Rumah Adat Nusantara

A house generated from its rules, not drawn.

Every house here is generated from its own social rules — a rank, a bay count, a tally of ceremonies — rather than from a drawing of its shape. Change one rule, and the house is recomputed from it.

TongkonanRumah gadangJogloMbaru niangBale

OmoRumah betangUmaRumah limas

SaorajaRumah kaki seribuLumbungHonaiRumah bubungan tinggiBaileo

Rumah kariwariRumah woloanSiwaluh jabuThe Baduy imahRumoh AcehLepaWaruga

BadeKhaimTanean lanjangMaligeNgadhu and bhaga

Ume kbubuSudungUmaAmmu hawuRumah kebayaSasadu

Balai selaso jatuh kembarDalam Loka

5 m

One scale for every house, drawn from the model’s own parts.

The story

It began with one house: the tongkonan. Three social rules — rank, bay count, the tally of funerals on the horns of its post — produce every dimension, and from those dimensions the model stands.

Then the rumah gadang, which refused to resemble it — and the refusals kept coming: some do not stand on posts, one is round, one floats, one stands in a living tree, one is built for a single afternoon and then burned. That is the point: each tradition carries its own rule pack, and none is made to wear another’s shape.

Every dimension states where it came from — measured, canon, or the author’s own — and no tradition’s figures are ever averaged with another’s. What is sourced is the logic of each shape; the sizes mostly are not.

Not one of these houses has been surveyed yet. The provenance bar on every page is this project’s progress metric, and today it is almost entirely red. It stays in view, because a smooth 3D render implies a precision the sources do not have.

The sites

Each building is drawn from its own model’s parts and stands at its site. The sun in each model is computed for that site’s coordinates — the same coordinates that place it on this map.

The houses

: Measured
: Canon
: Interpolated

Plate numbers record the order of joining the collection; this index is arranged by island group, west to east.

What do these three classes mean?

Measured: Taken from a measured drawing of a named, surveyed house.
Canon: Stated in a documented canon or ethnographic description, not measured.
Interpolated: The author's own value, closing a gap the sources leave open.

Sumatra

Java

Kalimantan

Bali & Nusa Tenggara

Sulawesi

Maluku

Papua

Every tradition carries its own rule pack and its own source table. The figures are never merged, and no house turns into another.

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