Learning From Kampung :

Speculating into the weary future of co-living in urban villages

A Reflection

Honors Capstone Project 2020

Tirta Pratama Teguh

Syracuse University School of Architecture

B’Arch 2020

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………….……………….………….. 2

Executive Summary..………………………….……………….………….. 3

Acknowledgements…………..…………………………………………… 4

Chapter 1: Premise and Site ……………………………………………… 5

Chapter 2: Co-Living and Half a House…….…………………………… 14

Chapter 3: The Proposal ….……………………………………………… 19

Works Cited.……………………………………………………………… 28

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Abstract This thesis looks into designing contextual & constructive platforms to guide and foster the ecosystem of urban villages in Jakarta as possible speculation on a non-alienating modern co-living. The methodology involves implementing a participationist movement in design with the community of the urban villages.

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Executive Summary

The proposal for this thesis began with a simple observation. As an architecture student

who has had 5 years of education on the various aspects of architecture, I have witnessed and

digested the inception of architecture and its path through history and the place it has in our

society today. I became interested in public housing. I find that public housing presents the most

complex series of challenges that architecture can offer : It allows me to understand human’s

need and behaviour in the broadest scale possible; from the public persona all the way to the

privacy of someone’s bathroom. Apparently, I was not alone in this; back in the 1920s, many

architects, faced with the need to house so many people post war in the cheapest way possible,

thought of the same thing. This marked the first time architecture focused on trying to house a

large group of people in the most efficient way possible; the apartment model was born. In the

century since this model was first proposed, there have been no major changes made to it. This

model became so popular that it was exported throughout the world, including to my home

country of Indonesia. Yet, I wonder, 21st century Indonesia has such a different set of problems

than 20th century postwar Europe, so why are we using the same solution for different problems?

The scope of this thesis is to then understand the many factors and problems that are

unique to Jakarta and to find a way to learn from it and apply my knowledge on architecture in

developing a proposal for a mass housing model that works specifically for this climate. This

chapter will aim to explain my research on Jakarta and how it informs my design for a new

housing proposal.

A new approach to housing problems that are very specifically contextual to each of the

local environments becomes a paramount issue, as the world is getting larger and more

diversified; using the same solution for a problem that keeps on evolving will only deter us from

solving it. This thesis attempts to do so.

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Acknowledgements Firstly the utmost thanks to my parents for allowing me the chance to educate myself and produce this thesis This thesis was only made possible thanks to the contribution and patience of my advisors : Assistant Professor Marcos Parga Associate Professor Yutaka Sho Professor Francisco Sanin A special thanks to Assistant Professor Arnisson Andre Ortega for always showing enthusiasm and giving great feedbacks on crucial aspects of this project and also to the numerous faculty members who have supported us throughout Thanks also to my friends for the various kinds of support that they have bestowed.

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Chapter 1 : Premise & Site

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In the Beginning

The proposal for this thesis began with a simple observation. As an architecture student

who has had 5 years of education on the various aspects of architecture, I have witnessed and

digested the inception of architecture and its path through history and the place it has in our

society today. I became interested in public housing. I find that public housing presents the most

complex series of challenges that architecture can offer : It allows me to understand human’s

need and behaviour in the broadest scale possible; from the public persona all the way to the

privacy of someone’s bathroom. Apparently, I was not alone in this; back in the 1920s, many

architects, faced with the need to house so many people post war in the cheapest way possible,

thought of the same thing. This marked the first time architecture focused on trying to house a

large group of people in the most efficient way possible; the apartment model was born. In the

century since this model was first proposed, there have been no major changes made to it. This

model became so popular that it was exported throughout the world, including to my home

country of Indonesia. Yet, I wonder, 21st century Indonesia has such a different set of problems

than 20th century postwar Europe, so why are we using the same solution for different problems?

The scope of this thesis is to then understand the many factors and problems that are

unique to Jakarta and to find a way to learn from it and apply my knowledge on architecture in

developing a proposal for a mass housing model that works specifically for this climate. This

chapter will aim to explain my research on Jakarta and how it informs my design for a new

housing proposal.

And so it Begins

Jakarta is a deeply personal place for me. I was born there. The stats will tell you that it is

the capital city of Indonesia, with about 10.6 million residents as of 2019 and exceeding 30

million residents if the Greater Jakarta area is included . It's a massive city. It is also hot and 1

1 “Jakarta Population 2020.” Jakarta Population 2020 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs). Accessed May 15, 2020. https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/jakarta-population/.

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humid. It’s the fastest sinking city in the world . Yet, I will tell you that this city is a kind city, 2

people are always smiling and won't hesitate to help others. This is something remarkable,

considering it has the history of being colonized ruthlessly by various countries in the world.

Jakarta has every right to be angry; it's not. To see Jakarta, is to see a hodgepodge of low rise

residentials and modern high rises side by side. This is a city of contrast, where income

inequality led to the sporadic growth of luxury skyscrapers next to the poor inhabitants of the

houses and huts that form the urban village of Jakarta.

Jakarta as a city of contrast (Source : Self)

To see Jakarta from my eyes is to see that century old apartment living solution taking over the

culturally rich and friendly neighbourhood of the urban villages. This is where I see an

opportunity to help guide the future of Jakarta’s development through my proposal.

2 Lin, Mayuri Mei, and Rafki Hidayat. “Jakarta, the Fastest-Sinking City in the World.” BBC Indonesian. n.d.

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Kampung, What is it?

Kampung is the Indonesian word for “Village”. In the case of Jakarta, similar to many

other cities in the world, it starts off as a coastal village that eventually grew into the bustling

metropolis that it is today. However, similar to many rapidly developing cities in the world,

growth has been sporadic and concentrated, leading to certain areas getting gentrified and

developed while next to it the kampung are left alone.

Map showing roughly where the locations of kampung are (Source : World Bank)

Looking at the map above, it can be seen that slums are often a synonymous term used in

conjunction with kampung. In reality, this is not the case as kampung are composed of mainly

middle to low income residents. Deducing from the map itself, it can be seen that kampung are

scattered strategically throughout the city, however, due to their image as a slum, not many

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people imagine their ideal life to be spent in kampung. I see this as an image problem as

kampung ranges in their appearance, some are indeed slumlike, but others are very different.

Therefore, this presents itself as another challenge to the proposal : the redevelopment of the

image of kampung not as a slum but as a unique asset to the city through increasing the value of

kampung culturally in order to reduce the likelihood of traditional gentrification.

A snapshot of life in kampung (Source : Self)

Learning From Kampung

Having lived my whole life next to kampung, I thought I knew what it offered. I was

happy to be proven wrong when I did a site visit in December of 2019. Coming from a middle

class family in Jakarta, I have almost never found the need to walk through one. This is how

divided the city is.

The first thing I noticed, coming from a city where everyone is always commuting with

personal vehicles, kampung is the only place where you are required to walk as cars can’t fit the

street. People rarely walk because the weather in Jakarta is hot and humid yet here I am walking

without a sweat. The air in kampung is noticeably cooler than its surrounding due to the density

of the building that provides a thermal mass that absorbs the heat of the city. This results in the

first thing that I learned in kampung : the streets become the extension of the living space. This

may seem mundane to most people, however, bear in mind that the culture of the city is to

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mainly be in indoor spaces, perfectly air conditioned, venturing outside only for the need to

commute.

As I continued walking, I noticed a mother carrying her baby around, people chatting in

the stoops of their houses, and children running around. I realized there is an organic community

growing here. People genuinely have the desire to help and they are familiar with their

neighbors. This is further reinforced with how friendly everyone is towards me and their

willingness to talk delivers the point home further. Architecturally speaking, I posited that the

close layout of each house, paired with the street as a public space allows for this kind of

familiarity to prosper. Therefore, I concluded that the community of kampung is a key aspect of

why it works.

Lastly, as I was walking around, I noticed that many houses have some sort of

renovations added on to it. They are clearly demarcated by their contrasting materials, suggesting

a later addition to the house. Kampung has self-grow potential that makes the community more

dynamic. In some cases, when people need more housing space, they can build an additional

room besides their own houses. The lack of regulation makes the spatial arrangement more fluid

and more adaptive to the families’ needs. Therefore, Kampung has a much more adaptable

quality than the rigid apartment design and this needs to be taken into account in the proposal.

Unsustainable Aspects of Kampung

Kampung is riddled with many problems that will certainly threaten its existence in the

future should it not be addressed. Based on my research, there are a couple of things to take into

account. Firstly, Jakarta is the fastest sinking city in the world due to land subsidence. Due to the

lack of an effective water delivery system, 40% of Jakarta’s residents have resorted to illegally

extracting water from the underground reservoir , rapidly depleting the underground reservoir 3

which led to the sinking of the city. What used to be a 5 year flood like the one indicated in the

3 The World Bank. Jakarta : Urban Challenges in a Changing Climate. Governor of Jakarta, 2010.

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picture below have become an annual flood, sometimes more. This is a problem everyone has to

deal with, however for the residents of kampung, there is not much they can do except to move

all their belongings to the second floor.

Diagram showing how land subsidence affects Jakarta (Source : Self)

Aside from flooding, Jakarta has had a significant growth rate over the past two decades,

rapidly changing the urban fabric of the city. As shown by the image below, in 2002, the area

shown is a kampung, however, a year later, after the developers have managed to gain the legal

rights for all of the parcels of lands they need, cleared the ground for the construction of a mall

apartment complex. This is the everyday threat that the residents of kampung face due to the

strategic locations of most kampung. Another problem that they face is also the gray legality that

many of their land ownership falls under. The government themselves does not have an accurate

map indicating who owns what land.

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Satellite photos showing the gentrification (Source: Google Maps)

Lastly, what I considered to be the strength of kampung, which is its adaptability

is also its downfall as this leads to an uncontrolled expansion. Due to lack of legal foresight and

limited budget, expansion of houses in kampung tends to be quite haphazard, leading to a collage

like structures colonizing the existing space. This may lead to a point of saturation where growth

becomes a hazard.

Diagrams indicating the sporadic expansion of kampung (Source: Self)

The Site

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Understanding all the necessary elements that made up a kampung, I have chosen

Kampung Kuningan Barat as the site for my initial proposal as it contains all the elements I have

aforementioned. The scope of this proposal is to design a housing model that may initially be

implemented in Kampung Kuningan Barat but hopefully can be expanded to the city scale.

The Site, notice the map at the bottom right showing the legality of the lands, yellow indicates

ownership, blue indicates temporary usage right and the rest shows unregistered (Source : Self)

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Chapter 2 : Co - Living and Half a House

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Precedents Study Throughout my research in Kampung, I realized that there are many similar qualities to

that of the modern co-living concept that are now getting more popular in the US as rent prices

are getting more and more expensive. Co-living, by definition, is “the practice of living with

other people in a group of homes that include some shared facilities”. Such practice is common

for people with shared interests, limited housing choices, or cultural habits. This is exactly the

case with kampung.

Co-Living in Kampung? (Source : Self)

Many modern co-living models offer a more luxurious quality of living at a lower

than average market price through the sharing of facilities such as the kitchen or the bathrooms.

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The main selling point of these models is the idea that if you choose to live with them, you can

be a part of a community in an increasingly foreign megacities such as New York.

A Modern co-living advertising their community aspect (Source : common.com)

The concept is very attractive for some people and the company also hired designers to design

spaces that are conducive for this community gathering in mind.

Kampung already has all of these things that the modern co-living concept offers. There

is a welcoming community, the spaces are very much conducive for this community engagement

and they achieve all of this without a master planner. Things are organic in kampung.

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Half a House

The only problem that kampung faces nowadays is the unsustainable aspects of it and I

chose to look into a case study that I think provides the best platform to be adapted into

kampung. “Half a House” is a housing project developed by the Chilean architect Alejandro

Aravena. The premise of the project is to build a complex of houses for the victims of the 2010

earthquake that destroyed the homes of the people who live in the area. Rather than simply

exporting the apartment model, Aravena takes a step back and examines the elemental need for

living and to take into account people’s desire to renovate their house to their own liking. The

result is that he determines three things that people will have a difficult time constructing without

expertise : Roof, Plumbing, and Electricity. So he set out to build these elements while leaving

half of the house completely open, essentially allowing the residents to customize it however

they want. This creates a sustainable platform that allows for future growth depending on the

need of each individual. This is the sort of platform that kampung needs.

Initial Phase of half a house (Source : Elemental)

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Customized version of the same houses (Credit : Elemental)

To Design or not

What I find to be incredible from Aravena’s proposal is that he was able to let go of his

power as an architect and let his clients have some say in the design of their house. This is a hard

thing to do as architects have been educated to develop their signature style and to take

everything into account. However, I’d like to think people want to design their own houses,

especially after seeing the houses in kampung. Habraken, a Dutch architect sums this idea up

nicely “We should not forecast what will happen, but try to make provisions for the

unforeseen.” 4

4 HABRAKEN, N.J. SUPPORTS: an Alternative to Mass Housing . S.l.: ROUTLEDGE, 2019.

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Chapter 3 : The Proposal

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The Statement

Based on the research in Kampung, I then set forward in proposing to design contextual

& constructive platforms to guide and foster the ecosystem of kampung as possible speculation

on a non-alienating modern co-living.

The goal of this proposal is to firstly showcase to the outside people certain spatial

typologies that exist in Kampung that facilitate an organic co-living condition while also

showing the resident of Kampung a more sustainable model of future dwellings

Secondly, is to guide the redevelopment of the image of Kampung not as a slum but as a

unique asset to the city through increasing the value of Kampung culturally in order to reduce

the likelihood of traditional gentrification

Thirdly, to alleviate flooding and land subsidence through the integration of water

infrastructure into the platform.

Based on all of these criterias, the proposal comes in the form of a core that will contain

all the necessary needs similar to Aravena’s Half house project which includes roofing, plumbing

and electricity. The core will be implemented in stages, each of them seeking to replace one

house at a time.

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The Core and the surrounding site (Source : Self)

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Diagram showing how the proposal can possibly mitigate flooding for the resident (Source :

Self)

Ownership ?

The project will be proposed as an infrastructure project to mitigate the flooding to the

government, this may provide an alternative solution where urban density can be maintained

while the risk of flooding is slowly addressed.

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Understanding the Government structure in order to understand the stakeholders for this

proposal (Source : Self)

Which house chosen to be destroyed becomes a paramount question. The proposed idea

is that since the registration of land can be a lengthy and costly process, initial properties chosen

will be those that are currently unregistered. The residents will then get to have ownership of the

land (indicated in yellow in the diagram) as long as they allow their current house to be replaced

with the proposal. The government will build the initial core of the project and maintain it. The

ownership of the core will be to the government(indicated in green in the diagram).

The proposal seeks to open up the ground floor plan as a public space, allowing many

community activities to take place such as morning markets, weddings, and voting booths. In

Jakarta, it is traditional for the people of kampung to hold many of these events by blocking the

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road and setting up temporary tents. These events are usually coordinated with the local RT

which is equivalent to a community leader that is actually part of the government. Therefore the

RT will be in charge of the community space (indicated in pink in the diagram).

By involving the government as the stakeholder for this project, this discourages real

estate developers from buying the plot of land and therefore may alter the traditional

gentrification path. Hence going back to one of the goals of the project : to guide the

redevelopment of kampung.

Flexibility in Building

Learning from Aravena, The projects also allows flexibility in the built environment

where half of the build able spaces are left open, allowing the residents to take agency in using it

as a shared space or expansion of their home.

Floor Plans showing the initial stage of the project(top) and possible expansion (bottom)

(Source : Self)

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This is where the community will help populate and use the spaces as a sharing platform.

Looking at the current usage of any open space in kampung as a place to socialize, it is not hard

to see that the residents of the kampung will colonize these newly open spaces.

Perspective of the possible usage of space in the proposal (Source : Self)

Flooding

Understanding that the main issue with flooding is the extraction of groundwater, this

proposal seeks to use rainwater as the main water supply. Rain water will be collected from the

base of the project, filtered and stored at the top of the project which acts as a water tank,

allowing the residents to have free access to clean water. Excess water that can be stored will be

injected into the groundwater reservoir directly, creating a draining point in the events of

flooding and also slowly mitigate the sinking.

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Diagram showing how the water infrastructure will work (Source : Self)

Aspirations for the project is to then proliferate under the flexibility given and encourage

shared living conditions while also contributing to the kampung as a whole through the

community spaces. This model might then be replicated as a more sustainable way for kampung

to grow, showcasing it to both the outsider people and the residents of kampung.

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Diagrams showing potential growth of the project (Source : Self)

A Reflection

In conclusion, this project tries to tackle multiple problems that are identified in kampung

through a series of open ended solutions that puts a big belief in the community’s desire to use it

in a positive manner. This I think can be its strength but also its downfall. There is a sense that

this project is trying to give power to the people, therefore, in a way, it's subscribing to the idea

that humans are inherently good. This is a big assumption to make.

Another issue that this presents is by solving a number of these issues that are supposed

to be dealt with by other parties such as the government, who have inadvertently benefitted from

this solution? This project is designed for the people of kampung but that's not to say that

someone else can benefit from this. Therefore I acknowledge that there are many shortcomings

that this thesis has and I do hope to work them out in time.

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Works Cited

HABRAKEN, N.J. SUPPORTS: an Alternative to Mass Housing. S.l.: ROUTLEDGE, 2019.

Kusno, Abidin. Behind the Postcolonial: Architecture, Urban Space, and Political Cultures in Indonesia. London: Routledge, 2014.

Mrázek Rudolf. Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.

The World Bank. Jakarta : Urban Challenges in a Changing Climate. Governor of Jakarta, 2010. McCarthy, Paul. The case of Jakarta, Indonesia. The World Bank, Turner, John F. C., and Colin Ward. Housing by People: towards Autonomy in Building Environments. New York: Marion Boyars, 2017. Berlant, Lauren. The Commons : Infrastructure for Troubling Times. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2016 Irawaty, Dian Tri. Jakarta’s KAmpung: Their History and Contested Future. UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018

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