Distribution Pattern and Geological Factor Review in the Construction of Office Buildings in the City of Bandung During Dutch East Indies Colonial Era

Abstract

: Geologically, the city of Bandung is built on a former large lake known as the Ancient Bandung Lake and when the water recedes it forms a topography in the form of a basin known as the Bandung Basin. The interesting thing is that when the Dutch East Indies Colonial government built Jalan Raya Pos and office buildings they tended to choose the northern part of the basin over the southern part. This study aims to determine the pattern of distribution of office buildings along Jalan Raya Pos during the Dutch East Indies Colonial era and review geological factors that influenced it. This research was conducted by studying the distribution pattern of the building through the nearest neighbor analysis method and its location from Jalan Raya Pos and the geological map of the Bandung Basin. The results of this study show that office buildings built during the Dutch East Indies Colonial were dominantly concentrated in the northern part of Jalan Raya Pos which were randomly distributed, located in the northern part of the Bandung Basin with an altitude between 704 – 725 m sea level, dry plains, and stable soil conditions with topography relatively flat. Meanwhile, in the southern part, the topography continues to decline until the bottom of the Basin which has an average elevation of 600 m sea level. The main rocks in the northern part of the Bandung Basin are volcanic products, while the southern part is lake deposits so the soil surface in the southern part has a wetter and unstable condition because the constituent rocks are the clay. This also has implications for the available groundwater potential, in the northern part relatively having a character with much better quantity and quality than the southern part. This condition made the Dutch East Indies Colonial government prefer the north side of Jalan Raya Pos and the northern part of Bandung Basin in constructing office buildings which are randomly distributed more in the north of Jalan Raya Pos, which is 87%, while in the south 13% in the period from 1810 – 1940.