Thursday, September 4, 2014

Tea-Tree House at Bamboo Biennale, Vastenberg designed by Budi Pradono


The tea house is located 5 m above the ground. This is a little higher than the Vastenberg fortress which built 
 by The Dutch at 18th century.



This temporary building gives a good chance for Solo’s people to see the city view and the fortress from 
the higher place. It looks like giving a new perspective to look at the historical context of the fortress itself, especially the culture and the habit of the occupants of the fortress. However, you will only see the open space
in the fortress. A large empty space such as a football court is here. 



Today, people’s curiosity is still the same. They asking about what happen inside the fortress. The tea house looks like a place for imagination. People imagine many things in here and use it as a dialogue place between the present and the past time, the top and the ground, Solo citizen and fortress, tree and emptiness. 








The main material of the tea house has made from layered 'tampah'. It creates a space inside. Tampah is a tool that special designed for rice filtering. It used to separate the rice from the other material such as gravel, rice skin, leaf and the others. Tampah is not just useful as a filtering tool, it also used to dry the rice. People dry 
the rice on the tampah and place it on the roof. It has done to get enough sunshine.



In this installation, tampah has been placed as a filter too. It has done by looking for the ideal size. 
Tampah exploration has made with the Simo village’s artisan. This village is 30 km from Solo. Pak Sugiman has made tampah since a long time ago. He made it generation by generation for over 30 years.






The artisan collaboration also create a new tampah typology with the varied cane work. The new typology is not just useful as a tea house filter but also a filter for the city and the Vestenberg fortress. This work makes tampah as a device. In the night, this installation will light up and bright the city.












Tea/Tree House
Installed from August 31 untill September 28, 2014
At Benteng Vastenberg, Solo

Designer : Budi Pradono
Assistant Architect for Design Stage: Ajeng Nadia Ilmiani
Assistant Support for Design Stage: Nabilla Retnaning Dewanti, Ayrine Claudia, Amelia Mega, 
Fariz Badi Uzzaman
Bamboo Artisan : Sugiman, Waris cs
Crew on Site: Budi Pradono, Ajeng Nadia Ilmiani, Nabilla Retnaning Dewanti, Ayrine Claudia, Amelia Mega, Fariz Badi Uzzaman, Sri R Sigalingging, Kurniawan Wahyu Sandono, Ardiyono Muhammad, Fadlillah Arrosyid, Erna Fajar Dewanti, Sugiman, Suwar, Ngatirin, Suwaris
Material : Tampah, Bamboo, Tyvek, Led light
Size : 94.5 m3