Manusia Tiga-per-empat Binatang

Coba lihat gambar ini. Ini adalah sebuah gambar yang sangat layak untuk dihiasi dengan komentar berbunga. Bunga-bunga yang indah, yang segar dan harum. Yang tumbuh di atas seonggok tai maha bau yang masih hangat lagi berlalat.

On Overpopulation

There was this short article: Overpopulation – The Root Cause of Our Problems – Why Is It a Taboo Topic?

Overpopulation is not a taboo. We just don't talk much about it, because we only talk about overpopulation when:

1. We consider ourselves aren't part of the unworthy of living population. It's Africa, it's India, it's poor dying people somewhere else. We are the young, healthy, wealthy, and educated gentlemen who are not part of the problem.
2. We don't want to talk about radical and global resource redistribution, since there's a possibility that it is our very resources that will be redistributed.
3. We are the middle class mediocre lowlife brats that doesn't see a huge population as a huge market, huge opportunity, huge profit; but instead as competitors.
4. We have a clouded vision, blurry logic, and false assumption that with a lower population number then there will be more resources for each individual.
5. We want to blame something but don't want to think too much.

A Mausoleum of Human Desires

A city is a place of billions of human interests. From the grandeur ones shared by millions, to the smallest ones each adopted only by an individual; from livelong hopes to localised and temporary desires; from humanity's highest dreams beyond their times, to what common men wishes in life, to the humble daily life needs, to the lowest and disgusting secret wants. Some will turn and leave a mark in human civilization, some will result in monuments and memorials, some will end in books, but the rest will be buried deep together with the rotten human flesh. Insignificant, forgotten, and meaningless.

A city is a mausoleum of human desires.

Urban, Suburban, dan Rural

Di Indonesia, khususnya di Jakarta dan wilayah sekitarnya, orang tergila-gila pada kepemilikan privat atas ruang, atau properti privat dalam bentuk tanah.

Meskipun secara historis dan geografis sangat berbeda, ketergila-gilaan tersebut mirip dengan apa yang terjadi di Amerika Serikat. Perbedaannya, di sana hal tersebut memang dengan sengaja diadakan sejak awal kemerdekaannya dari Inggris. Thomas Jefferson membagi tanah di seantero negara tersebut ke dalam grid-grid yang dapat dibeli dan dimiliki oleh pihak privat, dengan argumentasi bahwa kepemilikan akan tanah akan menjamin demokrasi. Tetapi secara politik-ekonomi, menjual kepemilikan privat atas tanah adalah untuk mengisi kas negara, juga untuk menghidupi perekonomian agraris di masa itu, dan sebagai daya tarik utama bagi para imigran dari benua Eropa, sekaligus sebagai akar dari terbitnya patriotisme.

The Language of Jakartan Car Passing

In Jakarta, car drivers love to change lanes incessantly and tries to overtake other vehicles on the road. They do it to the point of breaking the law and sacrificing the safety of theirselves and others.

Even sicker, some of them do it with very lack of manner. They'll pass the other car in a very thin distance, or immediately put themselves sharply in front of the passed car, or doing it while honking dramatically.

A Compendium of Human Despairs

A city is where people are meeting and parting, setting promises and breaking it, building and destroying home, creating and nurturing hopes that immediately vanish in less than a breath. Joy, celebration, romance, every magnificent story that can be dreamt of, and every little happiness that a man can nervously aspire; each only awaits its own end. Tears at the birth of a new life are colliding with tears at the end of the other, celebrations very soon become irrelevant and obsolete, romances and loves fade away as inane past, desires of courageous revolution determined to be crushed in the face of the cold hard reality. A book of human failures, a collection of ruthless end of every beginning, an album of men who have lost interest in hoping and dreaming.

A city is a compendium of human despairs.

Search And Rescue Training Center

Some times ago, I came accross a Sketsa magazine - an architecture student magazine of University of Tarumanagara - that displays my Final Studio Project back in 2007.

My project was Search And Rescue Training Center, which was selected for Public Expose, a second presentation in front of external juries.

Using scanned images from the magazine, with some retouch to some of them for clarity, this post is a rememberance of the project.

Batavia Series: 1. The Establishment

In The Batavia Series we will use historical maps to explore the spatial developments of Indonesian capital, Jakarta, from its founding as Batavia by VOC, its spreading, the fall of VOC and the reign of Dutch East Indies Colony, until its transfer to the Indonesian Republic. The series will be consisted of several parts based on the development phases of the city.

Note: The historical maps are superimposed to the contextual map of 2017, while larger view of the superimposed maps can be seen at the end of each of the series. For the early series (year 1600s and early 1700s), we will use only the northern part of Jakarta as the contextual map.

Batavia was not erected on an empty ground. In the 4th century, the site was part of Tarumanagara Kingdom, and from 7th to 13th century it was part of Sunda Kingdom, with its Sunda Kelapa port, which was part of the Srivijaya Empire. In 1513 the first contact with the Europeans was made between Sunda Kingdom and the Portuguese merchants, which then built their own port in 1522. In 1527 Fatahillah, a general from Demak Kingdom, conquered the city, put it under Banten Sultanate control, and renamed it Jayakarta. In 1596 merchants from the Netherlands led by Cornelis de Houtman reached Jayakarta for trade and in 1610 they were granted permission to build a trading outpost on the east bank of Ciliwung river, which then finished on 1611. By that time, the British were also had arrived at Jayakarta in 1602.

In other part of the world, the Dutch Government granted VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, United East Indies Company) monopoly right for Asian trade in 1602, thus from that point until its liquidation in 1799, the main role of the history of Batavia was the VOC, a corporation, instead of the Dutch Government directly.

International Guide For Driving Or Riding In Jakarta

One cannot be considered has truly experienced Jakarta if he or she has not tried to drive a car there, in its highways, in its traffic, in rush hour, behind the steering wheel. But that is only second to the ultimate challenge, the surreal life and death experience, the act of courage and totality, one way to become one with the city itself, feeling and living its heartbeat; riding a motor bike. If any of you really want to be elevated to that level of understanding of Jakarta, this International Guide is created to facilitate that purpose.


Disclaimer: Although this International Guide is very rich in detailed facts, one must understand that most of them, if not all, are potentially against the law, and that this International Guide is basically a style of writing that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, and ridicule to expose and criticize something. Both the writer and the writing of this International Guide cannot be held responsible in case anything happened, either good or bad, that resulted from reading or practicing the content of this International Guide.

Riwayat Manusia Pekerja

Di zaman ini, manusia yang bekerja - yang berperikehidupan dengan cara menjual tenaganya - hidup dalam tiga kenyataan sekaligus dalam hubungannya dengan proses produksi yang dilakukannya.

Pertama mereka adalah produsen mulai dari hulu hingga ke hilir. Sejak dari proses mengekstraksi hasil alam, pengolahan dasarnya, mengirimnya ke lokasi yang berbeda-beda, mempertemukannya dengan berbagai material lainnya, pengolahan tahap kedua, ketiga, keempat, dan seterusnya, hingga kemudian membuatnya siap dikonsumsi di hadapan konsumen. Di dunia ini tidak ada nilai yang tercipta selain dari hasil kerja manusia dalam suatu proses produksi, dari yang paling sederhana hingga yang paling rumit, dari yang terkecil hingga industri raksasa.