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Konsep “Kota dalam Kota” di Kota Semarang

The old concept about “garden city” (Ebenezer Howard, town planner and English parliamentary member) that stated that city for living, city for working, should be held between commercial areas, is just an ancient theory, and cannot be implemented today because of it has cast a lot of problems. Thus because of this concept was already developed in many cities, including organic cities.

We can see this garden city impact in many places. Sub-urban concentrate in surrounding areas, divided by streets and junctions, while the generator of people movement always held in city centers.

Traffic jam, pollution, accident potentials, and stress potential happen because of those traffic crowd makes psychological impact happen when there are public mass movement toward the downtown area to go to the activity places in the morning and in the evening (usually happen at 6:30am to 9:00am and 3:30pm to 6:00pm). This is the impact of “garden city”.

The solution of this problem is not only can be done with arrangement of streets as public movements, but also we should re-arrange the concept of this urban design in our city. Traffic signages, dispatch polices, traffic light countdown timer, and rapid public transportation only can minimize the impact, but not solving the problem.

The city itself needs to be divided into smaller groups, so that this idea is called: “re-thinking the garden city, creating city in the city”. The idea comes from the rationale to develop more downtown facilities in every center of these sub-urban areas. Sub-urban have to be the main generator of city’s development. It means, neighborhood can be used as inter connected cities.

Design and develop more shopping centers, entertainment places, commercial places, offices, and other services near of these sub-urban areas, while continuing the city beautification concept. So that people can go work, do their business, enjoy the entertainments and the atmosphere in these places. If we can stay near by our offices, or even live on the same building core, it can cut off our times, and of course, it can minimizes the gasoline expenditure.

This “city in the city” is the solution of these problems. Government sector can see this concept as one of good solutions, entrepreneurs can use it as a chance to develop their business, and of course, citizens enjoy the option to go to the nearest public services in each field of sectors, closest to their residential areas.

Andie Wicaksono

Architect, writer, and city observer.

Related article: Garden City and City Beautiful Movement Theory.

The Garden City Movement and a Scientific Approach

In his influential book Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Social Reform (1898), Ebenezer Howard, an English parliamentary stenographer, showed how workable and livable towns could be formed within the capitalist framework.

Permanent green space would separate the city and towns, serving as a horizontal fence of farmland. Rails and roads would link the towns, which would have their own industries, the nearby farms supplying fresh foods. All increases in land values would accrue to the town and its “stockholders,” the townspeople.

Howard’s proposal was accompanied by diagrams showing the attractions of the town, the country, and then of both, when ideally combined. The functional relations between the central city and its concept of a garden city and its internal lay out. Howard’s detailed thinking was not limited to physical design or to studies of optimum population sizes. He also made a precise financial analysis of what it would cost to build a garden city and now its operating costs would be met. Therein lay the strength of his proposal. He showed how it could be accomplished.

Howard’s analytical approach was an indication of the almost scientific study that modern city building requires. The city is so large and its operations so complex that is proper understanding can only be gained by the full application of precise analysis.

The City Beautiful Movement

In 1901 the AIA held a national conference on city beautification in Washington, D.C. The McMillan Commission was then formed to prepare a plan for the improvement of central Washington.

They toured Europe for inspiration and returned to propose a grand classical concept of landscape architecture with axes, mall, focal points, and pools–in effect reviving the original L’Enfant plan for the city. This, together with the example of the world’s fairs, initiated a country-wide program of civic improvement efforts: “the City Beautiful Era”. The City Beautiful Era was by no means limited to civic centers or fine public buildings. There was considerable activity in the creation of planned residential communities.

From the urban design book: “The Architecture of Town and Cities”, Paul Spreiregen, AIA

Indonesian citizens know very well the quality of our roads. In most cities (I’ll take Surabaya as an example since I live there), after the wet season has passed, it takes away with it chunks of tarmac! Some roads are heavily damaged due to the amount of rainfall we have. That pretty much describes how “high” our road quality is. So “high” in fact that even our own international circuit, Sentul, which is supposed to fulfill FIA (World Automotive Federation) standards, has a low quality surface! The track surface actually broke apart during an international race event (Jawa Pos 19 & 22 February 2008). If that’s the quality of our international raceway, then everyone who reads this can very well guess how Indonesia’s roads are.

Our roads aren’t able to serve citizens’ needs optimally, as they have very low asphalt quality. Damage to road surfaces does not only require regular attention and maintenance (which naturally costs quite a bit of money), but also chokes our nation’s own economic growth due to the delay in the circulation of goods and services. Not only that,we should consider the social cost that the damages cause to society. One simple example is congestion. Damaged roads can cause congestion, and as we know, congestion is not only an annoying thing for motorists, but also for society as a whole. The amount of economic pressure caused by the high fuel demand is a (big or small?) effect of the amount of fuel wasted for absolutely nothing! Not to mention the environmental impacts of congestion (noise, air pollution). Safety is another issue that we must consider when talking about damaged roads. Water puddles appear during, and remain shortly after, rainfall on uneven road surfaces. Should an accident occur, who’s to blame? The motorist? The rain?? Often people have the burden of fixing the roads (especially the roads around their neighborhood) on their own cost. Most, if not all Kampongs invite their residents to raise the road surface to avoid floods (I’m gonna talk about this in another article, I promise).

To avoid the routine maintenance on our roads, then it is apparent that we have to raise the standards in road building to support our citizens’ needs and activities optimally. Raising the standards can be done by firstly changing the way we fix our roads (generally by patching them up, creating uneven surfaces everywhere) so that the roads have an even surface. The surface itself has to be set in a certain angle to let water flow off of the roads and into canals perfectly, to avoid water puddles and minimize the possibility of aqua-planing, hence making roads safer for motorists, and making the road practically maintenance free.

Besides the surface design, roads must also have the strength to support as much load as possible (according to its category of course…artery, collector, etc.). So far, many companies have had to reduce the load of their transport vehicles so that they do not damage road surfaces (or pay higher tax). This step (reducing the load) results in adding more vehicles to their transport armada, increasing the chances of congestion, and swells up the companies’ budgets due to the amount of fuel consumed by the vehicles. If the roads were able to support almost unlimited load, then surely transporting goods and services will no longer be a big problem. Companies can use bigger vehicles, to haul larger loads, reducing the amount of vehicles on the road, and reduce the chances of congestion, and reduce fuel costs, ultimately reducing the nation-wide economic pressure due to fuel demands.

Having accomplished all that I have mentioned above, (hopefully) may result in a better economic growth for Indonesia. If we consider the city, or a nation, as a living creature, then the roads are its veins and arteries, distributing blood all over the body. Blood, in this sense refers to traffic, with the vehicles as blood cells, carrying oxygen (and God knows what else, since I’m no biologist!). Should any disturbances occur to the blood stream, then, the creature’s health is also at risk (no, at least disturbed). So, as I have mentioned in the title, roads can lead to glory, riches, fame, and what ever else is positive, or it can lead to the contrary; death, destruction, and all the negative…therefore, as long as our roads are crap, then I can guarantee that our economy will never have an efficient growth.

Save Our Nation, Fix Our Roads!

Related article about path: http://ar-chi-tect.org/kevin-lynch-and-the-image-of-the-city-theory

Shooting incident while shopping at one of the Houston-area malls, Bali bomb tragedy from the street nearby the restaurant, or car drop away accident from 3^rd level of the parking lot building in Jakarta, shows us that there still a lot of tasks to do to protect our environment. As a designer, an architect, or every social related works with the public place, there’s should be a consideration to preserve the safety in the public space.

Not just by dispatching the security guards around the corner of this places, but more of that, there are a lot of way to design more safety public space. There were many tried ahead from the designers to combine his/her design with the public space, the combination between ramps, accessibility options like special pathways for the disable people, special parking spaces, and more, can be several point of view to be achieve, but still, there are a lot of works to do.

By all accounts, mall shopping regarded for safe. there‘s just an impact for the comfort level. Only small amount of incidents happen, dwarfed by the millions of safe trips made by shoppers each year. None of the malls contacted would comment on camera or allow us to talk to their shoppers.

People need to be ever so more aware of their surroundings. It doesn’t matter if they’re in a shopping mall or a sports arena, in every corner of the public space. Another thing for sure, economists said that shootings like the one in Houston have no effect on shoppers’ behavior. In the hope of finding future growth, developers are turning to mixed-use centers, projects that combine retail, dining, entertainment and residential living units, to be saver for all of us. andie wicaksono for ar-chi-tect.org

Now, this park has just became as one of city node, where just used by vehicles to circulate and maneuver to move around from one place to another, no people activity can be held in this park. Thomas Cartsen, one of Indonesian architect designed this place to be like colonial park’s concept, the European classic style. The symmetrical designs, fountains, pathways, nodes and several vocal points, can be describe as classic style. Trees were placed off at surrounding of this park, created an enclosure with dramatize vista when we go into it.

Another change was, at the first, Cartsen designed this park to be the same level as with the road, in order to give an enjoyable vista for travelers passing around it, matched with the theory of view from within and view from without. And now, this park has been change, the level was increased, and so with the placement of a lot of closing trees has been put surround there everywhere, so travelers cannot enjoy the beautiful landscape again from the outside. This can be fact that, the change of the urban design in some areas, can make impact for the activity support around there. Andie Wicaksono, © ar-chi-tect.org taken from Andie Wicaksono’s thesis : “Pengaruh sarana komersial terhadap karakter lanskap”, article has been published in Indonesian language at enclosure journal, UNDIP, 2003. Colonial map from Prof Sidharta’s collection, taken with permission.

Permukiman sebagai tempat (sarana) hidup manusia dapat digolongkan dalam 2 skala yaitu: 1) Permukiman (Skala makro) Human Settlement, dan 2) Perumahan (Skala Mikro) Housing

Unsur Permukiman

Unsur permukiman itu sendiri yaitu antara lain berupa wadah, tanah / lahan yang digunakan, dan pengisi, penghuni yang terdiri dari makhluk hidup dan benda tak hidup. Permukiman dapat dibedakan menjadi tiga karakter yaitu: 1) More agriculture (traditional countries), dengan ciri pertanian menjadi mata pencarian utama (Irian jaya), 2) Development (berkembang), daerah yang sedang giat membangun (Kalimantan, Sumatra) dan 3) More industrial (maju), banyak industri skala besar, banyak muncul usaha jasa dan pelayanan, tingkat kepadatan tinggi.

Syarat Permukiman

Syarat-syarat yang mendukung terciptanya sebuah permukiman yang layak yaitu: 1) wisma : tempat tinggal, 2) Karya : tempat berkarya dan berusaha, 3) Marga : jaringan tempat mobilitas masyarakat dan barang berlangsung, 4) Suka : tempat masyarakat berekreasi, bersantai dan memperoleh hiburan, dan 5) Penyempurna : pelayanan penunjang bagi masyarakat seperti Pendidikan, Peribadatan, dan Utilitas umum.

Edited from Ariyanti (2008): “Themed Town, Thames Town” an unpublished article for Campus of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University, Shanghai

It was a cloudy Saturday and our group of formerly 14 people has been reduced to 8 from the morning visit to Anting New Town. Exhausted, we found out that Thames Town is really far out from to the other direction, the only way to get there was with a cab, since our limited Chinese, we asked our friend to instruct the taxi driver how to get there. After another 40 minutes ride, we arrived at the compound, surrounded by fences, waterways and empty boulevards, the town was a place separated from its surrounding.

My first impression of the city was, how serene and quite it was. Then the architectural images sprang into my mind, the red brick Victorian style houses were aligned in rows and curved streets. We went into one of the fenced compound just on the out skirt of the “town”, and found out that those red brick used there were not actual red brick, they were tiles plastered on concrete wall. This had already brought realization into my mind. It was not what it seemed to be, this place was only a copy of an English styled town.

It was obvious that in the same moment, I remembered an excerpt from Sorkin,[1] he compared between cities that we have today with the EPCOT Disneyworld. The development is changing toward this new kind of ideal city, where you will have many kinds of differences tolerated and even accepted, less crime, hygienic life, and fantasy is received as a seed of future and not some crazy dream. Though he also mentioned that Disneyzone is not at all urban, it might invoke urbanism but it has not the real impact on the space created by the concept, it is in a sense just a conceptual place and not really a physical space. This place is exactly what Sorkin described and to be honest it is a nice place to live in. Of course it also lacked of authenticity, but it terms of ideal, I can assume that the place is safe and also clean.

Just as we moved though the space, there is something missing, there is no such thing as urban life happening on the street as what the usual town life has. Moreover, the fence around the compound gave us a surprise, since we cannot randomly go out of one compound to visit the next one; only one gate was open, which is the main one. At that time, it felt as if the town is a caged community, where you can see the view of the opponent neighbor, but cannot mingle with them straight away.

[1] Sorkin, Michael (1992):”See You in Disneyland” in Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space, New York: The Noonday Press.

• Paths are the channels along which the observer, customarily, occasionally, or potentially moves. Paths are the streets, sidewalks, trails, and other channels in which people travel
• Edges are the linear elements not used or considered as paths by the observer. Edges are perceived boundaries such as walls, buildings, and shorelines;
• Districs are the medium to large section of the city, conceived of as having two dimensional extent. Districts are relatively large sections of the city distinguished by some identity or character;

• Nodes are points, the strategic spots in a city into which an observer can enter, and which are the intensive foci to and from which he is traveling. Nodes are focal points, intersections or loci; and
• Landmarks are another type of point of references, but in this case the observer does not enter within them, they are external. Landmarks are readily identifiable objects.

from the book of “ Image of the City “ (MIT Press, 1960)

Shirvani also served on the board of directors for the American Iranian Council, an NGO devoted to the normalization of relations between the United States and Iran. Shirvani’s education backgrounds are: Ph.D., Princeton University (1980), M.L.A., Harvard University (1978), M.S., Rensselaer Polytechnic University (1977), M.Arch., Pratt Institute (1975) B.Arch., Polytechnic University of Central London, UK (1974) source edited by © 2007 ar-chi-tect.org , databases from wiki, calstate.edu and related news, picture from csustan.edu