Bricolage a Design Approach for Improving High Density Area

This study aims to arouse the awareness of designers on how to see bricolage as a design approach to improve the quality of life in informal kampung settlements. The study case is Kampung Cikini Kramat in Jakarta. Thispocket kampung surrounded by buildings and infrastructure that have been considered to be tidy and orderly established. Urban dwellers living in informal settlements such as kampung, favelas, pueblos jóvenes and gecekondu are mostly judged to be the people who are not well established and left behind. However, it appears that they tend to advocate innovation and sustainability from their own habits by using the concept of bricolage. Bricolage is a skill of using whatever at hands to create something new was depends on its locality. The method of this study is by finding the signs of bricolage as a part oflocalhabitsand knowledges, thentrying to utilize the inhabitant’s knowledge to improve the kampung conditions.First, this study will find how bricolage can be found in the daily life of informal settlements. Second, we will discuss our real built projects, explaining the strategies of our involvement as a designer working together withthe local community to create the design approach by using the local knowledge of bricolage. The study concludes that bricolage is a continuous concept of self-help urbanism, which invigorates the quality of life in informal settlements.