The entrance façade of the house incorporates extensive vegetation.

The living area opens onto a glittering blue lap pool.

Denny Gondojatmiko was born in Parwokerto in 1969 and studied architecture at Parahyangan catholic University in Bandung. A contemporary of tan tik Lam and Ahmad Djuhara, he graduated in 1994, after which he worked for ciputra for five years and then with Jeffrey Budiman Architects before setting up Denny Gondo Architects in 2004. he has, in a relatively short time, built up a considerable reputation as a designer of exquisite modern residences. he is a committed member of Arsitek Muda indonesia and has traveled to europe and Japan with the group. the architect has designed a number of houses, including several high-quality residences in the Lippo Karawachi development. his work has appeared in The Phaidon Atlas of 21st century World Architecture (2008).

The Tulodong Bawah House is the home of the manufacturer and exporter of Natural Habitat furniture, which has production facilities in Central Java. Conceptually, the house is a simple box elevated above the street, for at the outset the decision was taken to raise the living spaces and insert a garage at ground level. This reduced the amount of expensive excavation of a basement and gave views out over the street from the principal living areas. This visual connection with the neighborhood reverses a trend in urban residential design in Jakarta to turn inward and present a blank façade to the street. It became apparent at the planning stage that it would also be possible to insert an office at ground level, thereby cutting down on the journey to work and making the house much more sustainable.

The most visible feature of the house is a vertical “green wall” that links to a planted garden at first-floor level, which is then connected to a second-floor garden. The green wall gives the house a distinctive appearance in the neighborhood and makes a substantial contribution to retaining biodiversity.

The house is entered from Jalan Tulodong Bawah via a lobby that is slightly off-center and serves both the private dwelling and the office. A straight flight of steps leads directly to the center of the open-plan house, where a tall deep-grained timber door gives direct access to the kitchen/pantry, dining room, living room and an external timber deck. In a composition that is generally resolved in shades of gray and brown, there is a splash of Van Gogh sunflower yellow in the kitchen. A lap pool occupies the full width of the rear courtyard, with a raised planter and a fountain concealing a corner lightwell that introduces daylight and ventilation into the maidspace below. The sound of water pervades the house and light floods into the living spaces through the full-height glazed sliding doors that face the courtyard. The first floor of the house, where the architect utilizes butt-jointed glass, is strikingly transparent.

Filtered sun- light illuminates the principal staircase and upper floor spaces.

Section drawing.

A glass-bottomed koi pond is located above the entrance to the house.

A window seat offers views at treetop level.

The living room veranda has extensive views over the street.

The house is an elegantly composed cubist form.

Directly ahead, on axis, is a flight of stairs to the upper floor containing the master bedroom suite, a child’s room projecting over the pool and a bathroom. The accommodation is completed with a family room and a koi pond located over the house entrance. A steep external flight of stairs ascends to a roof deck.

There is a strong sense of De Stijl-like order in the modernist vocabulary and an excellent resolution of tectonics. Cruciform steel columns, that make reference to Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, are utilized to support the master bedroom suite above the living room deck. Gondo expresses his admiration of the work of Tan Tjiang Ay, a doyen of the architectural profession in Indonesia, who has maintained a steady and uncompromising output of modern architecture. He also expresses admiration for the work of American architect Peter Bohlin of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (Arcadian Architecture), who successfully combines wood and steel in his designs, and the influence of both architects can be detected in Gondo’s design.

This is an elegant design replete with ideas on sustainability, daylight and natural ventilation. The essence of the house is in its compactness, tactile surfaces and transparency—and vertical gardens that replace greenery lost at ground level.

View of a passing street hawker from the roof terrace.