The discourse on urbanism in Indonesia is still in its infancy. Existing development disparities and difficulties between urban and rural areas motivate people to migrate to large cities in search of opportunities. As a result, urban growth has been dispersed, making settlement supply challenging and forcing people to reside in desakotas, which are urban residual spaces (urban villages). Regardless of the subjective quality of environmental well-being, the design of these spaces revealed an exploratory spatial quality. If these inventive uses of space disappear, it will be a pity that municipalities have such extensive and practical plans to convert these areas into new ones. In search of an alternative strategy for future development, this essay examined a critical record and analysis of spatial quality using desakota in Jogoyudan, Yogyakarta, as an illustration. This essay argues for inventive vocabularies to advocate desakota urbanism development in Indonesia by applying Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language lenses to decode and improve the design grammar.

This research was a dissemination of Satria’s Undergraduate Design Thesis, supervised by Ilya F. Maharika and Syarifah I. Alatas

Recording of the public presentation