Climate Responsive Architecture in Jakarta’s Apartments

Abstract

Almost every day, apartment buildings in Jakarta have to face a long hour exposure of solar heating which caused temperature gain inside the building. It creates a high room temperature and requires an air-conditioning system to reduce room temperature. This problem arises from the ineffective function of architecture design elements used. The method used in this research is literature study and analyze it with the case study of three apartments located in Jakarta. The principal design of climate-responsive architecture in Jakarta (tropical humid climate city) is a passive cooling strategy which used to prevent/avoid solar heat exposure and to release heat inside the building. There are two categories of design elements function used: 1) as building envelope/façade (such as shadings, ventilation, roof, and building materials) and 2) as building placement (such as building thickness and orientation, ventilations, building landscape, etc.). Three apartments located in Jakarta were analyzed with the findings, and the design elements used were found ineffective as climate filter in Jakarta (the three apartments still rely on air-conditioned systems-active cooling approach to reduce the transmitted solar heat and cooling rooms). The result of this study is a solution/recommendation for designing architecture elements that functioned as climate filter and have better respond to Jakarta’s climate.