Small Site, Big Ideas: Designing Narrow Urban Lots
Narrow infill lots, common across Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya's older neighborhoods, come with a fixed set of problems: limited street frontage, party walls on both sides, and often only two usable facades for light and air. The instinct is to see this as a limitation. In practice, it's a very clear design brief.
With side walls blocked by neighboring buildings, light and ventilation have to come from the front, the back, or from above. This is where a central void — a light well, an open stair, a small internal courtyard — earns its place. It's rarely decorative; on a narrow lot, it's often the only way to get daylight and airflow into the middle of the plan.
Privacy needs a different strategy too. With neighbors close on both sides, windows facing sideways usually need to be small, high, or frosted, while the openings that do the real work of lighting a room face front, back, or the internal void instead.
The result, done well, doesn't read as compromise. Some of the most efficient and characterful houses we've designed sit on lots under six meters wide, precisely because the narrowness forced every decision — where light enters, where privacy is needed, where the stair goes — to be deliberate rather than default.