The megastructure concept for Indonesian architecture

The phenomena of mega-scale development around the world in recent years have attracted a lot of attention. From a dramatic underwater mega-tunnel to desert skyscrapers and Japanese supertalls, the tendency has shown incredible feats of mega-structure construction, including Nusantara the Capital City of Indonesia due to be inaugurated on August 17th, 2024. Despite the excitement of the general public, there has always been a pro and con to the replacement, one of the most major issues is the Indonesian-ness of the projects. The idea of the archipelago architecture design principles has been questioned as to whether it is related to the development of the city backbone, nor its architecture. This research aims to investigate the idea of the megastructure concept for Indonesian architecture from a theoretical perspective using a combination of historical and etymological approaches. The steps are: 1) Questioning the idea of megastructure, 2) Understanding the philosophy of Indonesian architecture, and 3) Building the concept representation of megastructure for Indonesian architecture. The research finding is there is a possibility of seeing megastructures differently according to a local context. The output is the megastructure concept based on Indonesian vernacular house typology. The novelty of the research is eight typological categories and three fundamental guidelines for developing Indonesian megastructure.