This is not a suburb consisting of high-rise buildings. It is a suburb that is itself in a high-rise location.
In Djakarta, Indonesia there is a small town of 78 identical two storey homes that is located ten storeys high on the roof of of a parking garage.
It’s Thursday and the residents of Jakarta’s Cosmo Park are out jogging, watering their plants or walking their dogs along neat asphalt roads.
Neighbourhood kids pedal their bikes under frangipani trees and peach-coloured bougainvillea to the pool and tennis court. Apartments, comfortable and modern, sit side by side, with barbecues and toys stacked outside.
Quiet and orderly, it feels like any other suburban idyll – but there is one difference. Cosmo Park is a village in the sky, perched 10 storeys up on top of a shopping centre and car park, a world away from the heaving megalopolis below.
It is a surreal urban bubble, where normal life unfolds at an abnormal altitude. To access ground level, resident drive their cars down a ramp. A tall metal fence runs around the perimeter to make sure no one falls or drives off. Peer beyond the fence and you can spot the city’s landmarks below.
You drive to ground level? That sounds like … a challenge to evacuate in an emergency.
I am assuming that like any high rise, there are stairs to the ground in case of fire.
It sounds like a nice place to live.
EigenSprocketUK #1 -- Imagine being on top when an earthquake causes a collapse.
jrkrideau #3 -- The first thing I noticed was the dirty, brown sky, not the neighborhood. It’s worse than Seoul back in the early 2000s.