Architectural Porosity: Urban Heritage Wall as Common Ground for Shared Inhabitation

Abstract

This paper explored the idea of architectural porosity, which consists of the relation between material and socio-spatial porosities in the context of urban heritage sites. It takes inspiration from Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis' essay Napples (originally published in 1925), which sounded the idea of porosity as an urban condition that connects the material and socio-spatial characteristics of the city. Architectural porosity will be explored by looking at empirical examples of urban walls in Semarang Old Town, Indonesia, as a fertile vertical ground for shared inhabitation between human/non-human and formal/informal inhabitation. By looking at the publicly available aerial photography of the area and 'street views' of the urban walls from recent years, alongside direct wall observation in 2022, this paper traces the changing of Semarang Old Town, focusing on the consequence of the revitalisation since 2016/2017 which arguably resulted in an eradication of former conditions of porosity. This study unfolds the possible inclusion of alternative voices, such as acknowledging the natural ecological cycle of decay and informal inhabitation, within the discussion of urban heritage revitalisation practice.