Learning from Kampungs in Jakarta: Contextualising Water Sensitive Cities Principles with Community Tactics and Behaviours

Historically, in Jakarta, Indonesia vernacular settlements were displaced as a result of colonial forces to live in less desirable land, which often consisted of watery landscapes such as riversides, flood prone and swampy lands. The city has grown around these settlements and climate variability means these settlements continue to be vulnerable to water-based threats, such as pluvial, fluvial, and coastal flooding. Although Water-Sensitive Cities (WSC) principles have been successfully implemented in some contexts, Indonesian cities, like Jakarta, have a history of community-based planning and defensive systems to manage environmental factors. To contextualise WSC principles and design strategies, it is crucial to understand how local communities have adapted to and managed conditions within daily life. By connecting socio-cultural aspects to the spatial conditions of urban landscapes, the research seeks to understand the socio-spatial processes within vernacular landscapes in Indonesia and connect residents’ everyday experiences with other actors and processes involved in riverine landscape transformation. We argue that using the landscape as a medium to understand these experiences and viewpoints offers a starting point for discussion between different groups. Furthermore, it is a means to synthesise different perspectives for the application of WSC principles in Jakarta. This includes uncovering communities’ knowledge regarding socio-environmental aspects of the urban riverine landscape. These findings are presented as a series of recommendations for contextualising WSC principles to vernacular neighbourhoods.