The Bioclimatic Community Mosque of Pamulang by RAD+ar

A mosque, unlike most religious places, has purposes that were more than just a place of worship for Muslims, oftentimes, it took shape as a community center, a meeting place, and even for some developing countries, a recreational space. The Bioclimatic Community Mosque aims to address the fundamental issues of designing a mosque by distancing itself from the current architectural discussions based on form and focusing solely on the essence of religious space.

front view of the mosque which is being visited by many people

Situated in the middle of the young demographic community, Masjid Darul Ulum Pamulang was designed by RAD+ar to be very low maintenance and self-sufficient as the extremely unfriendly environment where direct heat and high humidity were very dominant. 

The Bioclimatic design was an obvious direction to adopt that utilizes its extreme lumen from solar energy as 12 hours of indirect natural lighting toward the bulks of the mosque and other related environmental resources to provide indoor and outdoor human thermal comfort, such as a detailed technique for cross ventilation (inlet-outlet variation, usage of roster, side and top shaded opening for stack effects).

when viewed from the side, this mosque is thick with geometric elements

To reduce the cost of community mosques and increase efficiency, architects decided to replace 95% of what was supposed to be brick partition and replaced it with more than 30.000 pieces of accustomed roster block ( that provides lights and wind tunnel while maintaining privacy) that were manually manufactured by the local community for the community.

the main room in the mosque is used for worship

Basic geometric-volumetric approach as the sunken massing (to harness lower temperature) stacked on top of another, this allowed many levels of wind speed variation crossing the building that provides total shade and extreme temperature and air pressure differences that ensure 24 hours cross ventilation & thermal chimney effect.

the pulpit design and the area for the priest are made lit up to add to the solemnity

Design replace the iconic Islamic dome (mostly a quintessential characteristic of mosques) with a plate of an active green roof to cool down top most plates and to reduce the enormous urban heat island contributed to the surrounding environment. This was viewed as a movement to redefine Islamic spaces in a postmodern context and needs based on accustomed necessity.

one of the spaces frequented by visitors

With a capacity to accommodate approximately 1,000 people, the mosque is also designed to blend with nature and local culture. As the interior space was a shaded outdoor space, wind speed varied, this was found to be quite effective to tackle the problem of large gatherings indoors during airborne pandemics such as Covid-19 that happened recently.