Archinect - News

A utopic city, monument to a president's ego, maybe just a future "jungle resort"

2024-05-08T11:58:00-04:00

It is estimated that the construction of Nusantara will cost $38 billion, with 20 percent of that coming from the Indonesian coffers...But the vast majority of the metropolis – 80 percent of it – is to be financed by private investments. Everything that actually makes a city a city...And that is currently where the greatest hurdles lie: The investors are not showing up

Earlier this year, Maria Stöhr and Muhammad Fadli reported on Indonesia's plans for a new capital city. This mega-project is more than just a city but a new capital region. It is billed as "The World's Sustainable City" with plans for "smart security." While the architect of the "Smart Forest City", Sibarani Sofia, admits they would have preferred a more modest design (the palace in the shape of an eagle was already baked in) some have raised economic and environmental concerns.

Indonesia begins construction on new Nusantara capital city in Borneo

2023-01-24T17:54:00-05:00

Indonesia expects to begin construction in the second quarter on apartments worth $2.7 billion for thousands of civil servants due to move to its new capital city on Borneo island, an official said late on Tuesday. Authorities have already started building basic infrastructure in the area, with an aim to start relocating some government administration and civil servants in 2024.

The 450,000-acre starter city’s initial residential program will include 184 apartment towers for a total of 14,500 government employees. AECOM and Nikken Sekkei are leading the development of its master plan towards an expected inauguration date to coincide with the country’s Independence Day on the 17th of August next year. Officials previously decided that the seat of power’s future in Jakarta is untenable owing to increased flood risk, rising sea levels, and a rapid rate of sinking that has been recorded up to 11 inches per year in certain areas.

Indonesia hires Aecom, McKinsey and Nikken Sekkei to design new capital

2020-03-04T15:45:00-05:00

The Indonesian government is involving three international consulting firms in developing the masterplan of the country’s new capital city, which is to be located in East Kalimantan. [...] American engineering company AECOM, consulting firm McKinsey & Company and Japanese architectural and engineering firm Nikken Sekkei would design the city, which is to feature the latest technology and be environmentally friendly at the same time.

In August 2019, Indonesian President Joko Widodo had announced the selection of a 450,000-acre site in East Kalimantan province on Borneo Island where the nation's new capital would be relocated to.

Jakarta, the current capital on Java Island, is traffic-choked, increasingly prone to floods, and some areas of the metropolitan area with a population of more than 30 million have been sinking as much as 10 inches a year, caused by the digging of underground aquifers and amplified by rising levels.

As Jakarta sinks, Indonesia picks jungle site in Borneo for its new capital city

2019-08-26T18:30:00-04:00

President Joko Widodo announced Monday that officials had chosen an area in East Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo, for the as-yet-unnamed capital. Construction on the 450,000-acre site would start next year, and people would move in beginning in 2024. [...] Critics of the plan have warned that the cost of moving the capital could be untenable. [...] What’s more, shifting civil servants and their families to a new city in Borneo will not stop Jakarta from sinking, they say.

With some areas of Jakarta sinking as much as 10 inches a year, caused by the digging of underground aquifers and worsened by climate change, the need to relocate the capital has become more pressing in recent years.

The effort will cost an estimated $33 billion, President Widodo said during his Monday announcement, The Washington Post reports.

In Jakarta residents are living in a "suburb in the sky"

2019-08-06T10:07:00-04:00

It is a surreal urban bubble, where normal life unfolds at an abnormal altitude. To access ground level, residents drive their cars down a ramp. A tall metal fence runs around the perimeter to make sure no one falls or drives off. Peer beyond the fence and you can spot the city’s landmarks below.

In Jakarta, Indonesia exists a suburb, unlike any other. Cosmo Park is unique because it can be found ten stories above ground on top of a shopping mall. At ground level, Jakarta is a city that succumbs to many issues. Many cities around the world suffer from their fair share of obstacles. However, Jakarta has experienced a series of challenges.

The Indonesian capital has had experienced a rapid increase in urban growth resulting from flooding and other natural disasters. Congestion, gridlocked traffic, and a breakdown in the city's ecology are other factors that would beg to question, perhaps the idea of Cosmo Park is a viable option for alternative urban developments?

Image © The Jakarta Post | foto.tempo

In a recent post from The Guardian, the development of Cosmo Park was relatively unknown and out of the public eye for many years. However, thanks to a recent Twitter post from @shahrirbahar1, the photo caught the attention of many. Accumulating nearly 27,000 retweets many began...

What we can learn from the devastating earthquake in Indonesia

2018-10-03T20:24:00-04:00

Building codes and standards in many countries require engineers to consider the effects of soil liquefaction in the design of new buildings and infrastructure such as bridges, embankment dams and retaining structures

After the devastating earthquake that hit Indonesia, scientists are relating building collapses to soil liquefaction. When overly saturated soil is heavily loosened by intense seismic activity, particles in the soil lose its bond and contact with each other. Thus resulting in its loss of stiffness and structural support. When soil deposits lose its ability to provide stability for foundations, the land quickly turns into a liquid flowing nightmare.

Dr. Stavroula Kontoe of Imperial College London highlights on this phenomenon and provides a proactive perspective to preventing these disasters from happening in the future. Dr. Kontoe explains that soil liquefaction can be identified early on in a building's design process. If the correct mitigation techniques like soil strengthening and proper drainage systems are applied, areas that are more susceptible have a better chance in recovering from a natural disaster.

Spires and Gyres: Contemporary Architecture in Jakarta

2017-11-28T14:56:00-05:00

Jakarta is perhaps the truest realization of a post-colonial cosmopolis. Many former colonial capitals stage a rivalry between quaint traditional centers and desperation-driven peripheries. But Jakarta can be understood not as a dialogue with its former foreign overlords but rather as a fiercely insistent projection of Indonesian independence.

In his latest article for Places, Joe Day examines the contemporary architecture of Jakarta through the framework of the utopian terms of the Five Pancasilas, the founding principles of modern Indonesia.

Day traces the development of Indonesian architecture from founding president Pak Sukarno's “modernism with Indonesian characteristics” to the new architectures heralded by the Arsitek Muda Indonesia (AMI) generation of the 1980s and '90s and their contemporary successors.

I scream you scream we all scream for this Indonesian library made out of 2,000 recycled ice cream buckets

2016-07-08T17:51:00-04:00

Designed by SHAU in Bandung (Indonesia's West Java capital), the two-story structure's facade is made from (you guessed it) a grid of recycled plastic ice cream buckets. The ground floor is kept open for various events and activities, and the actual library is located behind the buckets, on the second floor.

The kicker is that the buckets are arranged facing either in or out, forming a pattern in binary code that reads, in Indonesian: "book is a window to the world". Clickthrough the link for more info from GCR, and check out more photos in the gallery below.

Less ice cream, more libraries:

Jakarta, the world's largest city without a subway, is drowning in traffic

2016-01-19T08:00:00-05:00

Since 2000, the world’s second-largest megacity, Jakarta, has seen its population swell by a staggering 34 percent. Though the city proper is home to just 10 million, the urban zone is home to 30 million [...] “Jakarta is the largest urban metropolitan area in the world without a metro,” he [Deden Rukmana] says. “And a metro is the most crucial element of transportation for a megacity. There’s no way it can exist otherwise.”

Jakarta, already 40% below sea level, is building one of the biggest sea walls on Earth

2015-12-14T12:51:00-05:00

Jakarta sinks an average of three inches a year, and parts of the coast are going down as much as 11 inches a year [...] In an attempt to halt the damage, authorities are building a gigantic wall off the coast, measuring 25 miles (40 kilometers) long and 80 feet (24 meters) high, National Geographic reports. To fund the $40 billion and 30-year-long project, the city will also create 17 artificial islands, on which developers can build luxury homes, offices, and shopping malls.

A Dutch firm, KuiperCompagnons, is assisting with design. The first phase of the three-part plan is underway, although critics say that the project will encourage more government corruption and actually cause more environmental damage than it would help prevent.

Jakarta's "car-free days" are only the start of the city's long journey to becoming bike-friendly

2015-09-11T18:13:00-04:00

Ask a cyclist what it’s like to ride in Indonesia’s capital – a sprawling megalopolis of 10.2 million people...More than likely, they’ll tell you it’s outright dangerous...Car-free days may be popular, but there is almost no [cyclist] infrastructure... [However, there] is hope among cyclists that bike lanes will become a priority after the city’s [mass rapid transport] system is finished in 2019. In the meantime, several young innovators are taking matters into their own hands.

Bali’s fascinating bamboo architecture

2015-03-23T12:47:00-04:00

“There was a time when you could not be poor enough, or rural enough, to want to live in a bamboo house,” says Ibuku founder Elora Hardy. A former print designer for Donna Karan, Hardy now leads an Indonesian firm that creates innovative, luxurious structures out of cheap, sustainable, plentiful bamboo. In a talk at the TED conference last week, Hardy wowed the audience with spectacular images that defy traditional notions of house shapes and construction.

Learn more about Ibuku on the firm's Archinect profile.

An interview with Indonesian architect Andra Matin

2013-08-06T16:35:00-04:00

Mark magazine #44 (June-July 2013) put the spotlight on the architectural scene in Indonesia. MovingCities contributed with an interview with leading Indonesian architect Andra Matin who is hailed as ‘a well kept secret in the architecture world’. An extract:

A major force within contemporary Indonesian architecture, the soft-spoken man is recognized as the helmsman of a generation of independent architects, yet hardly anyone outside his native country knows his name. Locally celebrated but internationally undiscovered, Matin was one of the first Indonesian architects to establish an independent practice after the fall of Suharto in 1998. (...) Andra Matin’s portfolio is vast and diverse. He designs houses, museums, galleries, restaurants, public parks, mosques and artist studios. (...) In 2011 Rem Koolhaas visited Matin’s office and future home. ‘I didn’t understand why he wanted to see my house. The day before he arrived, he saw another project of mine, the Winfred House, wher...