This project is a part of a long term residency for children literacy in Bojongmangu, Indonesia, by our non-profit client Gugah Nurani Indonesia. We were initially asked to design a library. What we learned during community meetings, however, was a repeated call by the residents to shift our attention to the more pressing issue: water unavailability. Without access to neither piped water nor ground water, water is purchased in retail for drinking, washing, and productive purposes.

Bojongmangu is a rural region with hectares of rice fields. The rain, here, is an absolute necessity. La Niña has been attributed for more frequent rain that allowed for greater rice harvest yield.

Against this background, we were compelled to utilize all available means for community-based rain water harvesting structure. We worked together with both the sub-district office and the local healthcare services (puskesmas) to build six of these structures, spread across the hilly region, that will double as community centers.

The design must be simple to understand, to maintain, and to build. The reason for its modularity are as follow: to minimize waste, to test them at the workshop, to deliver them in batches, and to assemble them quickly as we were racing against the rain.

Upon completion, the neighborhood women groups (PKK) become the caretakers of the centers. We were invited during the inauguration to demonstrate how to maintain the building. To this day, we returned there from time to time.

Each ‘inverted umbrella roof’ module could take in approximately 400 L of rainwater per day (in moderate rainfall debit of 100mm/day scenario) which will then get piped straight to the ground water tank to be filtered. The number of umbrellas to be placed at each site follows the availability of the land and the budget. The more umbrellas there are, the more water can be taken in but also more points for down pipe maintenance.

What is equally important is the water filtration mechanism where we use granular materials that can be sourced or made on site such as: coconut shell charcoal, lime stone, and sand from the river at the downstream. We approximate that it may only need to be changed every second year. The water quality is lab tested by the local healthcare service.

 The short term impact is to raise awareness of rain water harvesting in this region and to perhaps replicate and adapt the design in more places. What we have learned in working with low-income communities is that people trust evidence of feasibility, so we would like to see how the centers would turn out in three to five years.

The long term impact is about issues that stem from the lack of water namely sanitation and hygiene. There is a provision of two squat toilets and a wash basin. The centers adjacency to the local healthcare facilities would hopefully provide greater exposure to better sanitation and hygiene. This is the next area to be tackled in the future.

The core team, pppooolll, is comprised of architects and builders. The team is led by Kamil Muhammad, an architect with experience in working with low income communities. Raushan Fikri and Haidar El Haq are the two young design architects of the project. The structure is built by Raditya Wijaya.

Our client, Gugah Nurani Indonesia, is also hands on in the process particularly in being the liaison with the communities and local authorities. They have been running residency in Bojongmangu for three years.

We are assisted by two collaborators. We are grateful for the involvement of Formologix who have lent their expertise in modular design. We are also grateful to Feel Well Ceramics for providing the toilets and the wash basins for each of the centers.

The office of the sub-district of Bojongmangu has been a helpful ally in the process in ensuring the project could run rather smoothly. The local healthcare center of Bojongmangu is also an outstanding supporter of the project and has helped us in providing lab tests for the water quality.