Steel House Bekasi Jakarta, Ahmad Djuhara Architect

In recent years, modern architectural design has largely been the prerogative of an élite upper middle-class clien- tele.The scene is slowly changing, however, as young Indonesian architects—and their emerging middle-class clients—develop a taste for the simplicity and clarity of modern design and the efficiency of twenty-first century methods of construction, as well as an awareness of the convenience and comfort of living in such a home. More and more modernistic designs are thus starting to dot the urban landscape in middle-income neighborhoods.

Constructed from a combina- tion of low-cost, readily available materials—lightweight concrete blocks, corrugated zinc sheets,and glass—Steel House is a radi- cally different modernist unit from its conventional neighbors. The heavier material is placed on topof the lighter material, creating a rather daring yet simple three- dimensional composition.

Three rooms on the second story project out beyond the steel frame. To ensure their privacy, the rooms do not have openings fac- ing the street. Instead, small verti- cal windows at the corners of the projections allow some light to enter the rooms as well as limited views to the outside.

Ahmad Djuhara’s Steel House, located in the midst of a modest housing estate in Bekasi, just east of Jakarta, offers a stark yet handsome middle-class housing alternative in present-day Indonesia.Through a compact and efficient design program constructed with recycled building materi- als, the architect managed to resolve the spatial and budget- ary limitations which were major issues in the project.

The exposed diagonal tie rods bracing the steel frame form an aesthetic element on the ground floor of the house. The geometryof the white ceramic floor tiles inside harmonizes well with the plaster floor pattern outside.

While a trellis in front of the site and a low wall at the end of the dining area shield the front of the house from views from the street, the glass walls of the house allow the interior to visually extend out to the driveway.

In dealing with a limited site measuring less than 120 square meters with a nine-meter-wide frontage, the archi- tect challenged—successfully—the rigid four-meter setback regulations imposed by the municipal government in the area. He argued that if the setback regulations allowed for the provision of security guard posts in élite houses, they should also allow for the provision of staff and service quarters in middle-income housing.The main structure of the house, which basically appears as a six square meter glass and steel cube erected on steel stilts, is thus placed in the middle of the site, adjacent to a car porch on the left (east), and with a relatively spacious four by nine meter open garden at the rear (south).

The kitchen, dining, and living spaces are positioned to maximize the small floor area.The color orange indicates the service areas of the house. A kitchen counter clad in orange- stained wood separates the open kitchen from the dining room. Hidden behind the orange wall is the staircase and storage area.

The living room opens up to the back yard, contained within a tall wall, which allows extra entertainment space.

The design of the house is based on the most funda- mental requirements of modern-day middle-class living, and these have been addressed by offering efficiency, both spatially as well as in terms of construction. On each of the floors of the three-story building, the right (west) side, which retains more heat during the day, is reserved for services.This arrangement also allows for the creation of spacious open living rooms on the left side, which is more exposed to the morning sun, and commands views of the open garden at the back.

The living room opens up to the back yard, contained within a tall wall, which allows extra entertainment space.

The master bedroom on the third floor is an enclosed, tranquil retreat. Openings are limited to a couple of relatively small swing windows at one end.

The use of recycled steel as the main building material, in combination with precast bricks, contributed to efficiency in construction time, labor, and materials, compared with the use of concrete, the most common building material used in the area, which would have required larger structural dimensions, longer setting and construction time, higher labor costs, and would have also produced more construction waste. Conscious that the heat-retaining metals might not be deemed suitable for use in the tropics, the architect used corrugated zinc sheets on a steel frame to create a plenum placed over the structure of the building to shield it from heat.

Lightness and simplicity, achieved by an unorthodox combi-nation of steel structure, corru- gated zinc sheets, and transpar-ent glass, are the hallmarks of Ahmad Djuhara’s Steel House.

On the first floor of the Steel House, the staircase, kitchen, and storeroom are placed on the right of the space, adjacent to the perimeter wall, allowing for a voluminous living and dining area which opens out to the carport on the left and the open garden behind.The servant’s roomand laundry jut out, in line with the kitchen, towards the front of the site, while the servant’s bedroom and bathroom and the laundry drying area, which is concealed by a low vertical trellis, are placed in front of the site.

The first floor plan (below) shows the linear arrangement of the house, with the car porch on the left, the main living areas in the center, and the service areas on the right. 

The servant’s quarters and laundry drying area in front are enclosed by a wall and trellis. In the third floor plan (above), the master bedroom and sitting area, and attached bath- room, occupy the entire space.

The south elevation of the house.

The front half of the second floor is divided equally into three single bedrooms for the children, arranged side by side in a row.The walls of the bedrooms facing the street are made of corrugated zinc sheets, peeled out in such a way as to protect the rooms from outside noise while creating small openings at the ends for the entry of morning sun.The three bedrooms open out to a large television-cum-living room at the back half of the floor. A shared bathroom is on the right, next to the staircase.

The master bedroom takes up the entire third floor of the house.The roomy space—the size of the children’s floor below and the dining, living and kitchen areas on the first floor—is filled with a bed, sitting/television area, and a simple walk-in closet and dressing area which lead to a modest bathroom.The room looks over the paved drive- way on the left and the garden at the back.

This stark and simple structure has become an archi- tectural expression that incorporates Louis Sullivan’s maxim of “form follows function” and Mies van der Rohe’s “less is more,” as well as the most fundamental principles of mod-ern architectural design and construction. Djuhara’s Steel House has justifiably become a statement that modern functional design has a lot to offer to the modern middle class living in Indonesia today.

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