On November 10, Italian integrated design specialist Progetto CMR and Indonesian company, PT. Triusaha Mulia Bersama, will co-sign a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) in Jakarta for the creation of a master plan for the development of a new integrated industrial city at Takalar, a largely-uninhabited area on the south coast of Sulawesi, 40 kilometres from Makassar. This major agreement between the companies will be signed by Progetto CMR founder and CEO Massimo Roj and Louis Pakaila, Managing Director of PT. Triusaha Mulia Bersama, at the “First Bilateral Dialogue between Indonesia and Italy” which will be attended by the President of Italy Sergio Mattarella and the Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Various local authorities from Sulawesi aside, the signing will also be attended by the Minister for Economic Development, Federica Guidi and the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs for the Republic of Indonesia, Darmin Nasution.
The Memorandum of Understanding is part of a package of 10 MOUs that will be signed between Indonesian and Italian companies in a powerful demonstration of the burgeoning spirit of collaboration between the two countries, and the trust Indonesian businesses are willing to place in Italy in assisting in the development of their nation.
“We feel that Progetto CMR is a potential partner,” PT. Triusaha Mulia Bersama Managing Director Louis Pakaila, “because it has all the qualities necessary for turning our goals into concrete reality. It has an excellent international reputation and the experience required to develop integrated cities in close collaboration with Indonesian companies, the kind of international cooperation we strongly believe is required to create the master plan. We also have great appreciation for the traditions, lifestyle and quality of Italian architecture and urban planning, and we are expecting this to transfer to our new cities. We want something different for our country, something that will improve the standard of living in harmony with existing social interactions and sustainability.”
The master plan embraces an area of 25,000 hectares (one and a half times the size of the city of Milan) in a section of Sulawesi that looks set to become a crucial hub for the economy of the Far East as a whole as Indonesia extends bridge-like between Thailand and Australia. Progetto CMR is being commissioned to design an entire integrated city with a focus on sustainability (a hot subject in an area comprising both areas of pristine natural beauty and highly polluted urban zones). It will also have a port capable of developing into an industrial hub. Fishing, the area’s primary but as yet under-exploited resource, will be the port’s main focus but the aim is also to stimulate development in other economic sectors. In addition to the industrial (light and heavy) and agricultural (with the necessary infrastructure) zones, hotels, residential areas with apartments and villas, shopping malls, hospitals, tourist areas and an airport are also planned. The style and quality of developed areas in Italy will be used as a model.
“We are, naturally enough, very proud to have been selected for the Takalar master plan,” declared Massimo Roj, founder and CEO of Progetto CMR. “We feel it is entirely consistent with our design philosophy which has always centred around sustainability and integrated design. In fact, we feel that integrated design is a fundamental prerequisite for sustainable design that encompasses a series of coherent, interlinked actions focused on achieving a single objective. We are convinced that this is the only design methodology capable of guaranteeing the requisite cost, time and quality control. Progetto CMR has been working in the East for many years – we already have an office headed by Leonardo Pasin in Jakarta. This makes us even stronger and more conscious of having the perfect experience and sensibility to embrace this particular challenge, and start from the very best fundamentals.”
