The design aims to improve the deteriorating physical and social conditions of the Bukit Jarian Kampong in Bandung, Indonesia. Two mutually-depended measures are initiated. First, the scheme introduces a sanitation hub as public space in the center of the slum. Second, the project’s objective is to restore the polluted river, which has been used for an extensive period as a garbage dump. Designed in a square pattern of bridges, buildings and platforms over a landfill bordering the river, the proposed hub is accessible from several sides, opening connections to the neighborhood while providing a range of public amenities, such as public toilets, a recycling facility and a learning center.

People: The project expands the definition of sustainability beyond ecological terms into the area of social sustainability. By engaging the involvement of inhabitants, they have increased awareness of how better hygiene improves their quality of life. Improvement of Bukit Jarian and other marginalized areas depend on the provision of basic services, equal resource distribution, adequate social infrastructure, and programs – needs which have conventionally been ignored. The project provides necessary sanitation system infrastructure and public spaces in the overly-dense fabric in the form of a dynamic and productive zone.

Progress: This comprehensive system of sanitation infrastructure, public space and services, active and passive building technologies, and productivity through regionalism approach is a conceptual framework that can be utilized to address other severe riverside housing and similarly challenging topography, both within Bukit Jarian and globally. It is a conceptual prototype and adaptable framework that encourages flexibility and a critical re-thinking of new design approaches and processes in these spaces. The system can be readily applied in other locations as it relies only upon low-technology and local manual labor.

Planet: The aim of the project is also to restore the defective environment along the riverside. Water that was once a danger is now a resource. Wetlands filter the water through the site, which can be used for irrigation in urban agriculture and gray-water applications filtered through several processes of filtration. Building itself doesn’t tread on greenery, it is floating and framing on greenery and river to reduce footprint also creating a vista from upper level of dense fabric.

Prosperity: The long-term prospect is the priceless education impact for inhabitants through a learning center that is assisted by local government. This project also serves as a catalyst that encourages new uses in the surrounding areas. The agriculture encourages a new micro-economy and replaces the abandoned riverside to public esplanade and greenery.

Place: The site is fundamentally transformed from an inaccessible and irresponsible landfill along the riverside into a desirable and productive space. The building adapts Indonesian architecture that shows through tropical climate typology combined with the usage of concrete as well. It is a dynamic node of public space with both fixed and flexible programs.