Nusantara Capital City 2023
Early public visioning for Indonesia’s new capital.
In partnership with UNDP Accelerator Labs, indigenous and local communities in East Kalimantan actively shaped the foundational design guidelines for Nusantara, Indonesia’s future capital.
Context
Client
UNDP
Location
Nusantara, Indonesia 🇮🇩
Year
2023
In July 2023, as plans for Nusantara were still in their preliminary stage, planners recognized the critical need to ensure the new city reflected the cultural heritage and aspirations of the local populations. The goal was to establish design guidelines for public parks and residential areas before formal blueprints were finalized, ensuring that future urban landscapes would be genuinely inclusive and representative.
Engagement method
A two-day design charrette was run using an AI co-planning tool, working directly with indigenous groups and various local stakeholders. Because high-level city planning can feel abstract, the focus was on establishing core principles for relatable, everyday spaces like homes and parks, grounding the process in the practical human experience of where people actually live and gather.
- Conceptualization: Participants used the platform to brainstorm and visualize their ideal living spaces and public areas, ensuring that their unique cultural heritages were central to the creative process.
- Community Moodboards: Through a highly collaborative process, these visual ideas were compiled into comprehensive “community moodboards,” serving as a visual consensus of the group’s priorities.
- Iterative Refinement: We utilized a continuous feedback loop, refining the AI-generated designs on the spot to guarantee they accurately captured the nuances of the community’s aspirations.
Impact
This charrette represented a step forward in community-engaged urban planning.
- Empowered Indigenous Voices: The process demonstrated how generative AI can give indigenous communities a powerful voice, turning their traditional knowledge and future hopes into tangible visual assets that directly influence professional planners.
- Proactive Blueprinting: By engaging citizens during the planning phase, rather than after plans were drafted, the resulting design guidelines serve as a true foundational blueprint for the city.
Delivered together with project partners.