Apartments 'no longer an ivory tower'
By I. Christianto
JAKARTA (JP): A megalopolis with a cosmopolitan population, Jakarta has transformed into a capital with modern buildings, including high-rise residences. More people are realizing the benefits of individual strata-titled apartments, either through renting or buying serviced apartment units.
Developers once targeted expatriates as the biggest potential market, but many locals are now moving into apartments. Architect Johan Silas, a professor from 10 November Institute of Technology, Surabaya, has won international awards for his research, studies and plans on public housing. He talks about the future of apartment living in Indonesia.
Question: What is the background to development of luxury apartments in Indonesia?
Answer: The obvious background was the high economic growth, the demand generated by the increasing numbers of foreign experts coming to Indonesia (particularly Jakarta) and the surplus money floating around, in private hands as well as in the banks. This phenomenon occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. About the last reason, the surplus money needed a place for investment, which drew the attention of real estate developers to take advantage of the apparent opportunities.
Q: But was it a condition of apartments really being needed in Indonesia?
A: The three aforementioned reasons were the condition that no normal private sector would neglect for any reason. This is not new and Indonesia has been a good student that quickly learned from what happened in Manila and Bangkok.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of such apartment developments?
A: In the early stages when the development of the serviced apartments followed the conducive economic condition, many advantages could be identified, such as support to develop the property business aside from the already developed conventional businesses. However, when the market started to become saturated, and still surplus money was available in substantial amounts, some developers started to manipulate the market, which basically created a fictive demand on an uncontrolled growth scale. This was one of the reasons for the collapse of the economy. Many owners lost their core business by getting themselves involved too deeply in property when they did not have the slightest understanding of its behavior, let alone its consequences.
Q: Based on their sociocultural background, do Indonesians like living in apartments? Are they ready to live in apartments?
A: Culture is not static, it changes depending on the pressure and opportunity. The influence of agriculture to the development of culture is gradually giving way to the industrial way of thinking. Information technology further pushes the changes in how people communicate using the Internet rather than by sending letters. In Surabaya we successfully developed rental apartments for low-income people in the 1980s. The model has been replicated in Jakarta and Tangerang by us and in other places by others. Given the way it was prepared and how it allowed the residents to join in deciding the design of the apartment, there should be no objections as to why a serviced apartment cannot work for a particular community.
Q: How do you view the trend of living in apartments?
A: The traumatic events which occurred in apartments in Jakarta in May 1998 (during mob attacks, mainly directed at ethnic Chinese) need time to be forgotten by those who know or had the terrible experience themselves. The many empty apartments in Jakarta now add to the negative image. I believe that now special efforts should be taken to make the idea of living in apartments attractive again, especially in terms of locality. However, the cost of living in apartments and the near bankruptcy of the apartment owners make the effort to revitalize the existing apartments difficult although not impossible. It needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I think there are enough experts to undertake this assignment.
Q: Does living in (serviced) apartments reflect snobbery or modern living?
A: Some (residents) are indeed snobbish, but quite a number make a sound judgment to opt to live in serviced apartments. It's not necessarily related to modern living, but can be part of a new lifestyle and high mobility of professionals, including the many women participants in the new working ways.
Q: How do you view the regulations on serviced apartment ownership?
A: The strata title on apartment ownership approved by the law is not a problem anymore in terms of ownership which is not really related to land.
Q: Do most apartment buildings in Indonesia meet the basic architectural standards?
A: By now there are many (builders of) model low-income apartments and apartments with sufficient years of experience. There should be no difficulty whatsoever to develop any kind of apartment to meet different kinds of demands. It's only a matter of finding the right expert to deal with the respective need or demand in apartment design and development, including for low- income owners or rental apartments.
Q: High-rise buildings have durability or a long lifespan. Still, after a certain period, a building must be totally renovated for safety reasons. Is there a regulation or legal stipulation concerning this for serviced apartments in Indonesia?
A: It is true that in most Indonesian cities, building regulations not only lag behind the demand of the construction industry itself, but many of the regulations do not meet and are not capable of serving the unique context of "modern" Indonesia. Hong Kong can give an excellent example of how the city government renovated the old Mark IV apartment into money-making apartments. Again, in this respect, the city government needs to challenge local universities to develop manuals and guidelines on how to assess buildings that have passed their design lifetime.
Q: How can living in apartments affect the way of life of the occupants? Does it change their habits?
A: I stayed in many kinds of apartments when I studied in Europe, the United States and Japan. The hardest adjustment for me to living in apartments was in Japan. This is because we in Indonesia are accustomed to staying in buildings that have ample space for different purposes. In Japan, a middle-class apartment allows you to move around very little. Also the space outside the buildings is so limited. However, after only two months or three months you easily adjust to the new situation. If the purpose is clear, the adjustment process is easy and without pain.
Q: What other problems may arise?
A: This depends heavily on the situation one has to live in in an apartment and also how the decision to live in the apartment is made. My experience in living and working with people who have to live in apartments shows that they have to have an early good understanding of apartments and to be assisted in the early days of living in apartments. This applies to both high and low-income people.
Q: There was a case of social unrest in St. Louis in the United States in 1972 which ended with the destruction of the apartment building by residents. Could that happen in Indonesia?
A: To my students, this is a classic case of architects who are arrogant by believing that they can solve all the architectural problems of the people. This has happened to Indonesia, only the apartments were not destroyed. But many cases are proof that the syndrome can easily be avoided, such as the cases mentioned earlier in my reply. Charles Jencks called it the "death of modern architecture".
Q: What about trends in serviced apartments in Surabaya?
A: In Surabaya we still have many houses that the expatriate prefers. However, as I have mentioned, we have no difficulty in attracted low-income people to live in apartments that have been well looked after by the occupants. It is important to make good preparation before deciding on apartments to solve any particular housing problem.
Q: Any further comments?
A: My brief comment is that sooner rather than later in cities with populations above one million, low-rise, high-density apartments need to be considered and prepared. Again, as I have mentioned many times, it is not easy to develop apartment blocks, but it is also not impossible nor unfeasible.