COPING WITH THE COMMODIFICATION OF CULTURE IN BANDUNG: AN URBAN DESIGN CONTROL APPROACH

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1 COPING WITH THE COMMODIFICATION OF CULTURE IN BANDUNG: AN URBAN DESIGN CONTROL APPROACH Heru W. POERBO Lecturer at the Department of Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Policy Development Institut Teknologi Bandung Abstract Bandung has established itself as one of the contemporary cultural centers in Indonesia. Numerous artists, singer and other art performers in Indonesia were originated from this city. During the past decades, cultural activities and creative product in the city has been commodified: initially in the form of a shoe factories district in Southern part of Bandung, and then moved to a Jeans shopping street. Currently, distribution stores (distro) or factory outlets are changing the appearance of this city. Changes have occurred not only because of the apparel industry, but also due to the new life style. More café and similar establishments are crowding the city. These kinds of development have caused problems and negative externalities, while in the other hand; the local government of Bandung is not prepared to face them. Hence innovative urban development approaches, including a visionary urban design measure is needed. This paper will explore the role of cultural economy in affecting the form of the city, particularly the streetscape of some notable roads in Bandung. The paper is divided into four parts. The first part describes the changes in urban culture in Bandung. The second part will explain how these cultures affect the land use configuration and the streetscape in Bandung and the externalities caused by them. Using the theory of how to control the formation the built environment, the last part will try to investigate the possible urban design measures in coping with the externalities of such urban developments. The urban design measures can contribute to the local government s efforts in keeping a pleasant urban environment for the creative city dwellers. Keywords creative culture, urban design, factory outlet, design control instrument Introduction Bandung has established itself as one of the contemporary cultural centers in Indonesia. There are several institutions of higher education in arts, including the nationally-respected Department of Art and Design at the Institute of Technology Bandung. Numerous artists, singer and other art performers in Indonesia were originated from Bandung, or have some connections to this city. During the past decades, cultural activities and creative products in the city have been commodified: initially in the form of a district for shoe factories and leather goods in Cibaduyut at the Southern part of Bandung. Later, the commodification of creative product moved to a jeans shopping street at Cihampelas. Currently, this phenomenon takes place as factory outlets or distribution stores (distro), that sell apparel in Jl. Cihampelas, Jl. Dr. Otten, Jl. Sukajadi Jl. Setiabudi, Jl. Ir. H. Juanda (known also as Jl. Dago) and Jl. Martadinata. Nowadays, factory outlets are changing the appearance of this city. Changes have occurred not only because of the apparel industry, but also due to the new life style. More cafés and similar establishments are crowding the city. Café and cuisine culture actually foster the life of a creative society with hang-out culture. Such establishments provide place for the creative people to share or show their creativity, exchange ideas and gestures.

2 These contemporary urban activities are accommodated in facilities that were formerly houses in residential neighborhood. Those houses were turned or renovated into shops and cafés, complete with customer parking space. The original layout of houses and the configuration of residential streets are not suitable for high intensity operation of commercial facility. The streets here started to suffer from traffic congestion and from on-street parking. These kinds of development have caused problems and negative externalities, while in the other hand; the local government of Bandung is not prepared to face them. As the result, architecture and the urban built environment are not fully capable to support the creative culture due to the application of a building control instrument that is not creative (or hinder creativity). To illustrate this matter, the current land use plans were implemented inconsistently. For instance in the case of Jl. Dago Bandung: the 1:50,000 RUTRK plan classifies it as residential area, but the 1:25,000 RDTRK plan puts it in a floating zone, whereas the 1:10,000 RTRW plan classifies it as services (which may easily include commercial activities). Hence we need a new approach that is different from the conventional land use control and building code to cope with the development of creative culture in Bandung. The Usage of Urban Space by Creative Activities Factory outlet or distribution store are generally accommodated in houses, particularly those that are located in older or established neighborhoods. Houses are normally too small for a shop, let alone a factory outlet. Consequently, the owner needs to make expansion of the building. He makes horizontal expansion by increasing the ground floor area (which means a higher BCR = Building Coverage Ratio). If greater floor area is required, vertical expansion can be performed by adding new floors above the old one. The increase of floor area often makes smaller building setback from its sides. Houses that were previously built detached one to the other or villa type are now built in a row house manner. The horizontal building expansion results in denser plot and the vertical expansion increase its Floor Area Ratio (FAR). Figure 1 Removal of fence to increase parking space, but invades public sidewalk. Original villa type building has been expanded. (source: own photo).

3 Another necessity for a factory outlet is ample parking space. The shop owners create parking in the open lawn by dismounting the front fence. Removal of the fence maximizes parking space and concurrently enhances the image of the building as a shop/store. 1 In some cases, side and back yards are used up for parking and other uses of the factory outlet. This creates totally different urban streetscape: formerly residential streetscape is then transformed into a makeshift commercial streetscape. Removal of the front fence is actually a bad practice, because parking space from this facility often invades / outpours onto the public sidewalk. The factory outlet uses the sidewalk for customer parking. This action disrupts the traffic of arterial or collector road, due to the frequent ingress and egress of cars. The location of factory outlets in Jl. Cihampelas, Jl. Otten, Jl. Sukajadi-Setiabudi, Jl. Martadinata and Jl. Ir. H. Juanda/Dago neighborhoods were formerly upper-class residential districts during the colonial period of 1920s until the second World War. Numerous large and fine colonial houses here have been turned into factory outlet by renovating them or (worse) torn down partially and totally. The demolition of historic conservation houses has damaged the image of the city, which hitherto was strong. Bandung had been known as the Parijs van Java during the colonial era, due to its beautiful architecture and cityscape. This image had been important in attracting tourist to the city. As a creative economy based city, the loss of that image will be very unfortunate for the city. There are other types of creative industry in Bandung as described earlier. The other kinds of creative establishments are neither so disruptive to the streetscape nor to the vehicular traffic as the factory outlet does. Art galleries, art shop and workshop are accommodated in buildings not so much different from the factory outlet described above. However, the gallery and art shop are not as aggressive as the factory outlet in terms of invasion of the public areas (sidewalk and street s right of way). The main reason of this is their lower number of visitors, so that parking space can be provided within their property line. Indie or private music studio is even less disturbing because of their small number of visitor. This facility can be easily accommodated in a house. The same applies for graphic and fine arts gallery (such as Hidayat Studio, Selasar Sunaryo) that may be contained in a housing subdivision. The architecture of galleries tends to be better, as it needs good and attractiveartistic-elegant appearance, but not burdened by numerous visitors. This facility suits well in older or conservation buildings/houses. The presence of these facilities often improves the aesthetic quality of the urban space. Despite its negative externalities, the residents of Bandung are not entirely against the presence of such creative establishments. For part of the city s population, the economic role of creative activities for Bandung is significant, thanks to its multipliers effect to cuisine, gift shop of famous cookies & cakes such as Soes Merdeka, steamed brownies Amanda and other services. They only need to prevent the negative externalities, so that the land in this location can achieve its highest and best use. The Shortcoming of the Current Building Control Approach Building should accommodate the activities that are performed by the owner (see White, 1973). Architecture encompasses not only indoor spaces, but also outdoors space that is created by the building masses around it. Public outdoor spaces are mostly in urban areas, in the form of squares and streets (including the front part of the privately owned land that shall not be built due to building line). The outdoor space should also be suitable for 1 Note: there are few exceptions to this, such as the Rumah Mode, the Emirates and so on that retains their fence.

4 performing the activities similar to those contained indoors. Design of the building masses need to be controlled, in order to avoid the creation of urban open space as mere accidental. The current building control instrument (the building code) in Bandung is not capable to generate high quality urban space. It is intended for general purpose and use only. There are some shortcomings of such instrument. An example of this is the use of rule of thumb to determine building setback line. Using the formula of building line = ½ x ROW (+1) meter, 2 we cannot prescribe where larger open space shall be set, or where the building should create a street wall near the road. Another example is the application of the rule that building height shall not be higher than the 45 plane slanted from the road s center line. Such rule is incapable to direct building mass for landmark or certain city silhouette. The same problem arises due to the application of uniform land use and intensity distribution. How Design Control Instrument can enhance the Usage of Urban Space for Creative Activities Prescribing the design for an urban space is not a simple task. Some users of the urban design complain about the vagueness and lack of precision of the vocabulary in the design. There are some expressions without meaning, such as "creating a nice and lively urban environment". It is the nature of such visionary design to be abstract, even philosophic. Because such high level guides should have the following properties: generally applicable and fit for future condition or even utopian. To be doable, such vision must be possible to be translated into a set of strategy to achieve it. 3 Furthermore, the strategy can be expressed in a set of design principles, against which application can be measured. These design principles are then incorporated into the design guidelines, as Blaesser argued that "guidelines should be detailed, not visionary, and employ precise language but not be too design-prescriptive". 4 Design guidelines as a further clarification of the abstract urban design vision plays an instrumental role in securing its implementation. The design guidelines can help the architects who design the buildings understand what is preferred by the local authority (see Poerbo, 2001). 2 ROW is the road s right of way. 3 Streich, B. (1988). Grundzüge einer Städtebaulichen Leitbildtheorie. Beiträge zu Städtebau und Bodenordnung; 8. Habil.-Schr. ISBK der Universität Bonn. 4 Blaesser, B.W. (1994) The abuse of discretionary power, in B.C.Scheer & W. Preiser (1994) Design Review: Challenging Urban Aesthetic Control. New York: Chapman & Hall. In Punter, John (1996). "Development in Urban Design Review: The Lessons of West Coast Cities of the United States for British Practice." Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 1, No. 1, p.33.

5 Figure 2 Examples from an urban design guidelines. Source: PSUD, Final Report of project Urban Design Guidelines for Mega Kuningan Superblock in Jakarta, Indonesia. We can learn from municipalities in the USA, who have for long attempted to control the design or their city. Since early 20 th century, New York has experimented with bulk control regulations (see Shirvani). The contemporary US urban design control is embedded in a hierarchy of guidance that functions in two ways. First, they are expressed in terms of goals, objectives, principles, guidelines, and on to quantitative standards. Second, they encompass an area from sub-regional to city-wide, district and neighborhood levels to the individual site. 5 These design control instruments exist in the form of Comprehensive or General Plan, Zoning Code, Design Guidelines, Downtown Central City Plan (for certain area in the city center), and also for other parts of the city with the Neighborhood Community Plan and the Area Design Guidance. Not all municipalities have the complete set of these instruments. Design control in the US is a part of a "comprehensive coordinated effort" to raise the standard and promote environmental quality. To be successful, the good design must become a long-term corporate goal permeating all aspects of municipal enterprise, and capturing the support of both community and business/development interest. 6 In the case of Bandung as a place of creative undertakings, we need creatively designed buildings, i.e. buildings as containers that reflect the creative (art etc.) activity that is contained within. Building can be designed as a creative expression. We enable this by implementing urban design guidelines that controls the building massing through the use of building envelope. This allows the creativity of the architects to make design within the boundaries of the envelope. Furthermore, the building appearance in the designed area can be coordinated by recommendatory building regulations that prescribes color, material etc of the buildings exterior surface. In this way, it is possible to create urban public space such as sidewalk, small parks / squares or just any kinds of open space that can support the creative community. The urban design guideline can direct the construction of the creative establishments including the factory outlet to form such urban spaces. 5 Punter, J. (1999). Design Guidelines in American Cities: A Review of Design Policies and Guidance in Five West Coast Cities. Liverpool University Press, p Punter, ibid. p. 208

6 Figure 3 Example of an urban area that is suitable for a creative community, thanks to the appropriate use of design control instrument. Source: PSUD, Final Report of project Urban Design Guidelines for Mega Kuningan Superblock in Jakarta, Indonesia. Conclusion Creative establishments should be promoted and encouraged further as they contribute to the city s economy and the residents way of living. Negative externalities that resulted from the poor building code and planning practice can be alleviated using an alternative approach to the conventional planning and building code. Urban design guideline which is a kind of zoning ordinance enables the municipal authority to shape some strategic urban areas. These areas represent the cluster where creative establishments are located. In this way, the negative externalities can be avoided and we can create an urban space that is conducive for creative activities. Bibliography Poerbo, Heru W. (2001). Urban Design Guidelines as Design Control Instrument with a case study of the Silver Triangle Superblock, Jakarta. Dissertation: Universität Kaiserslautern. Punter, J. (1999). Design Guidelines in American Cities: A Review of Design Policies and Guidance in Five West Coast Cities. Liverpool University Press Punter, John (1996). "Development in Urban Design Review: The Lessons of West Coast Cities of the United States for British Practice." Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 1, No. 1 Shirvani, H. (1985). The Urban Design Process. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company. Streich, B. (1988). Grundzüge einer Städtebaulichen Leitbildtheorie. Beiträge zu Städtebau und Bodenordnung; 8. Habil.-Schr. ISBK der Universität Bonn. White, E.T. (1973). Ordering System: An Introduction to Architectural Design. Tucson: Architectural Media.