Indonesian House Concepts

Aceh

• The terrible tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2004 wiped out many of the older homes around Banda Aceh in Aceh Province. The ones that remain follow a traditional style. Houses are built on tall posts resting on rocks. The elevation protects residents from flooding and from wild animals. Craftsmanship is prized in these homes built without nails. Pitched roofs are made of sago palm thatch or tin. Traditional Aceh houses are designed with the upper level attic representing heaven, the middle main floor representing the middle world and the storage area beneath the house standing for the underworld. The front features a wide veranda that opens to a corridor with bedrooms on either side and a private cooking and family space at the back of the house. Women are the customary homeowners in Acehnese society.

Borneo

• Dayak longhouses in Borneo are also built on stilts. Houses are boisterous social centers and sites for sacred ceremonies. The century-old houses are as long as 360 feet and the newer longhouses can measure more than 230 feet. The first, main post to be set for the house is the most important moment of construction. The post is dead center in the house and is blessed as the connection between the underworld and the upper world. It represents the ancestor of the family who will live in the house. Decorations of rhinoceros birds and water snakes evoke the upper and lower realm spirits of the Dayak mythology. Floors inside are wooden planks and walls are typically covered in tree bark.

Sulawesi - Minangkabau

• Minangkabau houses in Sulawesi in the Padang highlands have thatched roofs that look like buffalo horns. The tradition stems from a tale about an ancient buffalo contest that the local people won against the buffalo of Java. Minangkabau means "buffalo winner." All the generations of a family live together in the large houses, called rumah gadang. They look like fairytale constructions with multiple sharp peaked roof points and above-ground stilt construction. Rumah gadang are the province of the tribe's women who run the household and spend much of their time in the houses. The men socialize and work elsewhere and the entire community uses special longhouses for public events.

Sulawesi - Toraja

• Further south in Sulawesi the Toraja people -- "people who live in the mountains" -- also build a curved-roof house with its origins lost in legend. The style, sometimes referred to as a saddle roof, can be found throughout the archipelago, leading anthropologists to conclude that it may be a relic of the Austronesian migrations that took place 6,000 years ago. The exaggerated, sweeping roofs of the tongkonan, or houses, stand for the upper world. Roof style is so important in the culture that even modern homes made of cement today are capped with the elaborate buffalo-horn-tipped roof. Walls are covered with inlay, complex carving and symbolic animals and birds. Colors used in the artwork are representational. Red stands for the human or middle world, white for the heavenly world and black for the underworld.