to resiliency, adaptation and life risk. The struggle for space used in spatial intersections occurs from culture and capacity in a globalised capital accumulation context. The stage is an important intervention for political identity and representation of people and their spaces.

River banks evictions

Awareness on natural riparian environment by maintaining trees that shades and bear fruits.

Urban-rural nexus gives geo-spectrum landscape through geo-spatial, geopolitic, and geo-economy that keeps experiencing changes through time, open cycles and through spatial metabolism.

Urban-rural nexus is reflected through urbanisation transformation that complexly creates connections. Urbanisation has transformed the face of urbanrural relationship, thus affecting sustainable systems and spatialmetabolism cycles.

Rural area aren’t developing as quick as the city, therefor urban areas become magnets with their attractive light show. But rapidly, cities become victims of their own game; urban pressure in the city is bigger than its capability, its bearing capacity is not proportional to its attractive power. The environmental injustice occurred between the urban-rural relationship due to the difference of freedom and power access to capital and social resources.

Connection and metabolism of urban-rural keeps a spontaneous and sporadic relation that bonds them together through suggestive values and systematic methods in the spatialeconomy regionalism fragment.

and save their own neighbourhoods. Kampung Krapu and Tongkol in North Jakarta, took action by demolishing and moving their houses away from the river banks, leaving a 5m lane for government inspection, saving them from total eviction.

From June to December 2015, all kind of structures, homes, shops and mosques, were voluntarily torn apart.

Bamboo architecture offers some answers to 21st century challenges that lies in ecological and social realms.

By introducing bamboo architecture to communities, attention is brought towards a more holistic way of capitalising local resources such as materials, technologies, required knowledge, skill-sets and social capital.

Bamboo is a giant fast growing grass which distinct's itself from trees, the main difference being structural.

Vitruvius believes that architecture requires strength, beauty, and functionality. Bamboo has been providing these three basic ingredients of architecture to communities and cultures since immemorial times; bamboo is versatile and being use to make baskets, flutes, fans, partition walls, carriages, bridges, etc. Nevertheless, along the course of modernisation and the intensified use of information technologies, bamboo has been left behind; too often seen as the poor man’s timber.

Although, the tendency seems to slowly change as wealthy people see bamboo as a perfect luxury item to decorate their tropical villa. Recently, bamboo construction has been correctly addressed by the architecture academia. It seems that there is an urge of rediscovering bamboo when we see flocks of students bamboo seminars, courses and workshops…

Because of the easy process of bamboo construction and its reasonably low cost, bamboo architecture provides solution to community’s immediate needs.

ASF-ID strongly believes that working in bamboo construction, allows communities to get involved easily thought out all the project stages, from planning to construction. Using appropriate technologies with bamboo, it can only emphasise the practicality and effectiveness of using available resource around the community involved in the process. Community members will gather to plan, design, and construct together. Involving the community from stage one, raises strong ownership to the built structure and and ultimately contributes to the long term goals of sustainability. The idea behind all of that is sharing knowledge for people to act on their own and have the required background for future projects.

Bamboo project serves as a sharing platform of knowledge and solidarity, a real collaboration between architects and the people. Architects can and need to learn from indigenous knowledge, from local communities who are maintaining a practical know-how of vernacular architecture among other cultural tribal knowledge.

Vernacular architecture acts as a narrative member, as an ethnical expression, as a political message and presents alternative echoes among the people.

Vernacular carries the architecture spirit from generation to generation.

Traditional architecture, whether it is neglected or renovated, evolves through time making progress as a lexicon from the past recognised under a new and contemporary syntax.

Vernacular as a synthetic situs, represents a multi-faced subject that expresses architecture in various acculturation processes: cultural, cosmological, theological, all which roots are permanent in typology and style of buildings. One of the main representations of tradition and vernacular in the twentieth century is the way they are historically organised and institutionalised.

As a place of genuine expression of dynamic relationships between culture, environment and other stimuli in the site and rite of human synthesis, vernacular social interactions and political economy properties are present in regional and ethnical characteristics.

Today, genuine dynamics depend on heritage connectivity consumed and distributed as knowledge.

The architect’s position resonated in vernacular as a cultural elite which contextually works in political economy using icons in a culturalised transformation creating factual accounts on reality. In the practice, vernacular is a participatory work of the people in producing identity by undertaking local-temporal multiplicities to show transactional sociality based on classes and castes. The cultural transmission is giving different vernacular resonance from every ethnic and region regardless of class and kingship system.

Kampung Baduy Luar, Bantan, Java

Kampung Naga, Tasik, Java

Toy seller at Kampung Tongkol, Jakarta.

community

bamboo

village scale entreprise

youth

initiaves for public utilities

collective unity

Cikapundung river in Bandung.

Some alternative design approach can’t answer the challenge of globalisation and universalisation. Vernacular offers alternatives in achieving design that doesn’t follow the global trend. Yet, vernacular accepts recent technology to achieve sustainable design by bringing itself to the genius loci, although in the end technology tends to standardise by forcing uniformity and creating globalised understanding (in architecture).

Vernacular is a reason for cultural treasure and vitality. There is a need to foster its continuity as a principal coherence to inform certain practices in architecture. The need then has made vernacular an aesthetic legacy, a precious commodity.

Vernacular then emerges as the aesthetic result of adaptation and integration evolution from social-cultural identity through architectural works as embodiment of cultural, cosmological and theological translation of a society. The vernacular aesthetic is not only a form of art but also an individual living description; of its society and class that is projected as cultural legacy and identity identification – a sign-signifier that keeps on regenerating images and meaning. The structural composition of sign and signifier in vernacular, results from the production-consumption of life and society needs.

These, would later involve in multiple natural aspects and human works through cosmological characteristics, materials, spatial morphology and local-regional constructions that become contemporary stock in capitalistic politic of conservation/heritage – continually perpetuated as the knowledge and capital production.