Clinton Thedyardi Denny Husin
Indonesia
The Spa-scraper: A Recreation of Yogyakarta Water Castle as a Vertical Spa in the Heart Jakarta
Being the dominant landmark of Yogyakarta, Taman Sari Water Castle has been replicated as the spa franchise in Jakarta and other cities in Indonesia. Implemented superficially through decorated and ornamented random buildings, the spa deserves constructive architectural understanding to inherit the genuine character of Yogyakarta. The core of Indonesian spa does not only lie on its organic material nor traditional fabric, the open development of the water castle has taken as a whole of Yogyakarta political and social axes by physically integrate its context. As a representation of a landscape architecture at the hearth of the city; this water castle embodies various genres of mosque, pavilion, bungalows, lodges, and fort.
By focusing on the development of deep structure extracted from Taman Sari, an urban strategy is planned based on a global-local understanding through Yogyakarta’s bath architecture which concentrates on connected courtyards and corridors. Overcoming decorum, the Water Castle is an absolute landscape architecture with an arrangement of intersecting horizontal and vertical lines situated under and over ground through interrelated networks system.
Through conceptual investigation of Taman Sari, the courtyard bath revealed as the dominant type. Reducing its matrix into fundamental elements develop a new understanding of the essence of Taman Sari for re-creating new fabrics. A new type of spa is developed vertically, with three-dimensional structure. A dominant type of courtyard bath is improved through logical yet phenomenal composition by mirror, array, and rotate while inheriting its genetic.
Spa transcends itself as a horizontal structure of a city, it becomes a vertical networks of a megastructure. Connecting utility structures with gardens and water features, it acts as an urban filter, transforming metropolitans in a heterotopian re-creation of Yogyakarta water castle in Jakarta. This illustrates humbly the cultural and political rep