Low-Cost Apartment Design with Tropical Architecture Approach in Bekasi City

Abstract Bekasi city is one of the largest Jakarta’s satellite cities that is experiencing population growth very quickly, especially in Bantargebang district. Bantargebang has the most population growth rate and is considered as slums as the Landfill Disposal located there. Bekasi is geographically located in the lowlands and experiences a massive growth in industrial and residential activities throughout the year, causing an increase in the temperature of the microclimate in which makes people feel thermally uncomfortable living there. This paper describes the design process of Low-Cost-Apartment (Rusunawa) with Tropical Architecture approach to answer the problem of thermal comfort. This research was conducted by analyzing the impact of application of Tropical Architecture such as building orientation, building configurations, building coverage, vegetations, openings, and materials to create a more comfortable place for living. The design process of these indicators is based on building simulations such as SunHour, CFD (Computational Fluid Design), and RayMan Tools to obtain the ideal design. This paper presents the usage of sunshading on the top 2 floors of each tower, specifically at the north side, and the building configuration with various level of height on each towers to help maximize the air flow within the site in order to reach thermal comfort. From simulations with these three tools, it can be concluded that the thermal comfort can be reached with the application of Tropical Architecture.