Taman Borobudur

This is one of the project that allow us to deal with a 'non-structural' media. A park that is recognized not by its structure, but rather its nothingness/emptyness as to complement its surroundings. Unfortunately, we only come to the seventh place in this competition held by government's Park Authority.

History shows that initially park was meant for hunting by high class society or landlords, which was later related to one's social status. This has actually shown in Menteng, as our first garden-housing concept in Jakarta. These parks somehow always directly related to its surrounding big houses, that made them 'owned' by those houses, and not by smaller houses that may need more public open space. The question rises on Taman Borobudur; does it have the same problem or character to other parks in Menteng? What does it offer Jakarta?

As a public place, a Park should hold variety of users, from a baby children to the elderly, from businessmen to common people,etc. Leisure or fun, is what commonly drives those people to come to the park, though it may differ to one another. But we prefer to see Fun as a 'breake the rule' concept, that may occur during one's early childhood, teenage, or even adult/old period.

To have fun by 'breaking rules', first we have to break any boundary that separates the park from its users, so every structure surround the park can have the same opportunity to display its 'park-border'. Second, we provide many variety open sport facility which can be viewed from many angle and position inside the park, 'freedom to choose' is the keyword. Third, we called an 'inverted icons', that try to educate people from opposite point of view or reverse psychology. The idea was to make people do whatever they like in the park, without making them felt ruled. The fourth is to make the best of what the site already have. One of the mistake we do for the mid-low class society is creating something that is too 'luxurious' for them to use. Thus, creating 'green tower' from the existing BTS, conserving the old trees, or providing good lightings for bigger trees, may raise the sense of belonging of the park...especially when they also participate in the process.

However, any urban park in Jakarta, should also have its ecological functions, which may prevent and prepare the city from further disaster. That is why we planned to conserve the existing big/dominant trees to help the city absorb the CO2, as well as large open green field to help the city absorbs the water. These functions may have longer effect to be measured, unlike those facilities on the surface that communicate to the people everyday.

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Koran Tempo on Irman's House

Here's another review on Irman's House by Koran Tempo. The issue was to create an open contemporary house on a secluded site. The house actually can be reached through a 40 m entrance corridor, which creates a surprising sequence from tight entry to a spacious and sheltered reception. A series of openings after blocking walls was the concept in order to get the feeling of the 'openness'.

This was the main idea of what the ground floor should look and relate to other rooms.

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Musholla Al-Izzah

This was actually our last year project which made through Astro TV (Ruang Silaturrahmi) and IDEA (July 2007)publications. The project was later also nominated as IAI Jakarta's Award 2007. Hopefully we can attach the movie clip very soon.

It's a small project yet quite interesting for us, since it's located on abandoned roofdeck on top of an old building in FKG UI Salemba that might look like an alien, a parasite, or just a 'crown' for the faculty. The faculty needed an extra space for student praying room (musholla) above the dean's office, which was functioned as open storage, as well as a bridge between buildings. The problem was to create spacious room while the kiblat was heading perpendicular to circulation/entry corridor, and we had to separate the area for men and women.

As for the cover, we create a rather simple geometrical composition of circles, by using PVC and steel, to emphasize a contemporary 'arabesque' for the facade. This was also meant to protect the building to climate and yet it may still breathe through the skin, as to make a comfortable place to pray.

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Fatahillah Lighting Makeover

After the Jakarta's Old Town Revitalization Program was initiated on September 29,2007, the Fatahillah Museum as one of the Old Town's icon became the central of the first phase revitalization program, as well as Ceramic Museum, Central Station, Puppet Museum, Kota Intan bridge and the pedestrian areas surround them. The revitalization focuses on re-tracing the old pedestrian ways and plaza (Alun-alun), and re-creating the classic ambiance of the Old Town by assembling similar paving materials as well as the lighting poles and fixtures.

One of the important issue was to make such regulation for the lighting masterplan, since the government does not owns/functions most of the remaining buildings in the area, and there were already too many newer lighting fixtures mounted. Some of them are too modern, and some were put in the wrong spots. "It's harder to regulate private-own buildings to comply with the masterplan", as mentioned by Agust Danang Ismoyo, our lighting specialist who was working with PJU on the project. Fortunately, we don't have those issues on Fatahillah Museum, now that it has become one of the main attraction for nite tourism surround Jakarta's Old Town.

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Koran Tempo on MBRC

Last week, Koran Tempo covered one of our interior project in FISIP UI, Mirriam Budiardjo Resource Center (MBRC). The rocketing number of visitors was the main issue, since the renovation strategy was to create more warm and comforting ambiance for people to get information in the old FISIP's library, which was later known as a resource center. A slight change of interior atmosphere has indeed made significant impact on how people work or get their information there.

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