From the entrant’s submission:

It has been generally accepted in architectural history that Pacific architecture has its origin in Southeast Asia (SEA) architecture; however, the connection between the two regions has seemed to deteriorate after Western imperialism. The proposed speculative project aims to reconstruct the Pacific’s consanguinity with that of Southeast Asia by speculatively reimagining Indonesia’s capital city’s relocation plan- from Java to Borneo. The narrative of this project displays the continuum of visionary thinking of Oceanic philosophy and sophisticated engineering of indigenous Oceanic tectonic which are explored to solve the ‘contemporary problems’ like the sea level rise, deforestation and indigenous community gentrification.

This project was inspired by the rich and long history of Oceania, taken from the ancestral stories that always injected a beautiful dream to those who listened and sought it. Some stories preach about the legendary heroes that evoke a sense of innovation and creation. Some warn about the potential threats if we did not protect nature, and some teach about our identity, uplifting our rootedness and identity. As designers, we are responsible for outlining this into practicality. Undeniably, a few things will be rationalised and simplified, but as long as the core values could be retained, it will make our current world a bit more like our dream.

This thesis aspires to embrace the sense of empowerment in architecture and there are three building typologies investigated in this project; meeting house, living house and storehouse, which were inspired by the shared typology found in SEA and Pacific. The project will try to reimagine the relevance of Oceanic indigenous solutions in our contemporary world.