Urban Design Concept for Achieving a Livable Balinese Town

This research considers the utilization of a number of Balinese cultural constants as basis of the development of urban design concepts for producing culturally livable places in the Balinese town of Gianyar. The concept of  'livable place or city' connotes, among other, the need of a 'sense of 'place'. A pluralistic approach, by means of questionnaires and mental map sketching techniques was employed to reveal some cultural constants in the cultural landscapes of a contemporary Gianyar urban setting. This exploration aims at providing a ground for reconnecting urban design proposals with their cultural context, this promoting the spatially expressed localism which originates from the diversity of cultures to ultimately produce 'a sense of place'. The research concludes that to achieve culturally appropriate sense of place, hence a livable town, the design process has to acknowledge finer core cultural constants in the design of  Balinese townscapes: 1) attitude to human being-environment relationship; 2) the concept Of center; 3) attitude to spatial organization and structure; 4) attitude to environmental design and management; and 5) attitude to symbols and meanings. Within the framework of urban design principles and town's identity elements. a series of urban design concepts is composed. Based upoir such concepts, urban spatial organization, structure and form will significantly reflect the Balinese cultural identity

THE VERIDICAL MENTAL MAPS AS AN INPUT FOR THE URBAN DESIGN PROCESS: A Case Study of the Town of Gianyar Bali Indonesia

This study examines the veridicality of the mental maps of 100 residents of the town of Gianyar. In this case the veridicality measured was the level of accuracy of the Balinese worldview and cosmology captured by the mental maps. The information is useful for the urban design purposes, particularly as inputs in the maintenance of the cultural continuity of the Balinese urban environments

Merevitalisasi Tradisi: Mengadopsi Desa Adat di Bali sebagai Unit Perancangan Kota

Urban design projects aim at achieving better environments in the sense that they are supportive of the culture of the inhabitants. Careful consideration of socio-cultural aspects of a space is a precursor to approach this goal. The existence of traditional settlements (i.e. desa adat) as spatio-cultural units in a Balinese setting has never been accommodated in the contemporary projects of urban spatial design. In this respect, the opportunity to achieve supportive environments is certainly become remote. Long known for the extensive traditional and religious role it has played in the life of the Balinese, the desa adat is central to that culture. Essentially, this unit is cosmologically independent and socio-religiously meaningful, and thus needs to be treated accordingly in a socio spatial manipulation process. With regard to the spatial design of the Balinese space, this cosmological unit (Geertz 1959, 1980) determines land use, street layout, location of settlement's elements, and the like (Parimin 1985; Samadhi 2001).This paper aims to explore the existence of desa adat as a Balinese cultural institution, and argues for its utilization as an urban design unit. Ultimately, it tries to promote multiculturalism and pluralism in the urban design as a socio-spatial process in the Indonesian planning system

THE VERIDICAL MENTAL MAPS AS AN INPUT FOR THE URBAN DESIGN PROCESS: A Case Study of the Town of Gianyar Bali Indonesia

This study examines the veridicality of the mental maps of 100 residents of the town of Gianyar. In this case the veridicality measured was the level of accuracy of the Balinese worldview and cosmology captured by the mental maps. The information is useful for the urban design purposes, particularly as inputs in the maintenance of the cultural continuity of the Balinese urban environments

CONSERVATION OF PRINCIPLES OR OBJECTS? : An Approach of Conserving the Traditional Balinese Cultural Landscape in Urban Areas

The idea of 'non-physical' cultural heritage conservation and preservation has been around since the early 1980s, however such an idea was never specifically explored, particularly in regard of the Bali's cultural heritage conservation and preservation. Based on pluralistic approach (Appleyard, 1976; Lynch, 1960; Rapoport, 1969, 1977), a research was conducted on 1998-1999 to gather some findings for the purpose of utilizing urban design as a means to produce Balinese towns conducive to cultural identity. This paper is developed from this research and it attempts to propose an approach of the conservation of the traditional Balinese cultural landscape in the urban areas. The approach relies on the understanding that a Balinese traditional townscape is deemed as cultural heritage, and consequently it develops within the urban design framework

Regency of Bandung Civic Center (Bali): Evaluation of An Attempt of Making Cosmoreligious Landscape

Bali is a unique place mainly due to its existence as an island populated mostly by Balinese Hindu. As such the Balinese traditional-religious conceptions of space are influential in the landscapes design. This paper examines the site plan and landscape design of Regency of Badung Civic Center in the Province of Bali Indonesia k describes the design approach taken by its designers, in which they explored the traditional-religious conceptions of space in relation to the design goals. The Balinese urban design objectives as proposed by Samadhi (2001 a, b) will be utilized as the tool of evaluation