Making a dorm room into a welcoming home

Maria Endah Hulupi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The client's brief was for a functional, low-cost dorm for his four employees. Architect Andra Matin took that and turned the project into unique and comfortable living quarters.

The recently completed dormitory in Bintaro, South Jakarta, standing on a 400-square-meter plot of land, was constructed on a tight Rp 29 million budget. The architect was forced to choose cheap materials like asbestos for the roof (used with full consideration of health concerns) or traditional woven bamboo sheets to layer the inner and outer walls.

"Generally, the materials chosen for this project are low cost and easy to assemble to enable us to construct them easily and within the budget. We also decided to use a steel structure as the base for the roof due to financial and time constraints," said Andra, who was assisted by Lina Madiyana when designing the dorm project.

The six-month design phase created a dorm with two separate sections -- one with four modular rooms and another section consisting of a shared bathroom and kitchen.

For the roof, asbestos was chosen since the design required an inclination to allow water to fall off it without the need to set up a gutter below. The use of other materials would complicate the roof construction as well as result in greater expense.

Andra also chose steel columns since it provides a far spanned support, making construction simple and cheap.

The overhanging roof, detached from the walls, was specially designed to enable proper air circulation even without insulation. The gap allows heat trapped inside the four bedrooms during the day to escape.

"There is no need to install an air conditioner because the fresh breeze from the gap effectively drives the heat out."

Wood and plywood were used for the dorm structure and then it was layered both from the exterior and the interior with cheap, traditional woven bamboo sheets called gedek to create the walls.

The walls, which Andra terms "breathing walls" since they allow air to penetrate the interior, still provide privacy for the occupants.

"The doors were left unframed to limit spending," Andra said, explaining that it also gave a minimalist impression.

The base of the dorm is plastered with concrete to avoid wood and gedek materials direct contactly the soil.

There is also a long pond, stretching along the front part of the dorm. The simple fish pond, planted with lotus leaves, was added to create a homey atmosphere while at the same time adding another natural element -- water -- to the site.

Four narrow, rectangular windows were created on each of the lower sections of the dorm walls, from which daylight can penetrate the rooms. When opened they provide ventilation and a view to the yard.

Upward lighting was set up to provide illumination to the dorm rooms during the evening and reflect the light back from thewhite-painted roof.

During the construction phase, the architects maintained most of the existing trees on the site, including fruit trees like mango, banana and rambutan as well as other plants commonly found in a kampong neighborhood.

"Some of these trees were even 'incorporated' into the dorm structure. We just did a little pruning of the branches to neaten their shapes a bit," Andra said.

In the flickering light of dusk, the plants create a lovely silhouette that transforms the dorm's rear wall into a moving canvas.

The gedek wall was painted white to give the simple dorm a clean, modern appearance. "White paint was also chosen to balance the trees and the green surroundings."

Andra also made sure the dorms would not need difficult or expensive maintenance in the future.

"Just smear the gedek walls with white paint and paint steel and other materials with special paints. No need to hire expensive workers to do that," he said.

His design also makes it possible for the owner to develop the site in the future for a home/office construction in the vacant plot. Despite the cheap solutions that were provided for the dorm, Andra said his design was still imperfect and needed improvement.

"However, I hope this project can prove that a low-budget dorm should not be reduced to only a functional block that ignores artistic and health aspects, two important elements for living quarters," Andra said.