The Kampung Metropolis
Applying the social values from the Kampungs as an alternative vision for urban development in Jakarta
M.R. Jerez Nova (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Rodrigo Viseu Cardoso – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Gregory Bracken – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
Jakarta faces mounting challenges of social segregation, environmental threats. While urban development has traditionally prioritised large-scale formal and market-driven growth, the city’s Kampungs have often been overlooked despite their capacity to foster resilient communities, adaptive economies, and strong social networks.
This project explores how the social practices embedded within Jakarta’s Kampungs can change urban planning practices towards a more just and sustainable form. Through fieldwork, spatial analysis, and research-by-design, four Kampungs were studied to identify the social infrastructures and spatial practices that enable communities to adapt to environmental, social, and economic pressures.
The research identifies four core values—Care, Identity, Resilience, and Ecology—as the foundation of life in the studied locations. These values are translated into spatial principles that guide urban transformation: Porous Borders, Chains of Amenities and Socio-Spatial Temporalities, Mobility Networks, and Ecological Corridors. Together, they create conditions for stronger social cohesion, ecological performance, and coexistence between formal and informal urban environments.
The principles are tested through design interventions in dinstinctive but troubling districts in Jakarta: Kapuk Muara and Rawa Terate, which are subjected to segregation, environmental vulnerability, and ecological restoration. The resulting concept, Kampung Metropolis, proposes an alternative way of working for Jakarta that recognises Kampungs not as troubling communities, but as valuable sources of knowledge for creating a more inclusive, resilient, and socially just city.