1. Jakarta Vertical Kampung Review
OHS Surabaya, Indonesia T +628563107662 E bintang.chairul.putra@gmail.com orangehousestudio.tumblr.com
Orange House Studio

2. Behind the Event
JVK website banner
Jakarta Vertical Kampung Initiator
Jakarta Vertical Kampung is arranged by SHAU, and hosted by Erasmus Huis, Embassy of the Netherland. JVK is an
International event focusing on the creative design exploration of the ‘Vertical Kampung’ concept in Jakarta. This event
embodies a master class which is a 12 days long workshop, and then followed by a conference to present and discuss the
workshop result, and closed by an exhibition showing the results.
SHAU itself, is an architecture firm based in Netherland, founded and directed by Florian Heinzelmann and Daliana
Suryawinata.
Company
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3. The Good In-
tention
The Vision of Combining Kampung
and Verticality
The idea was inspired by Jakarta city itself, where the
urban crises are mostly related to over-population or over-
density. Which causes the growing amount of slums. And
since horizontal expansions are no longer feasible, due to
the urban-suburban distance issues, and the fact that the
Greater Jakarta is already too big for the populace, the
other alternative is to expand vertically. Stacking the ever-
accumulating population on top of each other seems to be
the closest alternative short-term solution.
While the long term solution of the over-population issue is
actually quite simple, if you don't want things to
accumulate, you should spread it, redistribute the
population to all area of the country. But at the same time,
the implementation would be a little bit tricky. Because it
would require the spread of the capital (as in money) to the
whole nation, in order to lure the people to transmigrate to
a more remote areas. Unfortunately, decisions involving
capital, is as politically sensitive as ever. It can very easily
be diverted into an ideological debate such as capitalism
vs. socialism. Thus putting the execution out of our
(engineers) hands. So, let's cope with this short-term
solution for awhile.
First of all, started with Daliana’s presentation, she showed
her concern about the top-down social housing
development. There are numerous social housing projects
in the world that end up in dissappointment. She used
some examples such as the Pruitt-Igoe project, Kowloon,
and De Biljmer project. All these vertical housing end up
Pruitt Igoe, Detroit
De Biljmer, Amsterdam
Torre David, Caracas
“What Jakarta need, along with other
developing cities, is multi-
programmatic structure based on a
community oriented development
and cultural context.”
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4. The Masterclass
The Masterclass is a 12 days workshop involving young
architects from anywhere to experiment on the possibilities
of vertical kampung. The participants were then divided
into 6 groups. Varying from 4 to 5 people per group with
the addition of 2 teachers. There were six sites spread
across Jakarta that are chosen for each group. They are:
Semanan - Our group
Nagrak
Rorotan
Penjaringan
Penggilingan
Cibesut
Semanan county location on Jakarta Map
On the first and second day of the masterclass, the
participants visited the site for roughly 3 - 4 hours. In order
to cultivate as much information about the circumstances
such as the existing building, community, commodity,
economy, etc. and use the data for the design
development.
Site location on Semanan County map
Each of the site offered unique situations. In case of the
Semanan site, we found a very rare commodity for a
metropolitan Jakarta, which is a paddy field and vegetable
gardens. This green space occupied more than 80 percent
of the site. The remaining 20 percent or less, is filled with
non-formal village of the local farmers. There also
happened to be a popular commodity from the nearby
kampung, which is tempe (soy bean cake).
Site map, showing agricultural area
Site map, showing non-formal residencial area
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5. The Awry
Method
Designing Semanan, Vertically
Non-formal residence on the site
Given the agricultural dominance on the site, I assumed
that we would create something to accommodate both the
people and the agriculture at least 50-50. I assumed
wrong.
Off course, the government had requested some very
specific conditions for the site, such as: the number of
residents, the maximum storeys/building height, they even
provide the future master plan mapping of the site. Based
on these data, it was clear that the government did not, in
the slightest, consider sustaining the agricultural space.
It did not surprise me, these short-sighted-ness has
become something of a norm in any government
institutions lately. But, what is surprising is that our teacher
directed us in fulfilling the government's targets almost
unconditionally. With the argument of putting the client in
the first priority.
"In this day and age, we cannot lose
anymore agricultural area" -
Christophe Girot
By our teacher's guidance, we started designing the
structure by calculating the Building Coverage Ratio, Floor
Area Ratio, Building Height, and other technical
constraints. All in regards to the official government
request and rules of the city planning. And then followed
by the building programming.
Still though, Initially, we insisted in experimenting with
shapes that accommodate the agriculture space, such as
terracing and roof farming. But it had to be put aside once
Shau mentioned about the budget constraint. Cheap, is
one of the design requirements. Which makes the
agriculture preservation even further off the reach.
Building programming process
"Architects and designers have the
ability to create beautiful images and
diagrams. let's use this to convince
the government to do what is good
for the people" - Alfredo Brillembourg
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6. What the Experts Say
There were two review sessions in the masterclass, mid
and final review. In these sessions, each group had to
present their work. The mid review were attended by Ton
Venhoeven. While the final review were attended by handful
of architects namely, Eko Prawoto, Budi Pradono, Yori
Antar, Nanne de Ru, Stephen Cairns, Pitupong Chaowakil,
Bin Kim, and Yonathan Pasodung.
After our presentation, they stood by with an enquiring
stare. And judging from their comments we can feel that
they didn't seem to be very satisfied with the result.
"Sometimes, the solution is not in the
design"
They were trying to point out that our presentations were
too focused on the design. They expected something
more from the perspective of the inhabitants. Most of the
time, they were asking about the philosophy and concept.
Such as what are the basis of the design decisions, what
reflects the kampung organic and dynamic environment.
etc. Nothing too technical.
If they were to ask our teacher, the answer would be very
simple, -- organic and dynamic structures are expensive.--
But we didn't answer that, because it sounded pragmatic,
so we explained the few kampung-influenced bits of our
design. Which was rather gimmicky.
"Designing an affordable housing doesn't
always mean the future of kampung"
It is clear that they view the design proposal to be too
similar with the existing social housing structure. By these
standards, we might succeed in designing an affordable
housing. But they doubt that it would be the future model
of kampung.
"It's the attitude to think about the
kampung"
Bin Kim suggested that we need to reconsider our
perception about kampung. It's still a common thing that
people see kampung in a negative way, just like how we
portray the word 'slum'. We need to remember that before
industrial housing development, we only have kampung.
Thus there must be a lot more potential to be cultivated,
especially beyond the mere physicality.
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7. The Result
The View
Site plan
Commercial area
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8. The View
Public Spaces
Unit interior
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9. Conclusion
Although we (OHS) had things figured out even before joining the event, it is still a very remarkable workshop. It acts as the
initial step towards a deeper study on kampung. The result from each group craves for further development. And the
relationship between Shau and the government could also mean the greater possibility for kampung to be seek after
officially. Thanks to Shau for the effort to consider the kampung side of the development, not every agency has the will to
even take a look at kampung community.
By this masterclass, we have the opportunity to learn about both kampung and urban development from diverse
perspective, thanks to the great invitee from around the world. So hopefully, from this point forward, urban development will
get better for the people in general, with ecology preservation in mind.
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10. Gallery
Erasmus Huis, JVK venue
Group discussion
Presentation by David Gianotten, OMA
Skype Presentation by Alfredo Brillembourg
Presentation by Pithupong Chauwakul, Super Machine
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11. Exhibition
Masterclass Group Panels
Our group members
Our Panel
The Studio
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