Ecosystem Employment in Jakarta, Indonesia - Ecological Applications in Urban Design

Abstract: Nature has a special knack for survival. After millennia of beating the odds against an inhospitable planet, many species have found clever ways to ensure self-preservation on an often inhospitable planet. By refining special skills and working alongside other members of the ecosystem, countless species have found a stable role in the landscape. As humans, we are no different. Developing human society in the cradle of our own environments, humans have found the ultimate way to not only survive, but thrive in our landscapes- by building cities. We eventually found that the strength in numbers and collective skills of our communities allowed us to no longer be dominated by the landscape, but rulers over it. However, as our vast cities and domesticated landscapes have long-altered the self-regulating properties of local ecosystems, humans must once again adapt to an inhospitable environment as urban climate hazards such as flooding and the urban heat island effect threaten an ever growing population of urban inhabitants. This project seeks to address these climate hazards by exploring one key nuance of urban ecology- that we humans are acting members in the ecosystem, not a division from it. By allowing basic principles of ecology to guide the urban design process, we seek to employ the self-regulating and self-sustaining properties of the natural world into the built environment, thus reintroducing ecosystem services in a way that uplifts both human and nonhuman urban populations. We will explore the concept of ecosystem service employment in human settlements by studying Jakarta, Indonesia- the world´s second largest urban agglomeration, a complex landscape that faces many climate hazards that threaten life and livelihood to its urban citizens. As the city buckles under the pressure of land subsidence and other ecological challenges, we will explore the possibilities for regulative landscape as a tool for climate action. Is nature enough, then, to improve the landscape that now threatens many human settlements? By reestablishing our role in the ecosystem, can we find a way to in turn heal nature, with nature?