Final Rendition, a Small House

Creating designs from one competition to another is the path I choose to hone my design skills. Although winning is a rare occasion for me, design process is an enjoyable journey to go through.

This one is the design entry for Sayembara Rumah Mungil 2007, an annual competition held by Tabloid Rumah. This year is the third period of competition and the entries keep getting better by the year.

The design of this house basically focuses on how to gain optimum thermal comfort solution while also paying attention to function and aesthetics of the design.

The front façade is facing west, so in order to minimize the negative effect of sun light coming from that direction, the wall treated as a solid plane, with numerous variable small openings, still allowing light to come through. Behind the wall is a bathroom. (One of wacky idea of creating perverted architecture.)

On the side of this house with openings along the wall, it is possible to gain sunlight from this direction. To reduce direct sunlight, a set of sun shadings applied in front of the side facade.

Images explaining the thermal solution for this house design.

On the interior, a void provided at the center of the house, enabling the use of skylight to improve (again) day lighting and allowing the use of natural ventilation inside the house. With strategically located openings and an open plan concept applied in the interior, it is possible to let the house free running, meaning operating without any air conditioning equipments.

Aerial view, also showing skylight at the center of the house.

The program designed to separate public and private areas of a house, with the ground floor is all about getting together with families and friends, living room, kitchen, dining room, are all here in one setting of open plan, and arranged in a way that they surrounds an inner courtyard. The first floor is for private settings, with bedrooms for parents and children put at this level. The second floor contains a small workroom and a library, dedicated for the father, accessed through the main bedroom, with a balcony upfront.

Schematic program of the house.

Ground floor plan.

First floor plan.

Three living stories, a concept of function and program.

A common composition in traditional architecture (kepala, badan, kaki) translated into contemporary form design.

Small openings intruding the front facade, continued into the form of the front gate.

Dead tired for today, see you around...

Within The Box, A Facade Design

The first design I would like to show you is a façade design submitted to a design competition. In this design, I want to highlight how stairs no longer have to be hidden behind walls. Instead, it can be a focal point that attracts people to gather and spend their time in an open space provided on the second floor of this house. The movement of people also becomes a lively display that is attractive, especially when many of the owner’s friends coming to the house and attending a party, right?

The box-like form of this facade meant to display simplicity in the design. Instead making people focus on the house’s form, drawing people’s attention to what is happening inside the space, the void located on the second floor, is the initial idea.

Stairs as focal point in the design.

Within the Box.

For that competition, I submitted two entries, and the second one was simply about playing with forms. What I thought at that time was how to change the simple box design, as I made in the first design, into something less simple, more attractive and more chaotic. The answer I found was to hit the box with a hammer (Wham! Bam!), and, voila, that is the second design. Sometimes being playful is necessary to relieve the stress building up when you’re designing something.

The second design, Wham!, Bam!

Pupamorph, A Bicycle Public Parking Design

Walking next to pupamorph.

Now, after you have seen the bike, it is time to see where you will park your bike when you’re having a travel across town. This entry is about a public bicycle parking design for a Japanese competition I entered when I was spending my time back in Osaka.

The idea was to create a portable public parking, one that easily attached and detached, placed in public places suits to public needs. In addition, the form of this sheltered parking inspired from a cocoon, explicitly shown as the form of its roof. And when the roof folded, the public parking will expose what it hidden under its roof, people’s bikes, just like when a cocoon reveals the beautiful butterflies under. So, better clean up your bikes before parking or people will see how dirty your bike is, right. Here are the images, enjoy!

Initial sketch, front view.

Initial sketch, side view.

Scheme of pupamorph's transformation.

As seen from the street.

As seen from the pedestrian path.

Close-up view on pupamorph.

P.S. This bicycle public parking design called pupamorph.

A Blazing Bike, The Blaze

Today’s entry will be about a bike design I did for a competition a few months ago. The theme of the competition is to develop a bike design that is innovative and suits well for its user as well as helpful on creating unison of human and nature. Well, my individual purpose of creating this bike is well off the theme actually. I personally think that a bike has to be wickedly cool. All functions aside, a bike has to be something that its user proud to have in his or her garage. So, here I present to you, a cool bike for you to feast upon, the blaze. (Well, I have to admit, having watched the Ghost Rider, the main character’s name kind of stuck in my head, Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, with his cool skeletal motor bike.)

Initial sketch of the bike's form.

Small details of the blaze.

Size and measurements of the bike.

Detailed ideas within the frame.

Speedometer and odometer?

And here are the bike in actions!

Action One!

Action Two!

Action Three!

My man in red!

Free, a piece of public furniture

Images of Free

A few months ago, there was a competition to create an innovative public furniture. In response, I designed a public furniture called free, which although it failed to deliver the result I expected, still, I had a good exercise on executing the design.

Poster made of stitches of early sketches.

The theme I proposed on the design is to create a flexible piece of public furniture which also safe from the hands of some irresponsible people. It is no longer a secret that public facilities in Indonesia are not well maintained, and mostly, damaged by those people. For example, it is rare to find a functioning public phone, and, well, if it is still functioning, then there will be many “artful paintings” on it.

The flexibility of free, this is how I called this piece of furniture, is its ability to be arranged into several configurations, for different kinds of activities. It is easier so understand those configurations through pictures, so here we go.

Sit in the middle?


Just had a family discussion?


Need a large space to sit?


Too crowded to share space?


Mind your own business, people! :)

As you can see, there are several chairs attached to the ground in a square composition. These chairs can be moved into several positions, which then leads to the configurations as pictured above. The movements are based on the chairs rail system, consist of several railing paths, and a wheel attached to the bottom of each chairs. This way, it is possible for the chairs to move according to its paths, while also difficult for some people to take these chairs back to their homes, gegege. Well, the piece is already relatively heavy in the first place (It has to be made of white cement material, the sponsor of the competition.)

Free, is a piece of public furniture which then I used to form an amphitheatre and plaza on Jogjakarta Mediatheque. It may failed to deliver on the competition, but it has a significant impact on my final project (which you have to be patient to have a glimpse on it).

Yes, wait.