The Optimazing Used of Rainwater Harvesting on Flats as an Effort to Reveal Eco-Architecture

Clean water supply for urban residents is very important. The issues related to clean water are raising in line with the development of cities as it is happened in Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is one of the major cities with high population growth in Indonesia. This leads to the increased demand of community housing. The Government of Yogyakarta is continiously addressing the needs of urban settelements by building flats as one of the many ways to solve the related problems. The construction of settlement facilities should consider the availability of clean water. Thus, it is mandatory for the building contructors to provide a large available capacity of clean water for the residents to solve urban water crisis problems. The concept of rainwater harvesting is a concept intending to save the use and the management of water supply to meet the needs of the building. This concept provides an alternative source of clean water by utilizing rainwater. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of rainwater harvesting used in flats building towards the reduction of clean water needs. This is an explorative comparative study on flats building design and flats clean water needs of two flats in Yogyakarta. This study is to provide a general description of the potential use of the concept of rainwater harvesting in building flats to reduce clean water requirements of a building. It is concluded that the potential use of rainwater (rainwater harvesting) on building flats could reduce the need for cleanwater of its inhabitants. This will reduce the energy requirements in the provision of cleanwater in the buildings. It is also recommended that the design of the buildings should integrate the concept of rainwater harvesting as a way in developing an eco architecture building. Keywords: Clean water needs, Rain-water harvesting, Flats, Eco-architecture