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Green spaces find their niches amid crowded areas
Greener on this side: An activist is seen on a roof garden at the Green House in Guntur, South Jakarta
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Greener on this side: An activist is seen on a roof garden at the Green House in Guntur, South Jakarta. The house won an award for being the best green residence in 2005. JP/Desy Nurhayati
While the Jakarta administration aims to designate only 13.9 percent of the city’s total area as green spaces, there have been public initiatives to contribute to the green efforts.
In contrast to the administration’s target that all public buildings should have adopted green building concepts by 2010, several of the country’s architects have started to develop the concepts for private residences since 2000.
The Green House on Jl. Tangkuban Perahu in Guntur, South Jakarta, is one of the individual initiatives to realize the idea of green building.
The three-story house, owned by Hari Yuwono and Sandrarini and designed by architect Adi Purnomo, and built between 2004 and 2005, even received the best green residence award in 2005 from the Indonesian Architect Association.
The design of the house enables more air and light to come in, thus reducing the use of electricity for air conditioners and lamps. It also provides plants with more oxygen.
“We tried to apply the green building concepts by maximizing the flow of air and light, so that we can minimize the use of air conditioners and lamps,” said Sandrarini during a recent visit to the house.
Designed to be environmentally friendly, the architect chose not to paint the walls and left them with a natural mossy look. Used woods also dominate the 250-hectare (ha) house built on 450 ha of land.
The house also has plants on its walls, fish ponds, as well as a roof garden that can be used for events.
Green areas in the house have contributed to green spaces amid crowdedness in the city, architect and Jakarta Green Map coordinator Nirwono Joga said.
“Currently, there are only less than 10 houses throughout the city that have been designed using green building concepts.
“Should there be an allocation of 100 square meters of green space in each house, and should we have one million houses having the same concept, it will contribute 1000 ha of green areas to the city.
“We cannot completely rely on the administration to provide green areas, but we can start creating breakthroughs in our own houses. The administration should also learn from individual initiatives.”
He added roof gardens were an example of a breakthrough to cope with limited spaces in the city.
The 2007 Law on spatial planning states that a city should at least set aside at least 30 percent of its area for green spaces, comprising 20 percent of public areas and 10 percent of private areas.
Tangkuban Perahu Park is another example of a community-initiated green area in Guntur. It is located right across from the Green House.
The park is part of the concept of Menteng city park developed by FJ Kubatz in 1914, in which a park is built in the middle of residential areas as a space for residents to interact.
The park boasts several plant species, and is equipped with a playground, sports field and small paths layered with pointy stones that can be used for foot sole therapy.
According to environmental activists, the city should designate at least 21.45 percent of its total area as green spaces to reduce the floods.
