The two students were Ahmad Zakki Davin and Amira Aulia. The open competition served as a platform for the students to pour out their ideas, creativity, talent, and inner potential, as well as ability in the field of architecture.

SCREEN 7.0 adopted “Public Space in Urban Areas” as its main theme, with the objective of increasing community awareness about the importance of public spaces. The location of the determined site was the Summarecon Area of Bekasi, specifically Jalan Bulevar Ahmad Yani with its 1200 m2 of expanse. No track has been built in the area and there were contours on several points.

“An interesting aspect of this open competition lies on the site location, which if observed from a 500 meter radius, evidently beams with various supporting facilities,” explained Zakki.

From their observation result, the students saw an overlooked public space that has potentials to be developed further with new ideas. Nature, a lost catalyst in metropolitan cities, in reality supports public spaces shoulder-to-shoulder. Thus appeared the idea to prioritize nature with an integrated system, including sunlight intensity, visibility, water management, and recreational space.

The designed space possessed a ground floor and a basement to support both vehicle users and pedestrians. They also studied urban population habits, such as anonymity, transiency, and formality of relations.

Initially, the public space is mapped into six common activities: environmental sustainability, healthcare, public platform, market, exhibition, and playground. To ensure the maintenance of the public space, the students chose building blocks of high porosity and water mist to decrease the temperature, considering the hot climate of Bekasi.

“At the moment, we might think that malls are popular forms of public space, but they are also being left behind nowadays. We hope that the public space that we have created will not vanish, instead it will develop for the better,” expressed Amira.

Reporter: Yohana Aprilianna (Urban and Regional Planning, 2021)

Translator: Firzana Aisya (Bioengineering, 2021)

Photo: Yohana Aprilianna

Editor: Ayesha Lativa Mafaza (Postharvest Technology)