Hybrid House

Hybrid House is our attempt to find certainty in temporariness. The owner, one of the principal in our office, wanted to have a place for family gathering and cultural event. However, when it is not holding an event, the house functioned as a temporary house and also a think tank office for interns, the temporary employees in our office.

The site is located in Tangerang, one of the urban center near Jakarta, Indonesia. On the 15x15 meters site, living and working activities should happens at the same time. Therefore, we decided to learn from traditional Indonesian architecture, especially stilt houses. Many stilt houses has a clear separation between living space in upper floor and working space in lower floor. We then adopt this layout and stage-like structure for the house.

The structure of the house is a reinterpretation of traditional “umpak” construction where the upper structure stands free on the lower structure. The construction process used two  systems, reinforced concrete for ground floor and steel frame structure for the second and third floor. This method had speed up the building process. While the steel frame structures were being assembled in the workshop, conventional construction could take place on the site.

Stage-like structure enables the second and third floor to be smaller in size than the ground floor. We can put openings in every side of the building so that every room in the house could get direct sunlight and cross ventilation. Climate control was achieved by a layered roof to reduce the heat in the upper floor. Another feature is a small garden in second floor which controls temperature for the work space below. 

With its temporariness of the program, Hybrid House is still in its way to define what it will become in the future. Will it be an office with converted living area as working spaces? Or will it become a home where the working space will be converted as a garage, gallery or event space for parties and family gathering? Now, we will just take advantage of those  temporariness to find our new way of living and working.