The design is a sculptural composition employing concrete and light.

Sunlight slants into the living area.

Born in Yogyakarta in 1968, Adi “Mamo” Purnomo studied architecture at Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta. He worked with Pacific Adhika Intermusa (PAI) in Jakarta and for a period in the 1990s with DP Architects in Singapore. He returned to Jakarta to set up his own architectural studio in 2000. By 2002 he had collected an Ikatan Arsitek Indonesia (IAI) Award for a series of three urban houses in Pamulang, Kebon Jeruk and Tomang that demonstrate affordable housing in both the suburban and kampong context. He represents a new generation of Indonesian architects. Mamostudio is deliberately kept small, “like a mosquito that touches the surface of water without being immersed in it. I am experimenting with the productivity of this kind of studio model,” he says.¹ Purnomo is an active member of Arsitek Muda Indonesia (AMI), and he is now also an established critic and reviewer at several Indonesian universities. He has exhibited his work in Indonesia, the Netherlands and the USA.

The Puri Indah House is a stunning modern design for Dr Lau, a retired medical doctor turned painter/photographer, his wife Evie Miranda and their daughter Laura Stephanie. The three of them share an appreciation of art and are keen collectors so that the house is simultaneously a dwelling, an artist’s studio and a private gallery that is occasionally open to the public. Their art collection includes the works of a number of Indonesian artists— Sudjana Kerton, Hendra Gunawan, Nasirun, Iwan Sagito, Agus Suwage, Entang W., Rudi Mantofani, Yunizar, Alfi, Yusra M., Irfan; as well as international artists Shu Xin Ping, Shen Xiao Tong, Shi Hu Stonetiger, Phillipo Scacia and Yuri Gorbachev— to name a few.

The house occupies a rectangular site opposite a supermarket, and like many town houses in Jakarta is literally turned inside out so that all the views are internalized, in this case forming a labyrinth of internal spaces dramatically lit by shafts of sunlight from above. At first, the complexity of the house plan and section is overpowering, with tilted walls and reflecting glass and water surfaces making it a challenge to comprehend the rationale of the plan and section. A sculptural figure, “ Pasak Bumi ” by Teguh Ostenrik, “ climbing ” an inclined wall, is reflected in the angled glass and appears to be suspended in space.

The materials used throughout are gray off-form concrete for the structure, unpainted gray plaster for the walls and smooth gray cement for the floors, which add to the cave-like ambience of the interior and heighten the impression of a subterranean space. The austere aura is augmented by music; at the time of the author’s visit, a Gregorian chant echoed through the spaces. After a while, the logic of the geometry becomes apparent, and it becomes possible to navigate through the monochromatic landscape. The ability to orientate oneself is aided by the careful positioning and lighting of numerous paintings and sculptures. There are no significant views out from this house: it is designed to look inward, to be internalized and for the focus to be entirely on the works of art. All daylight comes from above, and areas of planting balance the somewhat austere sculptural interior. The house was designed some time after Adi Purnomo’s pioneering book was published in 2005.

The angular central atrium is a truly magical space.

Light falls upon a bridge within the atrium.

The play of light and shadow is mesmerising.

The book considered the rational reasons for design. Because the client of the Puri Indah house is a photographer and an art collector, light is an important element in the design. Purnomo thus posed the question: What possibilities are open when thinking about light in this context? What if the light becomes the material that creates the space? What if any preconceived ideas about form and space are eliminated? He therefore studied the characteristics of light for a whole year and how the light could penetrate the volume, by use of models. He allowed the observed phenomena, in this case, sunlight, to become the generator of the design.

The house was designed specifically with the idea that the sun would enter between 09.00 and 11.00 and again between 14.00 and 16.00. This has determined the sections of the house and the angle of inclination of the internal walls. The play of light and shadow creates a house of constantly changing internal patterns, in some places visually dynamic and in other areas restful and calm. Reflections are not accidental although some must have been surprising even to the architect.

The architect has explained it more fully: “This is an example of a period when I questioned whether rationality was hampering or promoting the creative process. Being a studio, gallery and house for a photographer and a painter, the space needs light to be the component that shapes the space. At first, I studied how the sun moves at latitude 06°11’5” S and longitude 106°44’2” E during a day and throughout the year on a site that will be enclosed with a 10 meter-high wall. When I started to extract the data and translate it into a diagram, I was able to read beauty in its form. Numbers and diagrams became a poetry that emerged from the prose of rationality—the thing that I thought all this time was hampering the courage to spontaneously feel beauty. The whole structure is set up as a series of slanting walls, with the basic premise to catch and redistribute sunlight at certain hours of the day. The top floor is the gallery, receiving the most amount of light and least amount of humidity; the middle floor is for dwelling; and the ground floor is for public use. Circulation was placed in the sides, so that public access to the roof doesn’t interrupt the privacy of the middle floors.”²

The compound is accessed from a garage court. The complex internal geometry is not apparent from the entrance façade (another characteristic of Purnomo’s architecture). The house is entered through a tall timber door whereupon the visitor encounters a shoulder-height concrete wall that partially blocks a direct axial view of the interior. To the right is a linear pond that penetrates alongside the party wall to the rear of the house, passing beneath the principal staircase, which is a straight flight attached to the party wall.

To the left on entering the house is a breakfast bar and kitchen, a somewhat unusual arrangement, for a kitchen is usually located at the rear of the house, out of sight of visitors. It appears to be a reference to the location of a kitchen in kampong houses. Immediately beyond the low wall is a sitting area beneath a central lightwell with a TV, again a curious arrangement. Further along, and on the same axis, is the principal dining space.

What is instantly apparent is the complex internal geometry, with bridges across lightwells, sharply angular structures and light lancing down from above, reflecting and refracting from sloping glass planes and placid horizontal water bodies. Strong tilted concrete planes are visible, yet the house is surprisingly intimate in its internal spaces. There is pure excitement engendered by the constantly shifting perspectives as one moves through the house horizontally and vertically, and the joy of coming upon a startling painting or sculptural object integrated into the processional route. There are numerous highly original paintings and sculptures, some by the owner and others by several of Indonesia’s best contemporary artists.

Multiple images are reflected from glass balustrades.

At the summit of the house is a roof garden with an orthogonal array of plant pots containing lemon grass that is said to discourage mosquitoes. The pots continue across the glass roof above the central lightwell, and this creates an amazing effect of a moving pattern on the walls when viewed from below—a kinetic work of art. The pots also cut out glare.

Asked to explain the influences on his work, Adi Purnomo admits to admiration of the work of Peter Zumthor and his concentration on material quality but the major influence on his architecture is, he says, “the daily things that affect our lives.” Like the Malaysian architect Kevin Low, Adi Purnomo prefers to work alone or with one or, at most, two assistants.

To paraphrase Professor Abidin Kusno: “In the context of the Post-Suharto era, the works of Adi ‘ Mamo ’ Purnomo are distinctive if not representative of the new attitude of architects searching for alternative formal and spatial expressions.... Mamo takes up larger social issues even though this has never been explicitly stated as part of his design agenda... through his architecture, Mamo seeks to constitute a culture of reconciliation for the city that has been deeply divided by the rich and the poor.”³

This is an amazing house for it literally causes an involuntary intake of breath when entering. The house has an elusive quality—there is pleasure at every turn and surprise encounters with works of art at each significant juncture. The movement of the sun creates an ever-changing kaleidoscopic effect—the internal spatial quality is palpable.

In 2008, Purnomo was invited to be part of the ORDOS100-project in Mongolia, an opportunity he grasped to test his ideas in another context, and in the same year he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Ikatan Arsitek Indonesia.

Section through the lightwell.

Sunlight penetrates into the interior and casts enchanting shadows on vertical and horizontal surfaces.

Ground floor plan.

A sculptural figure, Pasak Bumi, “climbs” an inclined wall.

Striking art works contrast sharply with cement-rendered walls.

An upper-level gallery space.

Plant pots containing lemon grass are located above the glazed roof and contribute a pattern of shifting shadows.

The uncompromising entrance to the Puri Indah dwelling.

Footnotes

1   Adi Purnomo, Relativitas: Arsitek di Ruang Angan dan Kenyataan [Relativity: An Architect in Dream and Reality], Jakarta: Borneo Publications, 2005, p. 13.

2   Adi Purnomo in conversation with the author, October 19, 2009.

3   Abidin Kusno, “‘Back to the City’: Urban Architecture in the New Indonesia,” in The Appearances of Memory: Mnemonic Practices of Architecture and Urban Form in Indonesia, Durham: Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 71–97.