Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
115
Unconventional approach to housing design and construction practice in Indonesia and its challenges
Dibya KusyalaInstitut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung, [email protected]
Asep DarmanaInstitut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung, [email protected]
Yusin LimAkanoma Studio, Bandung, [email protected]
Abstract: Globally urban housing is moving toward a vertical high-density typology. Addressing the high-density issue in Bandung City, the local government aims to improve the sprawling unplanned-settlement by redesign the area and provide medium to high-rise development in place of sprawled landed housing. A case study of Walk-up apartment project in Tamansari, Bandung is discussed in this paper to elaborate further about unconventional approach to housing design and subsequently in the construction practise. The project was designed by Akanoma studio, adopts an innovative design approach. Design concept was developed based on the understanding of site context and general issues in Bandung, among of them are urban water issue, site topography, and waterfront area within the site. One of the design strategy is to design the building as a stilt structure to maximize absorption area while minimizing site intervention. The design was implemented through a design and built method which is not common in Indonesia’s construction practise. During the construction process, issues and challenges are arising. This paper employed deep interview with the stakeholders involved and literature study. This paper aims to study the implementation process of Rumah Deret Tamansari and its challenges.
Keywords: walk-up apartment, Bandung, design and built, construction project
1. INTRODUCTION
According to UN-Habitat (2014), since 1900 the world urban population has been increasing. There is a remarkable increase in the absolute numbers of urban dwellers, from an annual average of 57 million between 1990-2000 to 77 million between 2010-2015. The number of urban population has increased to 4 billion (54% of total population) in 2015 from 2.3 billion (43% of total population) in 1990. The increase in urban population has not been evenly spread throughout the world, by far, Asia as the highest number of people living in urban area, followed by Europe, Africa and Latin.
Indonesia, as one of the developing country, has the fourth-largest population in the world. Urban population in most of Indonesia’s major cities has also been increasing, the percentage of urban population increase from 49.8% in 2010 to 53.3% in 2015 (Indonesia statistics). Bandung as one of Indonesia’s major city has been undergone urbanization since its early time. In the past few years, the population of Bandung has been increasing, from 2.42 million in 2011 to 2.49 million in 2016 as shown in Figure 2. As Bandung’s population increases, the land area occupied by the city had also increased from 1,900 Ha during its first established as municipality by the Dutch in 1906 to currently 16,767 Ha (2017). Now, the city area could not be further enlarged due to limited land area and the subsequent adjacent areas had also occupied by another cities and regencies.
P. Rajagopalan and M.M Andamon (eds.), Engaging Architectural Science: Meeting the Challenges of Higher Density: 52nd International Conference of the Architectural Science Association 2018, pp.115–120. ©2018, The Architectural Science Association and RMIT University, Australia.
116
Figure 1: City of Bandung increasing population graphic (source: summarized from Bandung Dalam Angka 2016-2017)
The growth of urban population thus far could not properly be accommodated by the city government. This has led to informal settlement in the urban area. In fact, according to Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning, in 2017, there are 38,431 Ha informal settlement area in Indonesia. Informal settlement commonly known as “kampung kota” in Indonesia, literally translate to city’s village due to the physical characteristic of the kampung kota that somewhat not too far from the village, sprawled, unplanned, and informal, despite of its location in the city. In Bandung, the most significant city expansion was occurred in 1946, a year after Indonesia independence. Informal settlement development was also started during this period, one of the biggest informal settlement area in Bandung is Tamansari district.
Figure 2: The existing of Tamansari Settlement prior development, from left to right: zero setback of the river, the narrow alley with topography down to the river, narrow alley only for motorbike and pedestrian access inside the kampung kota, and semi-permanent
structure for housing in Tamansari. (source: Personal, 2018)
In recent years, kampung kota redevelopment program has been one of city government focus. One of the program is in Tamansari area. The government called for proposal to be developed in Tamansari as part of the kampung kota improvement program. After a lengthy process, the proposal by Akanoma studio was selected to be developed. The project known as “rumah deret” Tamansari. Green design concept is not a new concept in Indonesia, however, its implementation most of the time is far from ideal. Generally, construction practice in Indonesia mostly still adhere to the conventional method, it is yet to familiarize with green building features and the proper way to implement it. This paper aims to understand the challenges in design and built practice in Indonesia.
2. PROJECT OVERVIEW
Rumah Deret Tamansari is part of Indonesia’s government public housing programme. Throughout the years, housing programme in Indonesia has been facing challenges in many aspects. One of the major challenge in housing programme in Indonesia is location. City government’s public housing was to build on a government land, however due to lack of control and planning, some of government land are illegally occupied. In the case of Rumah Deret Tamansari, the project is located at Tamansari district, this area initially was planned as a green infrastructure for the city, however, in the course of time the area had developed into unplanned informal settlement, one of the main reason is its strategic location. Tamansari informal settlement comprises of various typologies and functions, majority of the area is occupied by housing, up to 58% of the total area (Bandung Municipality, 2014).
D. Kusyala, A. Darmana and Y. Lim
117
Proposals were called by Bandung city government for Tamansari. The project Feasibility study was also done for the project to be able to understand the site context and address any related issues properly. Tamansari project was eventually awarded to Akanoma studio. Akanoma studio is a local architecture firm based in Bandung known for its specialization in affordable and sustainable housing led by Yu Sing. Upon its practice, Akanoma hold four main principles; (i) Architecture for all, (ii) Nusantara’s Architecture contextualization, (iii) to rebuilt nature-culture-architecture interdependence, and (iv) to develop eco-tourism.
In this project, Akanoma’s role is to design the main concept for the project in the form of architectural massing, main building system that could accommodate more than current existing residents. The aims for this project is to improve the residence life, productivity and be more sustainable in general. Akanoma ‘s concept for this project was derived from the old Sundanese village structure. Akanoma attempts to adopt the Sundanese local wisdom to generate green building concept for Tamansari project, this is in alignment with one of Akanoma principles; Nusantara’s architecture contextualization. The concept was applied both on site planning and building design (Figure 3). In site planning, the key concepts are (i) optimization of absorption area up to 70 % in respond to Bandung water issue by adopting stilt house structure and infiltration well, productive trees planting along the Cikapundung river as a frontage, (ii) high pedestrian accessibility in a form of connecting corridors, ramps and staircases, and (iii) the main access road serve as the fire engine access while in the normal time function as commercial area accommodating the local traders. In term of building concept, the key concepts are (i) using local material, (ii) continuous circulation employing staircases and ramps, (iii) local craftsmen as aesthetic expression, (iv) creating harmony with nature by employing green material, and (iv) creating area for planting and gardening to improve residence productivity and greeneries within the residential environment.
Figure 3: Future Development of Rumah Deret Tamansari with more green areas, river as main orientation, accommodating triple the number of the current residents (source: Akanoma Studio, 2017)
In view of development control and regulation, despite of being city government project, the project brief given to Akanoma was too broad. The city government did not provide elaborate brief for the project. To certain extend this give Akanoma freedom in their proposal. However, lack of development control and elaborate brief could create future issue in the development and implementation stage. During the development stage, some development control such as plot ratio and building coverage were reviewed, this will affect the project and slow down the implementation process.
3. METHOD
This paper employed an in-depth interview with the project architect and stakeholders involved. The primary data are the first-hand data obtained through an interview with the architect of the project. The objective of the interview is to understand the architect’s view on the implementation of the design concept in relation to the construction practice.
Participants involved in the interviews are Lim Yusin (the project architect), the main contractor, and the Project leader of the Department of Housing, Settlement, Land and Parks, City of Bandung. The interviews were conducted in separate time. The interviews were done informally more like a discussion about the project and their view of design and built in Indonesia, particularly pertaining to Tamansari project. Furthermore, the interview was tried to get an insight from different views of the stakeholders with their respective background and capacity in the project, regarding the vision and aims of the project and challenges that might or already risen during the implementation.
Unconventional approach to housing design and construction practice in Indonesia and its challenges
118
4. RUMAH DERET TAMANSARI PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
Rumah Deret Tamansari project initiation was started in 2015. It was started when the mayor of Bandung called on several Indonesia professional architects to do a conceptual proposal on many typologies, i.e. local wet market, housing, etc. The architects were given freedom to propose their ideal concept based on their principles. Each typology has its own issues and characteristic. The housing typology is located at Tamansari district, it aims to redevelop the area toward urban densification and improve the residence life quality. The main brief is to accommodate 3 times the number of current residence; 65 households.
4.1 Resident acceptance
Once the design concept was completed, an audience was held between the Mayor and design architect pertaining to the continuation of Tamansari project. The project preparation process took up to 2 years. The conclusion was to implement the project as a design and built contract, a tender will be called to select a contractor which will also serve as project architect to develop the conceptual design. A design and built contract was selected to expedite the project in a way that design development and construction could be done simultaneously, coordination between project architect and contractor on site could be done more efficient as they will be under the same organization. The development planned was comprises of four residential towers accommodating 3 times the number of current residence, the construction process will be done in two phases. Two out of four towers will be constructed in each phase.
A socialization to Tamansari current residents was held at the Mayor’s hall. The design architect was given opportunity to present the concept to the residents. They were given a chance to do preparation progressively to prepare the site for construction. The current resident will be relocated to a temporary public housing which eventually relocate back to Tamansari once the development is finish.
According to Cilaki (2017) based on a survey conducted for Tamansari feasibility study, most of the residents want to improve their environment. However, the residents find that Tamansari development was too sudden, various reactions emerge from the residents. There is some resistance from some of the existing Tamansari residents despite the land belong to city government, they refused to be relocated and denied Rumah Deret Tamansari project. According to survey, 79% of the resident opted to move out and refuse to be relocated to a public housing due to their future public housing unit will be under lease hold with monthly rent fee. They found this troublesome in a long term, in view to their unstable income. There are also 4% of residents accepted the project and willing to be relocated to a public housing, while there another 17% are still unsure about their plan. Some of them opted to remain stay and deny the development due to their stable business on site, such as laundry business, students hostel and rental housing, and home scale clothing industry. Some of them demand government to cancel Tamansari development and demand financial compensation as the residents have learned from a previous development project at a nearby location where a relocation was done and the affected residents are financially compensated. Those various resident reactions have become constraint for the Tamansari project. Residents rejection has a significant impact on the project timeline. A lawsuit from five residents had consumed 1 year and caused the project to be delayed. Despite the law suit had been settled and majority of the residents are agreeable to be relocated, there still 2% of the residents insist to stay because they have their source of income within the development site.
4.2 Contractor and architect capacity
Rumah Deret Tamansari project was a design and built project, which become a trend in Indonesia’s construction projects. Sometimes this method is not preferable for project architects as the project will be tendered to contractor and architect will be under contractor. Most of the time leading contractor will be driven by economic motive and try to finish the job only to fulfill contractual obligation.
In the case of Tamansari, awarded contractor is a consortium comprises of companies with various background. They compete with three other tenderers which are unsure whether they could deliver the project in the given timeline, relatively limited budget yet expected to be higher standard for public housing project.
Once awarded, internal coordination was held, while the contractor was leading the project, the task distribution clearly segregated between contractor and project architect. The proposed cost and timeline was reviewed and coordinated to all stakeholders to ensure that it meets the city government timeline.
Project architect task is to develop the conceptual design, a detail and thorough check was done to ensure that it complies with the standard and building code. The developed design has to go through the City Architecture Assessor Board, an independent body assembled by the Mayor comprises of professionals and academics. The assessment concern is technical and architectural requirements, such as, firefighting requirements, public spaces provision, Tower blocks distances pertaining to natural lightings and safety, and privacy issue between blocks. The process was followed by all consultants; C&S and MEP as they required to develop based on the final design.
After undergoing 6 months development process, the project architect finished the task. Only after three months
D. Kusyala, A. Darmana and Y. Lim
119
afterwards, the C&S started to do their task. However, there are still some minor changes as the resident is also participated and gave their inputs. Structure calculation was delayed as the C&S was not using the latest city government standard.
There is significant change from the initial conceptual design pertaining to building height. The initial walk-up concept could not be achieved as the building height is change to 7 floors and a fire lift is required. In the development stage it was decided to use a prefab system to expedite the construction, however this lead to major change in various detailing.
On the contractor side, they took longer for the preparation as they need to deal with the lawsuit process from some of the residents. There is also resistance for the final develop design pertaining to the location of a worship facility which located under residential units. This caused a drawback as the drawings had undergone lengthy process and procedures.
4.3 Coordination and city government control
Coordination with city government was done under DPKP3, a division responsible for housing coordinated with planning and design division. Eventually the project was delay for almost a year as the contractor is required to submit several compliance drawings and documents pertaining to the projects. Some of the residents take this to their advantages to deny the project.
On the other hands the initial brief from the Mayor to accommodate three times of the existing residents could not be achieved as the current plot ratio and site coverage of the site could not achieve the development quantum. The revision of plot ratio and site coverage required an appeal to the authority and go through a discretion procedure. However, the city government could not appeal with the required document to be able to pass the discretion process.
Miscoordination between stakeholders and the internal conflict between authorities due to different understanding and interpretation of codes and regulations had caused drawback for the project, hence contractor and project architect could not run the project properly.
5. DISCUSSION
In a broader context, Tamansari housing project has a political aspect, to certain extent, this affect the project timeline and phasing. The timeline was considered too rush. Some preliminary studies, such as, traffic impact analysis, and environmental impact analysis could have been anticipated and done in the early stage. However, some of them are missed or not properly done due to time constraint. Coordination in the inception stage between city’s government and concept designer is important to minimize misinterpretation, particularly in the fundamental aspects such as spatial programming and the main idea or vision of the project. Detail data and information are also paramount important to support the project.
To support better implementation, a better structured information and preparation need to be given to the current residence. Programme socialization need to be done progressively such that it could give proper understanding to the residence. Lack of information could lead to misunderstanding and misinformation between government and residence.
Implementation of a design and build project required a preparedness and solid coordination of all stakeholders particularly designer and contractor. There is a certain expectation in how fast a project can be built, yet merely rely on construction speed may lead to sacrificing the quality of the project. The construction process also need to meet the required standard and specification as per the initial concept done by the designer.
6. CONCLUSION
Initiatives pertaining to urban or neighbourhood improvement have been emerging in Indonesia. The trend was aligned with most of the current young leader vision and they are eager to quickly implement the ideas. Likewise, the construction practices have to evolve to adhere to the current design trend and the fast pace project. A fast pace project required an efficient and effective construction methods. However, there is still a gap in the construction industry to fully accommodate the new design approach.
Conventional construction method tends to approach the project pragmatically, most of the time the main concern is how to execute the project quickly with minimum effort. On the other side, there are still many aspects to be improved, among them are the planning and project systems, especially in the critical stages such as pre-concept and designing stage. One lesson can be learned from Tamansari project is that challenges could come from within the system itself. In this project, some ideas were deemed not comply to the rule either due to its innovative nature such that there is yet a building code or standard to adhere to it or contradicting code and policy within the authorities.
Recommendation can be made for future project; a comprehensive and integrated information are required to start or initiate a design idea, segmented government divisions have to be change toward a more integrated and collaborative system to be able to support the project better.
Unconventional approach to housing design and construction practice in Indonesia and its challenges
120
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Rumah Deret Tamansari is managed and owned by Bandung Municipality, as a part of their effort to develop Urban Kampung in their region. The idea of walk-up apartment is proposed and developed by Akanoma Studio.
This research was also supported by Community Service Program under P3MI, Building Technology Research Group, Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). Lastly, we would also like to show our gratitude to ITB for providing the platform to conduct this research.
References
BPS Kota Bandung. (2017). Kota Bandung Dalam Angka 2017. Bandung: BPS Kota Bandung.
Cilaki Studio (2017). Feasibililty studies on Tamansari Development : Penataan Kawasan Permukiman Kumuh. Bandung: Kelurahan Tamansari, Kecamatan Bandung Wetan.
Dasep (2018). Personal interview regarding the Tamansari project and green design practice in Indonesia (conducted on 3 June 2018)
“Indonesia Statistics” (2015) Available from: www.bps.go.id (accessed July 2018)
Lim, Yusin (2018). Personal interview regarding the Tamansari project and green design practice in Indonesia (conducted on 1 June 2018)
UN-Habitat. (2014). World Cities Report2016 - Urbanization and Development: Emerging Futures. International Journal. Nairobi: UN-Habitat. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0264-2751(03)00010-6
Yuddy. Moch Yusuf (2018). Personal interview regarding the Tamansari project and green design practice in Indonesia (conducted on 2 June 2018)
D. Kusyala, A. Darmana and Y. Lim
