Selamat Tahun Baru 2008

Malam tadi, Jakarta diguyur hujan. Agaknya hal itu mengganggu banyak perayaan malam tahun baru. Dari ratusan kembang api yang dinyalakan, lebih banyak terdengar suara letusannya daripada mekar kembangnya. 

Saya jadi teringat, tahun lalu di Sydney. Perayaan tahun baru dipusatkan di Circular Quay. Sebuah public event yang rapi penyelenggarannya. Dimulai dari publikasi yang informatif, transportasi yang memadai, dan.. *bayangkan* dengan Aussie habbit yang selalu merayakan event (dari yang bisa sampai yang luar biasa) dengan minum bir, esok paginya spot-spot perayaan sudah rapi jali. Kembang api-nya pun luar biasa. Berlainan dengan tahun-tahun sebelumnya, kali ini gedung-gedung perkantoran di sekitar CQ juga turut urun kembang api. Meriah sekali. Tidak rugi untuk menunggui spot dari jam 2 siang sampai 1 pagi keesokan harinya, sampai dibela-belain masuk angin. 

Itulah, saya jadi tercenung. Mengapa perayaan tahun baru di Jakarta tidak dipusatkan ya? Seperti terpisah dan berdiri sendiri-sendiri. Layaknya Jakarta mempunyai time-zone yang berbeda-beda.  

Walau begitu, saya optimis dengan tahun 2008. Ada rencana, dan pastinya ada usaha, tapi saya yakin semuanya akan baik-baik saja, lebih baik malah. Teman-teman juga begitu bukan?

Noisy Asian Cities

 

I have just read a marvellous article from Reader’s Digest – Asia, December 2007, titled “Deafening Asia” by Nicole Wraight. In general, the article warns us that we live in cities (Asian cities) that could damage our ears! To give you an image, the article states that the noise level of busy streets across in Asia is 100dBA, while the safe limit according to WHO is 70dBA.

Well, it does not count if you like to hear your iPod loudly – so the music played can easily heard rather than surrounding sound. For you to know, the maximum volume coming out from your earphones could reach 120dBA! It’s a waaay far than the safe limit. That’s why sometimes you get ringing, buzzing, hissing, or whistling on your ears! No, no, no… those ringing aren’t a sign from your ancient spirit to ask you to pray for him (those for you who Javanese).

Back to noises we heard from our environment. Some health tests have result that loud noises could increase your adrenalin (OK, you knew it already). However, did you know that it could cause stress in children, raise their blood pressure, their heart rates, and even their level of stress hormones?! On girls, the effects caused even greater. It could make the feeling of less motivated, and helplessness among girls. If the children suffer from early ages, how could they become positive, dependable adults? If the noise level caused so many harmful effects on kids, what would be on adults- who live or commute to big cities almost everyday – ?

As an urbanist, I urge to have a better planning for our cities. Start from having barriers along the busy roads, railways, airport, or even stadium (just in case they hold a rock concert on stadium – which is common in Indonesia- and the stadium usually located not far from residential area- Well yeah, it happens on my hometown - can you imagine it?). Other ways are to put “amount of noise level accepted” signage on pedestrianized areas, and control it with a good regulation. For a city like Jakarta, moving the capital city might be considered[1]. Well.. It’s far easier if we start from blank paper right? (Ups! We better think about it globally.)

As an architect, a full consideration of acoustical problem within designing has to be driven. It looks easy if you designing in developed Asian countries, but it might hard to put it as a special consideration on developing Asian countries that bounded by fee, cost, and margin.

Regulation. Some of you – who live in Asian cities – would pessimistic about this. Yet, it should be considered though. And consider it now! With proximity of having 80% world population to live in cities[2], why not make cities as better place to live?

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[1] Opini, Media Indonesia (date?)

[2] National Geographic – Asia (Oct 2007?)