Keywords

1 Introduction

1.1 Planning Theory to Foster Urban Self-organization

Since the end of the twentieth century, the breakdowns in modern urban planning have been pointed out one after another, and the concept of urban self-organization has been gaining attention. This is a key mechanism through which cities spontaneously and dynamically evolve and adjust to changing circumstances [1,2,3]. In parallel, there has been a rapid increase in articles and discourses [4]. Self-organization is a term used by researchers in a variety of ways, but the main stream in urban studies is to encapsulate theories and concepts of informal planning, insurgent planning, active (urban) citizenship, and bottom-up participation in planning [5]. As Marshall [6] observes: “city planning is effectively premised on the idea of the unplanned city as disordered and dysfunctional”. In this sense, a slum is seen as a settlement to be removed. But is it right to judge that the settlement should be removed in a disorderly manner solely because of the lack of physical conditions? It would lead to the loss of the urban cultural landscape and their own residential culture. In Indonesia, there are communities and close settlements called kampung; being mostly a self-initiated and self-constructed urban settlement, with sometimes low housing qualities and always no security of tenure [7]. According to the current urban planning, kampungs are often judged as “slums”. The word “slum” is not only associated with the lack of physical conditions, but also with a negative image of the people living there and their lives [8]. In fact, kampungs have capacity to their own condition ‘organized’ and to be regarded as environmentally continuous and culturally authentic living, even if the density of residents is very high [9]. According to S. Moroni et al. self-organization has the following three characteristics; Self-building, Self-governance, Self-coordination [10]. Kampung can be thought of as a living environment that makes full use of these three abilities and continues to grow in a flexible way. This paper will focus on the smallest scale of self-organization. That is, the design of the living environment by individuals. The three characteristics of self-organization are also based on individual action at the micro level. These actions are based on people’s value judgments, independent of public standards, and planners and designers must learn their value systems. Specifically, this paper introduces a drawing-based interaction method developed by H. Ota [11] as an approach to valuing individual residents.

1.2 Case Study in Kampung Akuarium, Jakarta

In 2016, Kampung, on the coast of North Jakarta, was evicted by the Jakarta Provincial Administration under the regime of the former provincial governor for projects aimed at infrastructure development and greening; Kampung Akuarium was one of them, and about 500 families lost their homes (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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Site of Kampung Akuarium

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However, in April 2017, the current governor of the province took office and changed the policy to return to the settlement, and a temporary shelter was built in 2018. About few months after eviction, Rujak Center for Urban Studies, together with several organizations and with the displaced community, has supported and empowered the people in early process of recovery, to recover the citizenship ID, to communicate with the state’s related sectors, to coordinate the temporary housing and finally to plan the new housings [9]. In the new plan should be not only the physical environment but also the entire human environment with all of its tangible and intangible qualities. In the past two years, they have organized the shelter in their own way, transforming it from an inorganic shelter into lively living environment. In this paper, we made dialogue with the inhabitants in the temporary shelter for approaching to their own Home sphere and Evaluating by an original way of sketches [11].

2 Method: Sketch-Log Dialogue

① Based on “Bohm Dialogue”

H. Ota has developed the original method of dialogue, called “Sketch-log Dialogue”. It is based on the principles of Bohm Dialogue [10], is below 1–4. (1) The group agrees that no group-level decisions will be made in the conversation. (2) Each individual agrees to suspend judgement in the conversation. (3) As these individuals “suspend judgement” they also simultaneously are as honest and transparent as possible. (4) Individuals in the conversation try to build on other individuals’ ideas in the conversation. In other words, dialogue is not about saying what each other has thought of beforehand, but about sharing new meanings at that moment and place. Dialogue practitioners do not use operating concepts, but try to elicit stories based on informants’ values and value judgments.

② Group dialogue with Sketch-log

The dialogue—to one inhabitant at a time—proceeds from talking about individual life history in the city to talking about what he is evaluating in his own surroundings. At the same time, the participants make ‘hand-drawing sketches’ of the contents to visualize the notions, share, and confirm (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Sketch-log dialogue

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You have to draw a sketch and then show it to the informant, if wrong rewrite it, again and again until they completely understand each other by unstructured way. The sketch in this method is not a correct record of the phenomenon, but a scaffold for communication, and the drawn Sketch-log is evidence that the meaning content could be shared among the interlocutors. Drawing and showing sketches to each other at the same time makes communication more interactive. In this method (Fig. 2), approachers usually draw several dozen sketches in one dialogue. Also, the several scales and times of maps help you to communicate easily.

③ Approaching Home sphere in Kampung Akuarium

The Home sphere is not just a range of living activities, but a living environment that is valued by its inhabitants. Therefore, it is more important to understand the value judgments and the mechanisms behind them than the areas and forms. In this practice, we tried to approaching Kampung people’s Home sphere, Area dimana yang dirasakan seperti rumah sendini (in Indonesia), and evaluating to their own surroundings in the temporary shelter and also to the living environment before eviction, and their memories. After dialogue, we hold the meeting with the community and cross-checked about our output.

3 Result

3.1 Inhabitant’s Home Sphere and Evaluating

We made dialogue with 12 inhabitants, varied in gender and livelihood, from Nov 21th to 25th, 2018. The location was arranged by the inhabitants, such as in their house, under the eaves, or Mushola (Table 1).

Table 1 List of informants
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The results obtained are shown in the Fig. 3. The example sketch shown is one of several dozen. As you can see, Home spheres have very diverse shapes based on the values of each inhabitant. It is closely related to personal experiences and memories in this kampung. For example, Informant-A came from Luar Batang, next to Kampung Akuarium, and she’s house located near by the steel bridge before eviction. In front of her house, people were gathering before, and she evaluated such a meeting space. She also liked to see pasar ikan before. So, we drew her Home sphere like Fig. 3, it includes not only in Kampung Akuarium but also in Luar Batang. Others, Informant-D, whose home sphere is the road to the neighboring kampung, says the kitchen in front of his house is the most important, and he contributes to the community through the kitchen. Informant-E, a fisherman, saw the Home sphere on the sea and the open space playing soccer with children. L, who says the children of Kampong are the most important, has opened up her house as a second kindergarten. They are actively taking action in the Home sphere and contributing to the living environment by invoking it. In other words, it can be said that the kampung is self-organizing through the Collective Home sphere and evaluating by the inhabitants.

Fig. 3
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Collective home sphere and evaluating

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3.2 Community Based Organizing

Figure 4 are the plots of individual’s dwelling place from before eviction up to the present. This figure shows that it’s important for them to live in the almost same place with familiar people. The community leader said that it’s one of their history. And we called it “Tempat Nyaman (means Comfortable place)” at that time of meeting. It has been found that people who are familiar with each other actually have a similar Home sphere. Tempat Nyaman is information that is unknown to outsiders, and is an inherent order. In the future, whatever the plan of rebuilding, it will remain as one of invisible order. These facts show that a unique inhabitant culture has been fostered in about 40 years.

Fig. 4
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History of individual’s dwelling place

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Forced eviction has further strengthened the unity of the community. In fact, they are more proactive than ever in improving their own living environment in Kampung. They have tackled the garbage problem, added greenery and gardens, started community businesses, and held numerous meetings. Even in temporary shelters, they have naturally made communal spaces attractive and enjoyable. The question of slum or kampong is clear from the enthusiastic efforts of the Kampung Aquarium, and we can learn a lot from them. These are parts of self-organization by community and are the wisdom of living together.

4 Conclusions

In this paper, we proposed a dialogue method “Sketch-log Dialogue” for understanding and fostering the mechanism of Urban self-organization, especially living environments in neighborhood. The method revealed the Home sphere as perceived and valued by the individuals, the order understood only by the kampung people, and the activities actively undertaken by the community. These facts suggest that self-organization occurs at multiple scales: individual, collective, and community. In particular, our proposed dialogue method is very useful in understanding the individual scale. In this case, the concept of the home sphere, which is closely connected to personal values, value judgments, life experiences and memories, and can also be grasped as a space, is useful. This is a methodology to learn from people who are actually creating urban landscapes, rather than predetermining the components as an operational concept.