Facade of Shopping Complex in Kampung Arab Denpasar

Facade of Shopping Complex

in Kampung Arab Denpasar

By : I Ketut Muliawan Salain

The old city trade area of Denpasar which includes Pasar Badung and Kampung Arab (Jalan Sulawesi) and other nearby roads, has been designated as a heritage area. This conservation policy related to heritage areas requires an understanding of the local architectural character, in this context the characteristics of the building facade. To maintain the facade pattern which has formed the architectural identity and sense of place in the Kampung Arab corridor, it is deemed necessary to identify the pattern / characteristics of the shop facade in the corridor.

The oldest trading center in the heart of Denpasar is in the Pasar Badung area, which has a city and regional service scale. Jalan Sulawesi Denpasar is located in the east of Pasar Badung, adjacent to Jalan Hasanudin at the southern end and Jalan Gajahmada at the northern end. Fabric / textile trade activities develop linearly along Jalan Sulawesi Denpasar, which is one of the connecting systems of the Pasar Badung.

Jalan Sulawesi, besides being the concentration of fabric / textile trade, is also an Arab and Indian ethnic settlement for generations since more than 50 years, so it is better known as Kampung Arab. In 2008 the trade area of the old city of Denpasar which included Jalan Sulawesi (Kampung Arab) was designated a heritage area. As usual, the place of residence of certain ethnic communities will bring the culture of their respective settlements which later became the identity of the place of residence, as well-known as China Town (in big cities in America) and Little India (Malaysia).

Jalan Sulawesi has characteristics as a corridor, it is linear urban space formed by the configuration of a row of shopping buildings flanking the road segment. Shopping buildings flanking the Jalan Sulawesi section are multi-storey buildings with varying heights (2-3 floors), where the ground floor is used for shops, while the upper floors are for residences. The ground floor along the shops is laid out set back (backward placement) 2.50 m to get the arcade (arcade; circulation room), so that the colonnades (colonies; configuration of a series of pillars) are formed along the shopping center.

The arcades - colonnades configuration of this multy-storey building with the relatively narrow Jalan Sulawesi creates a vista framed by the building. This arrangement makes it a very interesting and specific character of urban architecture, which has settled in the minds of the people of Denpasar City for decades. The character of urban architecture that has a very strong unity by the configuration of arcades - colonnades, needs to be maintained as a collage (collation) of the fragmentation of urban architecture development in the city of Denpasar.

The limited land area in the Kampung Arab corridor has led to the physical development that has hit the corridor, which tends to be infill and vertical. Physical development of buildings carried out according to the interests and tastes of each building owner will certainly change the face and identity of the shopping buildings in the corridor. This partial change of building facade is feared to cause a sequential visual disharmony, so that no street picture façade on the Jalan Sulawesi corridor (Kampung Arab) is reached. The physical development of buildings which ignores the sense of continuity can further threaten the character of urban architecture in the corridors of Jalan Sulawesi, which has created a feeling of intimacy and close ownership for the citizens of Denpasar City.

Façade (Latin; facies) which is the same meaning as face and appearance, is the front part of a building facing the street. When mentioning the face of a building, it is replaced by the term or word façade. The facade reflects the function of a building and also tells about the occupants of a building, which expresses a collective identity as a community, which is ultimately represented to the public.

The building facade elements are: windows, entrances, sunscreen (level), and roof; including others, walls, poles / columns, and balustrades (Krier, 1988). The style has several meanings, including design, motifs, patterns, colors, shapes, features and characteristics. The style is a visual expression of the features of an object, whether it concerns the geometric shape, color, design, motif or composition. The facade style has the meaning to explain the visual characteristics or characteristics of various facade elements (roofs, walls, pillars, windows, doors, sunscreen, and floor).

The pattern of the shop facade in the Kampung Arab will be aimed at the visual characteristics of the facade elements found in the shop building elements identified in the corridor of Jalan Sulawesi, namely the roof of the building, the wall plane as the main facade, the arcade - colonies, and floor planes. The facade pattern criteria that will be used in this discussion are divided into three main aspects of observation with the respective sub-aspects of observation, namely the visual effect of the facade, the final settlement, and the variety of decoration. Visual effects with sub-aspects of observation; massive proportions - transparent, verticality - horizontality, and visual relevance. Final settlement with sub-aspects of observation; material, shape, color and texture, while the decoration with sub aspects of the observation; ornamentation and decoration.

Jacobs (1995), in his book Great Streets revealed one of the criteria for road design, namely transparency; a good road is able to provide clarity of function behind the existing building facade. Jalan Sulawesi Denpasar corridor which is a shopping center (concentration of fabric trade), the nature of transparency is absolutely necessary to establish visual communication between buyers and display items for sale. On the 1st floor which features a shopping arcade the facade area is spent by the harmonica door that is wide open. On floors 2 and 3 the facade area is filled with rows of glass windows, because access to natural lighting can only be through the facade area and the back of the building (the mass composition of the building is squeezed).

Verticality and horizontality assess the effects presented by structured vertical and horizontal configurations, patterns and proportions of openings (windows). The verticality of the building facade in Kampung Arab Denpasar is presented by poles along the arcades - colonies configuration, as very strong vertical linear elements. Verticality is also formed by the pattern of rectangular window tiles with a window proportion of 1: 3 (comparison of the threshold and pole of the window frame).

Visual linkages in the study area are facade features caused by a series of colonnade poles, white wall color, local brick red and gray gray local color, similar proportions of windows, and roof shape. Rows of poles with the same pattern, style and rhythm and with the articulation of shapes and colors of red bricks and gray Balinese decorative styles, present a visual connection to the arcade floor. Repetition of geometric shapes in terms of 4-windowed windows with similar proportions in the facades of floors 2 and 3, reveals the visual connection between buildings and other buildings

From observations of the West side of the Jalan Sulawesi Denpasar corridor, it was found the form of a flat roof of reinforced concrete slabs. This flat-shaped roof has a varying height, because the construction is carried out partially according to the wishes of each building owner. The buildings along the East side of the Jalan Sulawesi Denpasar corridor also display the shape of a flat roof of reinforced concrete slabs with white levels.

All buildings (45 units) on the west side of the Jalan Sulawesi corridor use plastered brick walls / walls with a flat - smooth texture, without lines / plane patterns or tectonic preparations. Likewise, the row of buildings on the east side of the Jalan Sulawesi corridor, except for 1 (one) building, the wall has a pattern of lines / areas of wall tiles. Of the total 45 buildings on the west side of the Jalan Sulawesi corridor, only 20% are non-white. As for the east side of Jalan Sulawesi, which consists of 42 building units, only 26% are not white.

The arcade floor in the corridor of Jalan Sulawesi uses different floor covering materials, such as terrazzo tiles, ceramics, PC tiles, and even ordinary PC cement floors (without tiles). This diverse material is not integrated, because according to the tastes of each shop owner, so it tends to cause disharmony. Even though the color of the floor coverings is dominated by cream colors, in some parts it is cut off by mismatched colors, such as black, red, and dark brown, so there is no integration.

The facade patterns identified as the characteristics of the shop facade in the Kampung Arab (Jalan Sulawesi) corridor in Denpasar are:

 The roof of the shopping buildings along the corridor is dominated by the flat plate roof form of concrete material.

 Visual facade effects on wall planes or architectural walls, more dominant displaying transparency by the opening of the harmonica door (floor1) and glass windows (floors 2 and 3).

 Visual facade effects on wall planes or architectural walls of floors 2 and 3 display verticality which is more dominant by the proportion of vertical direction that exceeds the horizontal direction of the configuration of rectangular windows (open typology in the form of windows with rectangular shapes).

 Verticality is also formed from building facade elements in the form of arcades (rows of poles / columns along the arcades), where this configuration becomes the character of the shop facade which has become an architectural identity in the corridor of Kampung Arab.

 Visual interconnection of the facade in the shopping corridor of Kampung Arab is achieved by the use of flat roofs, white walls, similar proportions from the shape of the windows and the design of the columns along the shopping arcade.

 Brick wall walls in the wall plane or main facade area on floors 2 and 3 plastered smooth and painted (plaster and paint) shades of white.

 There is also a facade element on the 2nd floor balcony in the form of balustrades of cast iron material of various colors and balustrades of white printed concrete.

 Decorative can be divided into ornaments and decorations. The use of ornamental elements is not found at all, there is only the use of decorations from bricks and padas stone in the columns on the 1st floor along the shopping arcade.

 There is no integration of the final solution to the composition of the arcade floor elements including the use of materials, patterns, shapes, colors, and dimensions.

To maintain the facade pattern that has been formed for a long time in the corridor of Kampung Arab, from the outset, a design guide is needed to control physical development partially according to the tastes of each building owner. But before the design guidelines can be formulated, as a first step it is deemed necessary to identify the facade style of the shops' identity in the corridor of Kampung Arab (Jalan Sulawesi).

Furthermore, the facade style that becomes the identity of the shops in Kampung Arab will be very useful as input / input in formulating a facade design guide (in further research), which is useful to direct the physical development that occurs; in order to achieve visual harmony between the facade of the new building and the old building in the corridor of Kampung Arab.

Writer, teaching staff, Architecture Study Program, Faculty of Engineering, Udayana University