Part 02

Today, Tunjungan experience the lost space phenomenon, defined as an area in a city that requires redesign because it has become a space that does not positively contribute to its surroundings (Trancik, 1986). Tunjungan no longer has a role in accommodating and recording the development of urban community activities.

To answer this question, I assume Tunjungan needs a catalyst to encourage or activate the region.

The phenomenon of urban transformation using a catalyst occurs in an abandoned area due to political failures and the abundance of infrastructure caused by deindustrialization. Moreover, some people use the site injected with a new function, which is different from the initial program in the context of the area (Oswald, 2006).

Philip Oswalt gave an example of the urban catalytic phenomenon in one of his essays, Patterns of the Unplanned. The essay provides an example of a case that causes a change in the function of the program area full of old warehouses and laboratories behind Berlin’s Ostbahnof Wriezener Station. Several young graphic designers later used the neglected buildings with several artisans, architects, and filmmakers who gathered together to acquire the space. The space is formerly used as a printing press for the East German ruling party’s newspaper and as a laboratory with various functions. At night, this area turns into an exciting cluster of sub-cultural nightclubs.

One of the critical catalysts in the phenomenon of urban transformation is the existence of temporary space, moreover it becomes a pioneer and trigger for further regional development and often attracts public attention quickly. This exciting process of happening is what makes the triggered area proliferate. Various activities can activate the area by using temporary spaces for example; fashionable- leisure activities, industrial warehouses which turned into theater performances, weekday bars in empty shops or stores, and a festival that can attract the wider community’s attention.

Temporary spaces have begun to be reacquired by a group of urban communities, generally in the form of communities, by injecting new programs into abandoned areas. These communities have one specific goal, which is to acquire space that has been neglected and then use it as a community base to carry out an activity that is useful and profitable.

These programs can then trigger the surrounding area to grow in a projection that can be unpredictable. Because the catalytic process carried out by a program to affect the surrounding areas is not a short thing, the success or failure of an urban transformation process cannot be measured only by the current time but also by considering the success of the area’s development in the future. These new programs in the form of temporary spaces then provide a stimulus in the form of projections of regional developments in the future.

These spaces may be destroyed when there is an opportunity to provide a new program that is more complex and accommodating to the region. However, it is common for these programs to persist in a particular area with the addition of enrichment programs or none.

Tunjungan needs to be reclaimed as an area that will continue to mark the development of the City of Surabaya through its citizen activity. A new movement that is suitable to be injected into Tunjungan to make this claim. Currently, there is a boom in activities within the scope of the Creative Economy. The Creative Economy has become a pop culture to be talked about and discussed everywhere. Can injecting creative activities trigger new activities, which can then reactivate Tunjungan? To answer this question, I researched several British Council report about creative economy to determine transferable programs toward architecture.

The Creative Economy was first introduced by John Howkins (2001) in his book The Creative Economy: How People Make Money Form Ideas. This terminology later became a new concept in the economic sector which was carried out to add value to goods and services with an approach based on creativity. In Indonesia, the idea of the Creative Economy began to develop and have an impact around 1996 to 2000 (Siregar & Sudrajat, 2017).

Creative Economy can identify the development of this concept by activating spaces based on creative activities. A group of urban communities initially used the birth of these creative spaces to show an independent effort in providing alternative ideas, spaces, and approaches to building a community. The development of creative spaces is no longer limited to efforts to form independent communities.

However, it has become part of an urban culture when the birth of these spaces comes from residual areas.

The development of the creative economy concept with the activation of creative spaces at this time can be marked by the emergence of the creative Hub as an architectural typology that can also act as a district or network with a function to accommodate the creative process (Virani, 2015).

This embodiment of the creative process is then realized through one or all architectural programs: creative, coworking, and maker space (Siregar & Sudrajat, 2017). I also identified the context and found findings in a creative hub in the form of a coworking space owned by the Surabaya City government in the Tunjungan corridor.

Question that a consequence of the findings from this context is: Could I continue to familiarize creative activities in Tunjungan while there is already one innovative program there?

The answer is maybe could be like this: all of these creative programs may be developed sporadically along the Tunjungan corridor. So people can still enjoy Tunjungan as a whole and at the same time familiarized by the presence of the creative activities there. However, I guess these have to be measured by the distance of each program which is regulated and adjusted to human movement and transportation access.

How if Tunjungan injected with something new as a tool to activate its area?

This question is a crucial phase to determine what kind of architecture is appropriate to be injected in the context of Tunjungan. Can it be a collection of programs, temporary space, or architecture?

Before going any further, I re-checked the definition of creative to provide a deeper understanding because, in this position, I realized that creative activities could later become a catalyst for Tunjungan.

Creative definition through one of Lev Vygotsky’s writings, namely play and its Role in the Child’s Mental Development. He was a soviet psychologist who became the founder of the never-ending theory of human cultural and biosocial development.

In his writings, he states that creativity, taken from the root word creative is a learning habit that requires particular skills and an understanding of the context in which creativity is applied. Creativity differs from innovation, which can be broadly interpreted as a new idea or idea that always occurs with hard work, persistence, and perseverance. In addition, I also found that creativity has levels. Furthermore, the creativity activation process that will be suitable for implementation in Tunjungan is the Little-C type of creativity.

A stimulus is provided to activate the little-C creativity. Research by Katja Thoring has been conducted since 2012 regarding creative space. In this research, he argues that the main activities that will occur in creative activities are inspiration, communication, experimentation, creation and decision-making, and presentation.

Activities carried out by humans during the creative process will always require specific spaces. Thoring makes an analogy with human activities at home in that each particular activity will require spaces that specifically have specific functions.

Finally, Thoring provides a classification of space that can be an activator of the creative process. He mentions five types of space: personal, collaborative, presentation, making, and transition space. Classification of these spaces can then be implemented in architecture.

The application of creative space is used to facilitate the exchange of knowledge in the creative process, including explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge. Implicit knowledge is obtained through understanding using methods and has not been presented in its entirety (Smith et al., 2013). The result of understanding implicit knowledge can be explicit knowledge. Meanwhile, tacit knowledge is practical knowledge (Gourlay, 2000). Knowledge in this creative process is obtained through high-order thinking skills (Bloom et al., 1956).

Creative Hub is a consequence; it was decided as an architectural typology that will be injected into the regional structure because it can accommodate five types of spaces that can activate the creative process. Moreover, with coworking in Tunjungan, Hub injection, triggering the creative process, will also enrich the context. Nevertheless, the next question is, how to package all of this so that it can act as a catalyst that will activate and redefine Tunjungan’s identity?

The Hub was decided as an architectural typology that would be injected into the context of the Tunjungan area by being divided into three main program groups: creative, coworking, and maker space. The division of these three program groups is based on the results of the British Council’s mapping of the types of creative hubs that already exist in Indonesia.

Upper Right

Major programs to be injected in Tunjungan

Down Right

The kind of architecture can accommodate the programs which to be injected in Tunjungan

Each program group that will be injected into the area has its function. Creative space has a role in accommodating the process of exchanging knowledge and information from each individual or group. Creative space has a derivative program, Misbar, as a unique amphitheater to exchange knowledge in film and videography. Maker space has a function to accommodate the making process with the initiative of each individual.

Every individual will combine programs in the maker space with the Hub as a forum and center for creative activities in the region. Meanwhile, coworking space is an existing creative space that the Surabaya city government has developed and, in this study, will be integrated with the three injection program groups.

The three main program groups that will be injected will be divided into five characteristics to become derivative programs with criteria as creative spaces. These spaces are personal, collaborative, making, presentation, and transition spaces. The application of creative space is used to facilitate the exchange of knowledge in the creative process, including explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge. Learning in this creative process is obtained through highorder thinking skills.