The awards recognize “design projects with exceptional social, economic, and environmental impact and represent the forces needed to create truly sustainable projects and positive change in the world.” You can learn more about the SEED Award and this year’s winners from Design Corps.

Read more about Firm Foundation and follow the design process through a series of “video dispatches” on our Firm Foundation project website.

We are back with another installment of “Firm Foundation Cast” from Banjarmasin!

This time we are reporting on the participatory design process in Sungai Jingah we organized for our current project Firm Foundation. We are sharing the design of a new waterfront public space for Sungai Jingah that is coming off the drawing boards as well.

Stay tuned… You can also read our most recent dispatch on the AECOM UrbanSOS blog. And this coming Monday we are launching a project website featuring the design and more reports from Banjarmasin.

Banjarmasin Video Dispatch # 2 from MHaggerty11 on Vimeo.

This month Solo Kota Kita is getting a new initiative off the ground in Banjarmasin.

We’re working with the AECOM UrbanSOS program to design and build Firm Foundation –
an idea for improving public space and reducing environmental vulnerability created last year by our superstar volunteers.

Our team is sending dispatches each month from Banjarmasin to report on the project.

For our second dispatch, we’ve also created the first “Firm Foundation Cast,” a video about our activities.

Banjarmasin Video Dispatch 1 from MHaggerty11 on Vimeo.

You can read and follow the dispatches on AECOM’s website.

Solo Kota Kita aren’t the only ones interested in connecting participation, budgeting, design, and communication. In fact, we’re featured in a new report by the Open Knowledge Foundation that includes many other projects from around the world that are using technology to promote accountability and citizen engagement in governance. You can download the report – “Technology for Transparent and Accountable Public Finance” – from openspending.org.

Thank you Lucy Chambers for your excellent reportage!

Polis published a post this week about a new SKK project in Banjarmasin. The article features the winning UrbanSOS competition submission, Firm Foundation, the work of Alice Shay, Stephen Kennedy, Bima Pratama, and Dina Amalia.

While Bima is already working in Banjarmasin laying the groundwork for our participatory design activities there later this year, our team is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to support the project. Please check out our campaign on Kickstarter if you haven’t already!

Thank you again Polis!

One of our favorite urban design and development blogs published a great overview of decentralization in Indonesia and Solo Kota Kita’s activities just this past month. Thanks Polis!

In case you missed them, our current volunteer and MIT urban planning student Stephen Kennedy made several great blog posts about his experiences in Indonesia on CoLab Radio.

He’s written about expectations for travel, water and informal settlements, and small-scale handicraft production.

Plenty of video too in these descriptive posts! Thanks Stephen for sharing your stories.

Solo has four main river connections: Bengawan Solo, Kali Anyar, Kali Pepe and Kali Jenes. These rivers have a long history of contribution toward city development from colonial era up till now. Along with the growth of the city, the river has changed significantly both physical structure and social-environmental function.

Population growth from time to time has given impact to the river and its surrounding. Development creates denser environment and forces people to move up to “end of border.” New residential areas grow very fast and seem uncontrollable reaching area in river banks, slowly but sure the river suffers from environmental degradation.
Different types of housing along the river can be seen in Solo, this is due to different location and condition of the rivers.

We’ve been noticing a lot more bicycles on the streets here in Solo.

Maybe it’s the time of year – in the dry season it’s so much easier to be outside. And this year, the weather in Central Java has been especially forgiving. Maybe it’s even a little less dusty than usual around here.

But right now is also the anniversary of “Solo Car Free Day.” Last year, for the first time, the city shut down Jalan Slamet Riyadi, which is the main commercial and cultural corridor in Solo. Every Sunday morning – from just after prayers at 5:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. – the street is closed to cars and motorcycles. It’s becoming so popular that even people who don’t own one are climbing onto their friends’ bikes just to be part of this scene of early-risers.

Good Bikes and Free Streets from Michael Haggerty on Vimeo.

So it’s possible that Solo Car Free Day is also encouraging people to bring their bikes out during the rest of the week to get to work and school or go shopping. This would be a welcome alternative – if the streets become more accommodating for people on bikes, maybe they’ll even become safer for pedestrians!

Pekalongan is a city of many colors: endlessly long pieces of cloth hang in the sun to dry, often yellow, violet, red, orange and blues. New buildings are painted bright colors, even gate railings can have color coordinated paint. It seems that the combination of its coastal location, artistic residents and bold Batik motifs have made Pekalongan a city that’s proud to paint itself boldly. On bright sunny days, such as during the week the Solo Kota Kita was working there, the city was vibrant with this kaleidoscope of different colors.

The Solo Kota Kita team was in Pekalongan for a week to survey the city and gather information about its current and future planning goals. The visit was part of the work we’re doing for UN HABITAT’s Cities Development Strategy (CDS) program, where we’ll be creating a city profile for Pekalongan, Solo, and Banjarmasin. During our stay in the city we visited Batik villages, coastal settlements, the old harbor, and new middle-class suburban developments, all to get an understanding of the city’s form and future growth potential.

Pekalongan has both strong assets to build on as well as challenges it faces ahead. It is known as one of Indonesia’s original Batik cities, hundreds of small-scale batik producers design and produce large amounts of Batik there. You can see evidence of this all over the city, Batik is being made and dried everywhere! The city is supporting the Batik industry by encouraging innovation in design and marketing, they’ve opened a Batik museum, training schools, and computer labs specifically to support it. The city is also promoting cultural tourism to Batik villages like Kauman, in the heart of the old city.

On the other hand, the threat of climate change and problems of environmental degradation, such as coastal inundation, create impediments for Pekalongan’s continued growth. Everyday in the north of the city the high tide from the sea prevents the city’s rivers from draining. This backs up water that spills over into neighborhoods located there, such as Pabean. High tides also flood coastal areas with saltwater that damages local rice paddies and inundates homes. This has negatively affected Batik producers such as those in Pabean who have little space to dry their products. The city government is proposing various projects such as a sea wall, mangrove restoration and improving the drainage system to address the rising sea level.

Bright colors are not the only ones to be seen in the city, the Batik dyes that drain into local streams end up coloring it a dark murky color that demonstrates high pollution levels in the water. The color of this river could be a good indicator of the city’s situation in the future. Can Pekalongan balance the development of the Batik industry, its main economic and cultural potential, with concerns about environmental sustainability and public health? Can it successfully invest in defending its coastline and restoring river systems while at the same time supporting local businesses? If so, then Pekalongan’s rivers may someday run with clean water, reflecting the bright colors of the city’s natural and economic fortunes.