Integration of Rental Shophouses in the Design of the PT Bakrie Sumatera Plantation Tbk. Plantation Museum with a Local Colonial Architectural Approach in the Bunut Shoe Shopping Area, Kisaran

Abstract

This article discusses the design strategy of the PT Bakrie Sumatera Plantation Tbk. Plantation Museum, which is integrated with the urban context in the Sepatu Bunut area, Kisaran. The research begins with the problem of low public interest in history and the challenge of creating a museum that is not isolated from city life. Through a design-based research approach with mixed methods (field studies, interviews, literature studies and comparative studies), this study proposes a mixed-use development concept that combines commercial and cultural functions. The main strategy is to integrate rental shophouses as front elements inspired by the adaptation of local colonial architecture—such as the tripartite facade composition, arcades, and opening patterns—into a contemporary design language. The shophouses function as active buffers and gateways, connected to the museum building behind them through a transitional plaza. As a result, this article offers a model of a museum as a “living heritage” that is economically sustainable, spatially integrated with the city morphology, and able to bridge the narrative of colonial plantation history with the dynamics of the local creative economy (Sepatu Bunut) today, thus becoming a precedent for similar developments in Indonesia’s historic cities.