Indonesia still dreams of a new architectural paradigm

Indonesia still dreams of a new architectural paradigm

By Bambang Eryudhawan

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian cities are still being built according to the old paradigm of horizontal city development. This decentralized pattern causes urban sprawl and, sooner or later, the borders of cities will overlap.

The relationship between a town and a village, according to their respective roles in an ecosystem, tends to be disadvantageous to the villages. When the community slowly loses its power, forests, hills and farm land also disappear.

Thousands of individual residential units with spacious yards and mega shopping centers will take over, ignoring the negative impact on the environment. Greed makes our cities a dangerous environmental parasite.

Suburbia is supported by the automobile culture which in turn is the cause of air pollution, conspicuous energy consumption and traffic congestion. The ease of getting credit for housing through the KPR BTN and Papan Sejahtera schemes also accounts for the destruction of the environment. The ease of obtaining building permits and the feeble control on development by regional governments allows unscrupulous developers to strip the land.

This anti-urban paradigm gradually annihilates the character of a city. It focuses on decentralization, the automobile culture of those who believe that mobility is far more important than accessibility, reaching housing supply targets for the sake of statistics, economic motives without social and environmental concerns, and the act of building -- which is always seen as development. Architects don't have much choice in this paradigm. They must compromise and create a built environment for the sake of an ideal goal, or be artists preoccupied with esthetics, not bothering with social and environmental issues.

Indonesian urban morphology is shaped by the actors of development fighting for their own interests.

This involution is performed by all parties according to their role. Even if a consciousness that it is time to resolve the urban crisis existed, the result would be uncertain because of the prevailing paradigm. Traffic congestion will continue because workplaces will continue to get further away from residences, fertile soil will disappear, water reserves will be depleted and cities will become corrosive. If short-term interests continue to dominate, Indonesian cities will not be strong or powerful.

Architectural development will only struggle with the problems of superficial esthetics because architects will find their authority limited to facades by specialized fields that slowly devour the authority of the architect in the planning of built environment developments. It is no wonder that architects are often mocked as cosmetics specialists.

To recapture their privilege, architects must challenge the current paradigm. Only then will they be able to secure their position in society as respectable professionals. A step must be made toward nurturing architectural works that account for the ecosystem.

New paradigm

A new architectural paradigm can be based on the premise of smaller, more efficient cities. Greater building density as a policy of development planning, as is being accomplished by the city of Jakarta, should be the built environment development plan.

The creation of perimeter blocks with inner courtyards are clearly more appropriate in promoting positive urban life. Land will be optimally utilized and buildings will once again become intimate parts of public space.

It is time for pedestrians, bicyclists and public transportation to have greater priority than cars. The city should not be designed by traffic engineers who sacrifice urban spaces to the myth of mobilization. It fails to guarantee anything except the entrance of thousands of new cars.

Roads can be seen as positive spaces where people meet each other. This interaction requires the effort of serious traffic management with the opportunity to explore new territory away from the shadow of the old paradigm.

Urban development oriented toward public transportation terminals, which act as development nodes, will open up new ideas. Urban functions will be regulated by the distance pedestrians or bicyclists can comfortably travel. Transportation modes will change and urban life will be easily controllable, more humanitarian and not land-greedy.

With an efficient and compact urban concept, the amount of mixed-use buildings will increase. Workplaces will be near residences which saves time and money, and increases human interaction around the clock.

Guaranteeing water absorption and clean air will be easier. In high-density cities there will be a greenbelt of urban parks available to everyone. Water absorption areas will be safe because they will be the property of the community.

Low-rise high-density buildings with humans as the main component of a positive urban life, and the commitment to combine the various urban functions into a compact and efficient receptacle, will certainly create an environment conducive for the progression of architecture in Indonesia. Style will no longer be the driving force, but will become part of a social and environmentally responsive architecture. When this is achieved, Indonesian architects will at least recover part of their lost authority. Maybe from there, Indonesian Architecture will be in sight.

Bambang Eryudhawan is a Fulbright scholar who received his master's of architecture from the University of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri.