City planners often neglect best-laid plans

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A group of young architects and urban designers worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for months on a design competition held by a city agency. They got the award but not the satisfaction of seeing their design materialize.

They saw an aluminum construction in place of their proposed design which applied used containers.

The proposed design is now a city feature that Jakartans have gotten used to since 2003, the busway stops and pedestrian bridges. And they cost triple the winning design.

Disappointment often follows success for those participating in urban planning and design competitions held by various city agencies and administrations as the designs often end up only on paper.

Jakarta's recent urban planning competition on the revitalization of Senen area in Central Jakarta was no exception. The competition aimed to seek the best ideas to bring back the atmosphere of the area as one of the city's oldest economic centers.

"The landowner only wants to build one huge structure over the area. We have met with them several times, but it is difficult to make them see that it is not going to work," said architect cum urban planner Danang Priatmodjo, whose team, PT Jakarta Konsultindo, won first place in the competition.

Originally, the team proposed a concept of separate blocks connected with walkways that would also accommodate the area's large number of street vendors.

"We want to introduce a new vocabulary in architecture to the cityscape by breaking up the blocks and allowing people to walk in between them," said Danang.

He added that competitions were actually a good opportunity for administrations to listen to suggestions from the public and absorb the best of them.

Separately, city market operator PD Pasar Jaya, one of the stakeholders in Senen, said that the winning design took the historical and sociological considerations too far.

"Designing apartment blocks or markets does not need those considerations," said PD Pasar Jaya public relations officer Nurman Adhi, adding that construction would start next year.

The latter perspective, commonly found among developers, meets a lot of criticism from urban planners.

"There is no point in having competitions if later on business considerations predominate," said urban planner Mohammad Danisworo, who is also a member of the city's architectural advisory board.

The Senen competition awarded Rp 75 million in total prize money to its winners, who occupied themselves in months of comprehensive studies on the social and physical aspects of the project before coming up with a plan for an area, he said.

Jakarta's latest competition on the historical area of Jatinegara in East Jakarta has come up with winning designs, which Danisworo referred to as fresh ideas.

The first place winner, a team from the Urban Design Study Center in Bandung proposed that the area accommodate street vendors by making it a shopping arcade.

"Accommodating the vendors means that we solve the traffic problem," said Heru Purbo, a member of the team.