Sunday, January 24, 2016

Habitat 67, The New Way of Urban Living


Every years, population of humans are highly increasing. This occurrence makes us happy because we get to see new little fluffy babies. But, on the other side, the governments worry about the insufficient space in this world for those newly born babies. To prevent this, or maybe just to slow it down, humans came up with the idea of flats and apartments. 

An architect from Canada, Moshe Safdie, came up with his extraordinary idea of apartments. He was inspired to make the design of the apartment so that all inhabitants have a garden. Then, Habitat 67 was born.

Its unusual appearance as an apartment drawn many people's attention. Habitat 67, or simply Habitat, is a housing complex in Montreal, Canada. It was originally conceived as Moshe Safdie's master's thesis in architecture at McGill University and then built as a pavilion for Expo 67, the World's Fair held from April to October 1967. It is located at 2600 Avenue Pierre-Dupuy on the Marc-Drouin Quay next to the Saint Lawrence River. Habitat is widely considered an architectural landmark and one of the most recognizable and significant buildings in both Montreal and Canada.

Habitat comprises 354 identical, prefabricated concrete forms, arranged in various combinations, reaching up to 12 stories in height. Together these units create 146 residences of varying sizes and configurations, each formed from one to eight linked concrete units. The complex originally contained 158 apartments, but several apartments have since been joined to create larger units, reducing the total number. Each unit is connected to at least one private terrace, which can range from approximately 225 to 1,000 square feet (20 to 90 m2) in size.

Moshe Safdie tried to combine the benefits from suburban living, such as fresh air, gardens and privacy with the economics and density of modern urban living. The trial to create such apartment was a success, but the trial to make it an affordable housing was a big fail. The high per unit cost more expensive than originally envisioned, approximately C$140,000 (about Rp1,4 billion).

Even so, during the year it was open, Habitat had gained world-wide acclaim such as a "fantastic experiment" and "architectural wonder". This experiment was and is considered as both success and failure. In spite of all the problems, however, Habitat's fame and success helped him in his career. Moshe Safdie has designed over 75 buildings and master plans around the world. 

Sky Habitat in Singapore is one of Safdie's design for Capitaland. With his concept in reimagining high-density housing and improving social integrations through architecture, he succeeded in creating a stunning design of a housing and also, an affordable price. 




Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67




Tuesday, January 19, 2016



First Holiday
December 23th
Today, we had to go to school to receive our report card. We came to our class early in the morning, around 7.30 am and wait for the result with anxiety. Finally, the report card was given. And we could go home with relaxing feeling. This holiday didn’t feel like any other school holiday. It felt like it’s a holiday after a national exam to me because the pressure, is real.

December 24th
So, I was finally happy that today I didn’t have to go to school. Although I only stayed at home, I was still happy. No homeworks, no late nights, no presentations. I decided to spent my first day of holiday to watch movies I downloaded. I watched many cartoon movies, such as Inside Out and Hotel Transylvania 2 ,because I like cartoons. I also watched action and fantasy movies. And I could watched it as long as I want. So, my first day of holiday went fine.

The next day, I went to my grandmother’s house with my family. We spent our time in grandma’s house from morning, until night. We always do that because we hardly seeing each other. Suddenly, one of my cousins spoke up. “Hey, let’s go to Dufan!” Without thinking much because we really want to play, we all said “Yes! Let’s go!” Fifteen minutes later, when our parents have allowed, we already decided about the transportation, where we stayed, how many clothes we had to bring, and how much money we had to asked our parents J.  We decided to go to Bogor first  at December 30th evening and stayed in one of my cousin’s house. Then the next day, we take a train to Jakarta City to go to Dufan.

December 30th evening
It’s D-Day! I was really excited and couldn’t wait to go to Dufan! But, I am quite sad because some of my cousins couldn’t join due to family appointment. But, what could I do? So, we finally got into the car to go to Bogor. We arrived in Bogor at 11.30 pm with a sleepy head. Then, we hurried to change into our pajamas and got some sleep for the next day.

December 31th
We were on a tyrain for maybe 3 hours long. We arrived at Dufan around 11.00 am and it was already burning hot. We bought tickets for us and finally entered. We decided to make an annual pass, so, in sometime when we want to go to Dufan, we could enter without paying. But the line was soooooo long. So, we made a deal to come back at 7pm after we played.
So, our first destination was Hysteria. The line was long too, but we could hold it. In the middle of waiting for the ride, my friend texted me said that Salwa was here in Dufan too. I was surprised and got really excited so I texted Salwa. She got excited too  and said that she was there with her cousins. She then told me that if I saw her, I had to scream her name really loud. At first, I really wanted to do that, but then I was thinking maybe it would be really embarassing for me. So, I didn’t do that. Unfortunately, we didn’t meet although we all in Dufan until the closing time. But, we had a really fun time with our own cousins. We made a plan in the next holiday that we would go to Dufan together and spent another fun quality time. 

So, it was actually only half of my holiday, but I think that’s enough. J Oh, and why did I choose the title “First Holiday”? Because it’s the real first holiday of the semester after I got in this high school.