Toward sustainable building designs and the environment in Denpasar city: lesson learned from Bali Aga concepts

Abstract

The concept of sustainable development is widely known as an improvement towards the quality of buildings and the environment. Thus, this concept improves the comfort, health, satisfaction, and work performance of people. The city of Denpasar-Bali experienced very high population growth and decreased the quality of the environment and the balance between economic, social, and environmental factors. On the other hand, indigenous villages named Bali Aga villages that spread out across Bali island have building design and settlement concepts that always maintain harmony between humans, nature, and God. This concept has been proven to effectively respond to social, economic, and environmental problems for years. The aim of this paper is to discuss the suitable concepts and criteria for sustainable design and settlement of Denpasar city in the future by learning from Bali Aga concepts. The qualitative content analysis was applied to this study. Interviews with several professional architects in Denpasar were undertaken to explore the common approaches and barriers to sustainable design. Detailed information on indigenous design and settlement concepts gathered from surveys to selected Bali Aga villages. The result shows that Bali Aga’ building and settlement concept is fundamental to create suitable building and settlement concepts for the future development of Denpasar city to maintain economic, social, and environmental balance.