Balai Bahasa Office- West Java Region is a government office under The Ministry of National Education and Culture of Indonesia, which cover the area of West Java.
As a result of its heterogeneity, Indonesia has vastly different kinds of cultural outputs. Many of those are the traditional languages. Being the nearest to a society, language as an intangible cultural product requires special attention, from both the government and the society. The challenge is how to positioned themselves between the national language {Bahasa Indonesia} and the international language {English, Mandarin, etc}, without threatening the traditional language. This is where Balai Bahasa position itself.The challenge is translated in the form of a building by taking a mosaic composition as an analogy. The heterogeneity of the languages is symbolized by the many different forms, sizes, and colors of the fragments that compose a mosaic.As a building of an institution that covers West Java province, local character of Sundanese architecture is applied to the building. The zoning of spaces inside the building is based on the public building of the Sundanese used for gathering {Bale Desa}, which taken because of its parallel purpose with the building- to open itself to the public.Character of the local environment is also taken into the design by contextualizing itself with the existing environment. The green belt nearby the site is made continuous to the in-site design by creating a lush green public space in front of the building. Another public space is also created at the site border which directly attached to the façade of neighboring school, in order to make a blended design with the existing building. In order not to dominate the nearby iconic Bandung Lautan Api Monument, the building layout are designed to direct the view of the majority people coming from southern Bandung towards the monument through with the office as a directing foreground.
Slender thickness of the building help itself to minimize energy consuming, along with the elements of the building {sun shading, breathable surface, vegetation, etc}; Thus creating an environment friendly government office building.

2007

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