Future inner city live-work typologies for Bandung

Abstract

This graduation project is part of the Shared Heritage Lab; a collaboration studio between the master tracks of Heritage&Architecture, Architectural Engineering, Landscape Architecture and Urbanism of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment from the TU Delft. All students joining this graduation lab focus on the question ‘How to evolve important heritage structures and areas of Bandung, in order to realise inclusive, thriving, and healthy environments for working, living and leisure?’. Within the scope of this question the issues found in the Pasar Baru Area in Bandung are addressed in the research and the design of this graduation project. The area is located in the middle of the city centre, has always been one of the major trade hubs of Bandung and is the old Chinese and Arabic neighbourhood. During the Dutch colonialization of Indonesia, the area developed in an interesting spatial way, as the city blocks, are characterized by an ‘inner’ and an ‘outer world’. The outer world consist of the periphery of the city blocks, where the shophouses, owned by Chinese merchants, define the spatial and urban character of the area. Behind those shophouses, in the middle of the city blocks which is called the ‘urban pocket’, the local Sundanese community resided in their kampung houses. This urban development resulted in an interesting spatial, social and economical balance in this part of the city. Nowadays, however, this balance is under threat, because of commercial investments, densification and pollution.
In order to stop the process of decay in the Pasar Baru area and to create a pleasant environment for working, living and leisure, the design aims to restore the former balance in the area and to create a comfortable place for all the inhabitants, traders and customers. In this design the values of the heritage, the community and the environment are taken into account. This results in an urban strategy focussed on the restoration of the balance between the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer world’ of the city block, whilst still allowing for further densification to happen in this urban context. These rules guarantee a comfortable environment to live, work and relax, for a diverse group of people and also stimulate the use of more traditional building techniques in the architecture, in order to create a new local atmosphere in the area, and to take the issues of climate change into account. This strategy is further elaborated into an architectural design for the urban pocket, which consists of an expandable kampung house based on easy-to-understand building methods using only timber and bamboo. This house allows for cheap and comfortable housing and guarantees a pleasant residential environment for all the residents of the urban pocket. In order to guide the process of densification and commercialisation in the area, the urban strategy is also focussed on the design of the architecture in the periphery of the city block. To provide space for small businesses and to reintroduce housing into the area, four existing shophouses are retrofitted into a mini-market for street vendors and small shops and on top of those a timber high-rise structure is designed to house small studio apartments. The flexibility and the climate adaptivity of the building is created by the design of several movable panels in the interior and in the façade. Felt and glass panels in the interior allow the residents to arrange their own privacy and comfort, whilst a system of louvre and woven bamboo panels in the façade allow for enough natural ventilation to create a comfortable indoor climate. The bridge between the urban pocket and the periphery is created by low-rise apartments for families, where a similar building system is applied. The use of plants and grasses in the roofs, the facades and in the public realm of the urban pocket, create a comfortable environment for all residents and finalise the strategy, where all the urban pockets together are the lungs of the Pasar Baru area, both metaphorically as physically.