SPATIAL AND ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN ASPECTS IN COMMUNITY BASED MOSQUES

Abstract

Indonesia as one of the biggest Muslim countries in the world are very rich in the quality and quantity of<br />mosques architecture. The largest number of mosques in Indonesia is designed, built, and developed by local<br />communities. Unfortunately, the potention of these kind of mosques is often unconsciously forgotten in the<br />field of architectural studies. Therefore, this research is held to define these mosques’ spatial and<br />architectural design aspects which were considered as appropriate for the needs of their local communities’.<br />As a descriptive-qualitative architectural research, the methods employed in this research are (1) field<br />surveying, (2) architectural documenting, and (3) informal interview, which were held in three purposive<br />sample of mosques: Masjid An-Nur Jagalan, Masjid Gading Pesantren, and Masjid Jami’ Kauman Malang. These<br />three mosques were chosen because of their close relations with their surrounding communities and their long<br />time developments by their local societies. The result of this study shows that some specific spatial and<br />architectural elements which were found in these community based mosques are (1) the scale, size, and depth<br />of space, (2) the classification and the placement of space, (3) the architectural expressions, (4) the openness,<br />the boundaries, and the relationship between spaces, (5) the athmospherical qualities of space, (6) the<br />classification of the users in spaces, (7) the intensity of the users in spaces, and (8) the manner and the<br />position of the users in spaces.