Description

This house is located within a housing area in West Jakarta that is frequently exposed to flooding. On the way to the house, we will pass a black dirty river and a surrounding environment that is very cluttered and crowded by vehicles. The unpleasant experience prompted an idea to design a home with the simplest facade, dominated only by one type material on a flat wall. We thought that the simplicity will bring peace of mind. The single story house is renovated into three stories house. The first story, is only 2 metres tall, to be functioned as storeroom, and a place for tubs to reserve clean tap water, water from the well, and rainwater. The house actually begin on the second floor to avoid the possibility of future flood and is designed to flow with a split floor on each story. Like any traditional Indonesian-Chinese old houses, the house has a courtyard/an open space, it has a red Erythrina Variegata tree in it. However, due to the relatively small size of the land (10mx18m), the courtyard is positioned on the left/southern part of the land. The rooms in the home are set surrounding the courtyard, like a mirrored /c/ letter. The House is designed like a puzzle, a series of masses made of different materials. Most of the materials are reused materials from the old house, materials used during construction, and discarded things from the contractor’s other projects. The puzzle idea also represents the hobby of home owners, a young couple named jonathan & shanty, who love to collect unique second hand objects (such as beer and wine bottles, packs of cigarettes, various ethnic handicrafts, various pets, etc.) and want to display them as part of their house ambience. Later the simple façade is also shaped like a puzzle made of different modules of boxes. Grass blocks are used, reinforced by IWF steel structure and angle steel to ensure good ventilation and natural lighting within the house. Sunlight shines on the front of the house from 06.00 until 08.00 in the morning. Towards the afternoon, no more direct sunlight is filtering through the small holes in the grassblocks. The house becomes relatively cooler and offers changeable atmospheres according to the weather. Project details Location : Greenville K28, West Jakarta, Indonesia. Assistant architects : benyamin narkan, thoat fauzi, iwan gunawan Design : march–sept 2009 Construction : nov 2009–june 2011 Lighting : akar anomali Landscape : Nirmandez Structure : Almega Karya Jaya Contractor : Almega Karya Jaya Land area : 180 sqm Building area : 500 sqm

This house is located within a housing area in West Jakarta that is frequently exposed to flooding. On the way to the house, we will pass a black dirty river and a surrounding environment that is very cluttered and crowded by vehicles. The unpleasant experience prompted an idea to design a home with the simplest facade, dominated only by one type material on a flat wall. We thought ...