From Zero To Hero

Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 1

From Zero to Hero, a Creative Lesson from Surabaya’s Open Spaces

Tarranita KUSUMADEWI/ Nunik JUNARA Lecturer-Departement of Architecture Faculty of Science and Technology UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim MalangINDONESIATarra_nita @ yahoo .com /[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Surabaya as one of the biggest cities in Indonesia has been through asignificant change in its open spaces. The city has developed dynamicallyand rapidly as an interconnecting pole between the west and the east partof Indonesia. Unfortunately, because of these developments, most of itsopen spaces had changed into some commercial built area.

Until 2006, there were only 3% of open spaces left in Surabaya. This is anindication of an unbalanced growth which has some broad spatialimplications. Since the UU No. 26 Tahun 2007 Pasal 29 about the minimal30% of city’s open space is declared by the government, some programhas been done to revitalize the function of these open spaces. Now, thereare already nine open spaces with various themes that can be found inSurabaya. Moreover, some open spaces that usually misused ascommercial space has also been revitalized as green space.

Each open space is even well-designed as a signage or a landmark for thearea. The percentage of open spaces in Surabaya is between 27 – 29%,close to the minimal percentage required by the law. The whole process ofthis open space revitalization is a very invaluable learning for most ofcities in Indonesia, where Surabaya as a big crowd metropolitan can turnits ‘spaces’ to ‘places’. These significant changes in the quality of its openspaces have also made a significant change in the image of the city, whereas the open space is way easier to be remembered in people’s mind thanthe buildings.

This paper aims to give a broader discourse about the creative ways inchanging space to place in our cities’s open spaces. This paper also aimsto give some advices to all of the decision makers in Indonesian cities toencourage the optimization of the implementation of the UUPR No. 26Tahun 2007 Pasal 29 mentioned above.

Keywords: Creative lesson, open spaces revitalization, Surabaya

Tarranita KUSUMADEWI/Nunik JUNARA

mailto:[email protected]


INTRODUCTION The issue of open space in recent years increasinglywidespread discussed. Especially after has been takenout of the latest spatial planning the UUPR No. 26Tahun 2007. In Pasal 29 it is explained that theexistence of a minimum of open green space in urbanareas is 30%. This is what later became the benchmarkin urban development. One city that managed torevitalize the open space is Surabaya. Surabayaincluded in the category of a metropolitan city and isthe second largest city in Indonesia. The city is alsoan Indonesian port town that connects East with theinternational world. Similarly, physical, Surabayarapidly envolving in accordance with the needs anddemands of a growing community. This increase can beseen in the wake region indicator, which reached moreor less 2/3 of the size of the city (Surabaya VisionPlan 2025).

Construction of commercial buildings such as officebuildings, shopping centers, hotels, apartments,housing and other physical development dominatesSurabaya’s city. Not to mention the dominance of eithertwo or four wheels vehicles. So at this time, Surabayahas been listed as one of the city with the highest airpollution levels.

In socio-cultural, Surabaya has the characteristics asa coastal city which is has a character of high socialheterogeneity. This can be seen from the existence ofethnic diversity. Approximately all ethnic groups inIndonesia residing in Surabaya. The amount will be atmost of the ethnic Javanese community, Minangs,Madurese and Arabians. But in the current development


Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 3of recent, there was a variety of cultures thatdeveloped so rapidly that it makes Surabaya loseorientation in the development city. Modern culture isincreasingly widespread, giving effect to the conditionof the community. Consumerism and individualism isincreasingly felt in the community. Community becameincreasingly concerned with individual interests,economic comfort and Mall cultural.

The more existence of a shopping center (mall) has beenshifted the function of open space as public space intoan insulated indoor open space. As a result has atendency to eliminate the social interaction thatoccurs in public spaces and encourage people to becomeconsumptive. From this, the development of Surabaya hasbeen started to balance the awakening of public spaceswhich is expected to be able to merge the individualconditions and consumptive society.

As an effort to create public spaces, the Government ofSurabaya City is currently undertaking the constructionof city parks that serve as public space equipped withvarious facilities. Some existing facilities includefacilities for culinary, jogging track, play ground,fountains, until the hot spot areas. Until now, thereare 10 parks with different themes. The Goverment ofSurabaya City also built parks in 13 points fuellingstation located in the green belt.

SURABAYA DEVELOPMENT

In socio-anthropologic perspective, Surabaya hasbeen rendered with a phenomenon of the heroiccharacters portrayed in religius values, so Surabayareincarnated in the character of SURO (shark) and BOYO(crocodile). Through generations, Surabaya has anability to face every challenges and barriers with itssocial resources equipped with instill by a culturallife and civilized community. Social relation between


Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 4ethnics and groups runs harmoniously, full ofunderstanding. Social tension rarely occured, and sodid the political tension. Plurality of culture,religion, ethnics, and social structure are consideredas a strength and richness. Thus, plurality becameornaments and mosaics in the multi-ethnic community ofKampung Surabaya. Plurality of cultures, religions,ethnic and social structure actually has beenmanifested in the attitude of openness and fairness aspart of the character of Surabaya community.

Since the 18th century, Surabaya has been had variousmanufacture-based industries, and in 1870 became apioneer in industrial equivalent of the world's portcities like Shanghai, Calcutta, Singapore and HongKong. As a trading town of adequate infrastructuresupport is required, then in 1878 built the firstrailway infrastructure connecting the buffer areas likeSidoarjo, Gresik, Jombang, Kediri, Madiun and so forth.Industrial development and trade incised highachievement for Surabaya, which in 1900 became thebusiest port and the largest city in the occupied DutchEast Indies. Other sectors that are part of thedevelopment of trade and industry is the servicesector. At 19th and early 20th centuries, Surabayaevolved into centers of economic services forplantations in East Java, in addition toindustrialization center services for the areas aroundSurabaya.

As a city of industry, trade and services, in parallelSurabaya became extraordinary appeal to the migrationof residents from across the region in East Java,various ethnic groups, even from different countries.In 1905 the population of Surabaya which counted asmany as 150,000 of them are ethnic Europeans, Chinese,Indians and Arabians. In the last century, based on BPSrecords Surabaya in 2005 until June 2005, thepopulation of Surabaya reached 2701.312 soul.

Flashbacks of Surabaya in a variety ofperspectives has been a very long learning process andbecome the basic capital of Surabaya development intothe future. Surabaya development can not be separatedfrom the basic character as a city services and trade.Requires of the era and the aspiration of citizens toconsider the geographic and geostrategic position,requiring a variety of innovations in governance anddevelopment. Surabaya challenge ahead is very heavy andcomplex to be able to align with the major cities of


Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 5the world. With regional autonomy, decentralization ofauthority to Good practice requires above (innovationmanagement of Government) towards economic development,public service and legal and political developmenttowards a better and more constructive in order torealize improvement of welfare of citizens.

Encouraging economic growth and improving qualityof life through the fulfillment of basic rights thesociety which is the strategic agenda in itsachievement must be supported by the acceleration ofinfrastructure development, asset management anddevelopment as an alternative financing, bureaucraticreform, and monitoring system in a constructive andresponsible manner. This agenda will be an importantpart in realizing the slogan Surabaya, Smart and Care.

SPACE TO PLACE

A good city is a city which is able to providespaces that match the necessitate of its citizens,which one is public space. The shift tendency in thefunction of public space into the room (eg at theshopping center) is currently common. As a result,society loses the social forum as a place to interact.Public space can be defined generally as a function ofspace and the benefits are used for public purposes andnot for a particular class. Carr (1992) states thatopen spaces should be responsive, democratic, andmeaningful. Means responsive public space should beused for wide variety of activities and interests.Democratic, public space should be utilized generalpublic without having fragmented due to socioeconomicand cultural differences. Further, the democraticelements have a tendency to close with one of thecharacter of public space because it must be accessiblefor people with various physical conditions, such asdisabled or elderly.

One form of public space in urban is open spaces. Thedecrease quantity and quality of existing open space inurban areas such as open green space and open non-greenspace has resulted in declining quality of urbanenvironment. It has also become the reason of overflowin urban and high air pollution. The increasedvulnerability of social and the decrease of communityproductivity due to stress caused by the limited public


Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 6space is also available for social interaction (Dardak,2006)

Presently, Surabaya open green space has increased by50.95 hectares within five years (from 218.34 ha to269.29 ha). Activities additional open green space madeby the government of Surabaya, among others, bychanging land former refueling stations (petrolstations) into a city park, add vegetation in the greenbelt, and make urban forest. City parks that formerlydisplaced has been redesigned. Noted there are 10 parksthat have been revitalized, specifically Bungkul’sPark, Flora’s Park, Prestasi’s Park, Apsari’s Park,Persahabatan’s Park, Gubeng Elderly’s Park , Dr.Soetomo’s Park, Yos Sudarso’s Park, Mayangkara andRonggolawe’s Parks. Another effort was performed underthe program Surabaya, Green and Clean. In this programthe community involved, because the target is theenvironment of settlements, especially in the townshipand solid residential.

The efforts may be regarded as abandoned landtransformation (not useful) to a place which hascharacter and a new identity. Wardhani, (2007) putforward three reasons for the transformation of space,namely:1. Valuable city asset because it has various valuessuch as ecological values, historical, economic, etc.2.Land is an ideal area for redevelopment or renovationactivities of the city, ie, an attempt to exploit thecity's assets (such as buildings, land and area) whoappraise the potential but not yet an optimaldeveloped.3. Abandoned land reform aims to improve the image andquality of urban environments.

Further changes in space into place, described as atransformation from a number of areas that are notdefined, has no function, does not have an aesthetic


Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 7value, does not offer the diversity and experience ofspace into a number of areas which have boundaries andclear definitions, with the role or function (urbanspaces). Subsequently urban spaces evolved into peopleplace, where a number of these areas has a specificmeaning and character, as a forum for widespreadcommunity activities, tied to the context andenvironment is responsive and democratic.

As of results her study, Aruninta (2005) concluded thatrecovery of useless space can be divided into severalcategories, explicitly:

1. Esthetic approach; this approach focused to citybeautification, examples sculpture installation,ornamental garden, flower decoration, waterfeature with no activity.

2. Transport Purposes, land used to improvetransportation services and city transport,parking and solve the problem of trafficcongestion.

3. Recreation Purposes; there are two types ofrecreation that is active and passive recreation.Active recreation activities that involvemovement and more dinams eg jogging, cycling,sports, games, etc.. While passive recreation ismore static, such as picnics, sitting in thepark, observing nature and others.

4. Uses commercial; purposes of land use is togenerate economic region and also as a service


SPACE ---------------------------------------- -- PLACE

Transformation

Underused Space

Urban Space People Space

Figure 1. Space Transformation

Source: Adaptive from Wardhani, 2007


for tourism activities, for example shops, kiosk,markets, etc.

5. Environtment Purposes; land use is directed toachieve a better urban environment and qualitywith a way of conserving space, urban drainage,water catchment areas, riverbanks and otherprotected areas.

6. Social Welfare; the goal is to achieve quality oflife and prosperity. This can be achieved by thedevelopment of housing for poor people, publiclibraries, community centers, museums, etc.

The achievement of Surabaya in enhancing urban greenspace both in quantity and quality, not be separatedfrom the cooperation of all parties. Successful parkshave been revitalized divided into two categories. Thefirst is an existing park, but does not functionproperly park. Both are designed garden back into thepark (the land of the former gas station on the greenbelt/park). In the first category, one of which isBungkul’s Park. Bungkul’s Park is located at Jalan RayaDarmo, and has been existed since colonial times (theconcept of the park in residential areas). Initiallythis park is maintained by Surabaya as the lungs of thecity. However, over time this park as a gathering placefor community use and filled with street vendors. As aresult, the park had been deserted and not maintained.Then the city of Surabaya revive Bungkul’s Park with abetter arrangement and planting flowers. The presenceof street vendors was also maintained with theprovision of special places/stalls in the park. Notonly that, Bungkul’s Park also has various supportfacilities. And now it became one of alternative greenopen space that can be utilized by the public.

These images show that the Surabaya’s City Governmentdoes not work alone to achieve back Bungkul’s Park.There is a mutually supportive partnership betweengovernment, private sector and local communities,particularly in managing the presence of street


Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 9vendors. As is well known that the arrangement ofstreet vendors is not easy and often culminate in theanarchic action. But the arrangement of street vendorsin the Bungkul’s Park, government tried to embrace themerchants street vendors who have been selling in thispark. By the way of recording the presence of streetvendors, and then it has been grouped by type ofmerchandise. After that they made the kiosk and it getthe priority to occupy the stall. The impact of thisarrangement is drastically increased income streetvendors.


Figure 1. Bungkul’s ParkSource:

http://fasilitasumumsby.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/tmn_bungkul1.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Taman_Bungkul.JPG

(Bungkul’s Park with an area of 900 square meters area

Figure 2. Dolog’s ParkSource: http://www.blog.chris.web.id

http://www.archive.kaskus.us

(The atmosphere is presented in Dolog’s

http://www.archive.kaskus/



Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 10Whereas in the second category, one example is theDolog’s Park. This park is a park that was built onlands of the former gas station (gas station beforeusing the land designated urban green space). Park withan area of 5135 meters is a park built on CityGovernment cooperation with Pertamina. Pertamina tofully participate to the development fund, and insteadof Pertamina permitted to install the brand element inthe park over the next five years. Logistic Park isalso equipped with various facilities such as futsalfield or three on three basketball, wall’s climbingequipped with water fountain, fountain flip-flops,children's playground, library, checkpoint, and joggingtracks covering 762 square meters.

Not only are the parks, the City Government now alsohas designed seven locations as urban forest toincrease the number of percentage of urban green space.Seven locations were among others in Penjaringan I(3000 m2), Prapen Indah II, Tenggilis (4328 m2),Wonorejo (1.5 ha), Wonorejo PLN (3 ha), Kebraon (1.5ha), and two locations in Babad Jerawat (1.2 and 2 ha).Efforts to make City Government more meaningful spaces(space to place) is an example of creativity andsuccess in recruiting and embraces every element of theexisting stakeholders. So that it can increase thesense of ownership positively (sense of belonging).

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UUPR NO. 26 TAHUN 2007 PASAL 29

Maintain environmental quality is essential forcommunity life in the big city. Community participationis a key element of green open space planning. Duringthis aspect of planning in managing urban green openspaces tend to be only rhetoric. This means that duringthe planning aspects of urban green space is less insocialized by local governments to the public. Thegovernment is more likely to implement the planningprocess from the top down or the bottom up than centers


Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 11that accommodate community aspiration. It can be seenfrom the perception of percentage of people who neverreceived the socialization of government planning onlyreaches 20 percent, only a small portion of society hasever polled (public hearing) at 28 per cent (Hakim,2009).

In Surabaya, although the policy is derived from thegovernment, but it looks a high appreciation of thecommunity, so help to increase the green open space.Surabaya City Government, the private sector, NGOs andcommunities have a concern for the improvement ofenvironmental quality in Surabaya. Through a programwhich has long been runs as Kampung ImprovementProject, Surabaya Green and Clean, Surabaya Ijo Royo-royo, Surabaya Smart and Care, which all joints touchedpeople's lives in Kampung Surabaya. Everything can notbe separated from the consistency of the Surabaya CityGovernment in enforcing the rules, the involvement ofprivate parties and NGOs, as well as communityparticipation. From this there was a creative lessonfor major cities elsewhere in Indonesia to give someadvices to all of the decision makers in Indonesiancities to encourage the optimization of theimplementation of the UUPR No. 26 Tahun 2007 Pasal 29.

CONCLUSION

It is inevitable, increasing efforts to greening citiesin general are often defeated by the weight ofconsideration to the improvement of the physicaldevelopment of urban infrastructure. Such as roadconstruction, buildings and group housing such ashousing, office buildings, mall, hotels and others. Itshas been indirectly contributed to the decline both inquantity and function of the existence of quality greenspace. As a result, we often encounter urban areasoverflow during the rainy season or a dirty airpollution due to air contaminated.



Fulfillment of the demands of urban open green spaces,in accordance with that described in Pasal 29 paragraph3, should be able to bring changes to the presence ofgreen space, both in quantity and quality.Unfortunately, only part of the city government isunresponsive by the UUPR No. 26 such. It is also not aneasy thing to implement, especially if most of thecities has been met by a physical building. But its canbe a strategy, meaning that every city can do creativethinking in an effort to increase the amount of greenspace in urban areas. For example, by starting toconsider the requirements for optimizing the roof ofbuildings (old and new) as a roof garden, a grass ofroof, or grass of floor (Between, 2007). Besideseffective in increasing the number of area green spacecan also provide advantages in ecological, economic,educational, health and aesthetic.

Another thing which can be done is by providing a clearand explicit sanctions, against the cities that havenot reached the amount of green space area inaccordance with the percentage in Pasal 29 of UUPR No.26 Tahun 2007. Supposing every city which has notcomplied with open green space within a few yearsshould compensate very well and so forward. If thisUUPR just discourse, then the maximum space requirementfor open green space will never be achieved. Surabayais one example of a city built creatively in terms ofavailibity open green space. In view Surabaya iscrowded cities will be activities, both in itsphysical, social, and economic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARUNINTA, A (2005) Managing Public Owned Urban Vacant LandRedevelopment Project in Bangkok. Thailand. The 42nd IFLAWorld Congress Theme: Urban Growth and Decline.


Arte-Polis 3 International Conference on Creative Collaboration and the Making of Place 13HANDINOTO (1996) Perkembangan Kota dan Arsitektur Kolonial

Belanda di Surabaya 1870 – 1940. Yogyakarta: UK Petradan Andi.

CARR, S, Francis, M., Rivlin, L.G. and Stone A.M.(1992) Public Space. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress

HAKIM, Rustam, (2009) Persepsi Masyarakat terhadap AspekPerencanaan Ruang Terbuka Hijau Kota Jakartahttp://rustam2000.wordpress.com/persepsi-masyarakat-terhadap-aspek-perencanaan-ruang-terbuka-hijau-kota-jakarta

WARDHANI, Dian (2009) Strategi Transformasi Ruang TidakTermanfaatkan pada Area Sempadan Sungai di KawasanPerkotaan. Prosiding Seminar Nasional. Malang: PWKUniversitas Brawijaya.

---------- Vision Plan Surabaya 2025

Httpp://www.surabaya.go.id/visi_html

http://www.wikimu.com/News/DisplayNews.aspx?id=5604&post=17

http://www.blog.chris.web.id

http://www.archive.kaskus.us

http://www.fasilitasumumsby.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/tmn_bungkul1.jpg


http://www.archive.kaskus/

http://rustam2000.wordpress.com/persepsi-masyarakat-terhadap-aspek-perencanaan-ruang-terbuka-hijau-kota-jakarta



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From Zero To Hero