Architecture as medicine

Abstract

Semarang is one of the large historical harbour cities on Java, Indonesia. The historical centre of the city is characteristic for its colonial set-up. During the last few decades the city of Semarang has been expanding rapidly. Nowadays, the historical centre of the city is not central anymore. In Semarang, the functions which require a lot of space such as health care facilities are likely to be located in the peripheral, newer neighbourhoods, where space is still available. And so, the dense historical cores of these cities lack medical functions. During more certain times, Indonesia’s health care system already has to deal with challenging circumstances. As the scarcely distributed and non-inclusive character of the Indonesian health care system has to deal with one of the biggest crises in medical history, opportunities arise as people are forced to focus on the distribution of health care services. As Dutch-colonial buildings are available in the historical centres of large Javanese coastal cities, transformation could provide a solution to the lack of appropriate places for the establishment of health care institutions. In this graduation project, a possible role for Dutch-colonial architecture as host for medical applications is explored. The technical possibilities of Dutch-colonial buildings, regarding their ability to adapt to the Javanese climatic circumstances and their structural integrity have an important role in the project. How can centrally located Dutch-colonial architecture serve as a foundation for the development of a socio-cultural and socio-economical based health care facility, in order develop a more inclusive medical system in Indonesia? The design which is developed in this graduation project is a modular system which is easy to replicate in segments. In this way, the new medical function can be tailored to fit the existing structures. The use of the modular systems in this design proposal is demonstrated by showing the effect they have on two historical structures in various circumstances.