ANDREW JANES MEETS TWO LOCAL ARCHITECTS SCHOOLED IN MODERNITY, YET INSPIRED BY THEIR INDONESIAN ROOTS

Sitting in his airy, high-ceilinged office in Bintaro, on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesian architect Yori Antar doesn’t have to think too hard when asked which of his buildings he is most proud of.

“It’s this one,” says the youthful-looking 47-year-old, referring to the office of his family firm Han Awal Partners, founded by his father, Han Awal, in 1970.

The building is a visual testament to Yori’s style, which he describes as modern tropical with traditional Indonesian influences. The ceilings are high and the windows are large, letting in air and lots of natural light. Affixed to the outer walls are lightweight metal trellises, already partially covered by the creeping foliage, which in a few more years will completely shroud the 11-year-old structure in greenery.

The offices wrap around a semi-enclosed courtyard with a pool and communal space for Yori’s staff to unwind and socialize. All the building’s materials are sourced locally, with Indonesian paintings and sculptures placed throughout. In the center of the rooftop garden is a round stone table, designed by Yori and inspired by megalithic art from Sumba. “I always bring prospective clients here,” he says, with a glint in his eye. “If they say, ‘I don’t like your offices’, then I say, ‘get another architect’.”

Yori’s good friend, Ridwan Kamil, is another architect at the forefront of creating a modern Indonesian style. He also chooses a very personal project when asked about his best work. For Ridwan, it is his own home in Bandung – made entirely from 30,000 used Red Bull bottles. The 38-year-old, who in 2004 set up his own company, Urbane, says he got the idea for the house while watching a construction worker guzzling Red Bull and throwing away the bottles.

Ridwan’s house, however, is less typical of his work. Urbane specializes in large-scale projects, striving to fuse modernity and Indonesian tradition, while respecting the local context. With a master’s degree in urban design from UC Berkley, Ridwan recently designed the Rasuna Epicentrum residential office and leisure complex in Jakarta, which is currently under construction.

Rejecting what he calls the egoistic, walled-off approach of many Indonesian architects, he focused instead on using pedestrian walkways and green spaces to bring the city back to the people. “A good design is like a Swiss army knife,” he says. “You can use it to solve many problems.”

For both architects, thorough research at the beginning of the creative process is essential. “Clients are often unsure of what they want,” says Yori. He spends a lot of time with new clients, asking them about their interests, and their favorite buildings, films and music. “My ideas come from them,” he says. “Everyone is unique – so I don’t want to kill my client’s character.”

Ridwan uses a contextual method to get ideas, reading histories and novels about the area in which he’s building, as well as looking at old photos and surrounding buildings. Then he looks at the international best practice for the type of building he is designing. “After that, usually you have got the idea coming.” It’s an approach that seems to be paying off: Urbane has won 20 design competitions in the last five years.

Jumping on a plane provides further inspiration for Ridwan, with Barcelona, Tokyo and Hong Kong among his favorite cities. Every year he takes his 30-strong staff on a trip to an Asian city, while a smaller group of senior staff heads to a European city. “Travel is vital,” he says. “Everything I see becomes my inspiration.”

Inspired by traditional styles from all corners of Indonesia, Yori is particularly enthusiastic about his firm’s ongoing project, sponsored by the charitable Tirto Utomo Foundation, to research and preserve traditional Indonesian building styles. The project recently took him and his team to the remote alpine village of Wae Rebo in Flores, home to the last three remaining examples of a traditional style of dome-shaped thatched communal houses.

“It was like an architectural Jurassic Park,” he says. Together with the local villagers, Yori and his team constructed four more of the houses, and collected and saved information on their design for posterity. He has done similar endeavors in Kalimantan, with two more projects underway in Nias and Sumbawa.

With a new decade arriving, Ridwan says his future ambition is to create more humane urban environments – and use architecture to help solve urban problems. “The challenge for Indonesian architecture,” he says, “is to find a third way between the super modern and the very traditional.”

Yori agrees, lamenting the fact that many young Indonesian architects know more about international styles of architecture than local traditions. “It’s okay to be modern,” he says. “But you need to be modern with roots.”

Contacts

Han Awal & Partners
7 Jln Palem Puri, Serua Poncol, Sawah Baru, Bintaro Sektor IX, Tengerang, tel: (0)21 745 7797

Urbane
Sumur Bandung No.2, Bandung, tel: (0)22 250 0453