Research On The Flexibility Of Space

A shop-house is a flexible architectural building type that is commonly seen in urban Southeast Asia and southern China.Shop-houses are mostly two or three stories high,with a hop on the ground floor for commercial activity and a residence above the shop.The widespread distribution of new and existing shophouse in Jakarta has been seen as one of the indications in the city’s economic growth.Such tendency pushes the public toward building more shophouse as part of asset and investment strategy,which may rule out the basic spatial use of the building mass provided.This phenomenon encourages public hesitation toward dwelling in the shophouse.This is a problem because shophouse emphasizes its function toward the duality between residency and commercially.As a developing country,the urban landscape of Indonesia faces the same trends as many other cities worldwide;modernization at a rapid and unchecked pace.Due to the demand for the new infrastructure and buildings,many vernacular building types are rapidly disappearing from the urban pattern,among them the Jakarta Old Town Shophouses.The shophouse was known as a common building type for more than a century from 1840-1960 s and possibly a building typology from a former era.Yet it offers many lessons and experiences on creating a city that embodies the character of the local socio-economic and culture.Although the phenomenon of the development of shop houses with various uses has led to the actions of the shop houses to adjust the commercial and residency uses according to their needs.Changes to the building such as fa(?)ade design to attract customers,interior space to accommodate both living and commercial use,or even structural changes.which all are carried out in an effort to harmonize the relationship between the shape of the building and the uses that must be accommodated.The need for a sustainable tropical architecture is highlighted and shophouse is identified as a heritage architecture to be considered for solutions for such an architecture.As a vernacular element that have been developed before the modern times of the usage of energy,the shophouse resulting in achieving urban livability on a low material for budget.The shophouse may also considered in the schemes of its spatial flexibility,New Urbanism,and Pattern Language which can be brought in to evaluate elements of the shophouse that can be borrowed and applied in a new architecture.Various adaptations for modern needs are also explored.As its most basic program the shophouse is a multi-purpose building which is increasingly recognized as a more feasible and sustainable design than designating blocks of buildings and zoned for a single program.This study proposes the shophouses as an advantageous model for future development in Indonesia by creating livable,human scale,socially sustainable urbanism.Studying how the shophouses developed historically,what elements and factors lead towards its rejection and the current prevalent strategy towards shophouses is invaluable in drafting the future of the Indonesian Shophouses.The limitations of the shophouse and of this study are already been discussed these months.The context for a program for further research,which starts with simulation for functional specifications to budgets planning.An inventory of vernacular forms will then be built up within a framework of these two dimensions to serve as a research for-solutions.