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Sources

Every dimension the house is generated from is below, with its class and its citation. This is the project’s honesty layer, and it is given a room of its own because a smooth 3D render implies a precision the sources do not have.

The dimensions

DimensionValueClassCitation
Length of a small lepa: one couple and young children.lengthSmall7.50 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Length of a medium lepa, the size the sources describe most often.lengthMedium9.50 mIf 20% out: 1.90 mInterpolatedNo source
Length of a large lepa: a full household with its elders aboard.lengthLarge11.50 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Beam against length. Narrow, as a boat is — and that narrowness is what makes balance a rule rather than a convenience.beamRatio0.22If 20% out: 0.42 mInterpolatedNo source
Depth of the hull from the keel to the sheer.depth0.78 mIf 20% out: 0.16 mInterpolatedNo source
How deep the hull sits. This is the waterline, and in this pack y = 0 is the bottom of the keel — not the ground, because there is no ground.draught0.34 mIf 20% out: 0.07 mInterpolatedNo source
Rise of the sheer toward bow and stern. The boat curves up at both ends, and that curve is made by the same swept section as a tongkonan roof.sheerRise0.42 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Rise of the keel toward each end.keelRocker0.16 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Where the hull turns, measured from the keel to the sheer. It is the “knee” of the same swept primitive — written to let a roof edge hang below a wall plate, and here it is the turn of the bilge.bilgeAt0.55Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
The share of the beam already reached at the turn of the bilge.bilgeDrop0.62Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Number of strakes on each side. Drawing resolution and a real plank count at once, like the wall posts of a honai.strakes6Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Number of frames inside the hull.frames7Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Section of a frame.frameSection0.07 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Thickness of a hull plank.plankThickness0.04 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Section of the keel.keelSection0.12 mIf 20% out: 0.02 mInterpolatedNo source
Thickness of a deck plank.deckThickness0.04 mIf 20% out: 0.01 mInterpolatedNo source
Where the kajang begins, as a share of the length measured from the bow.kajangFrom0.28Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Where the kajang ends.kajangTo0.78Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Height of the kajang above the deck. Low, and it has to be: weight high in a narrow boat is a boat that rolls. People sit and lie under it; they do not stand.kajangRise0.95 mIf 20% out: 0.19 mInterpolatedNo source
Number of courses of nipa leaf on the kajang.kajangCourses5Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Radius of the hearth box. This household cooks on floating timber, so its fire stands in a box of sand.hearthRadius0.30 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Depth of the sand in that box. It is the only hearth bed in this project that has to be carried along.hearthSand0.09 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Where the hearth sits along the boat, from the bow. Behind the kajang, near the stern, in the open.hearthAt0.86Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
How far an outrigger floats from the side of the hull.cadikReach1.50 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Section of an outrigger and its booms.cadikSection0.14 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
How high the centre of all the parts may sit above the waterline. A limit rather than a calculation: this project has no material properties and will not acquire any, so nothing here can say a boat is stable. What can be said is that the weight is kept low, and that is what is checked — two independent numbers, compared.centreLimit0.55 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
How far the centre may sit off the keel plane. A boat that lists is a boat taking water, and on a floating house a list is a building failure.listLimit0.05 mMoves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Depth of the tested joint engagement, as a share of the smaller member.jointEngagement0.30Moves no measurementInterpolatedNo source
Zero points of contact with the ground. This house floats: no site, no plan on any land, no distance to a neighbour, and where it is tonight is not a property of the building. The other twenty buildings in this project stand on something; this one does not stand at all.noGround0Moves no measurementCanonSather, C., The Bajau Laut: Adaptation, History, and Fate in a Maritime Fishing Society of South-eastern Sabah (Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1997).
Zero orientation rules. Every other pack in this collection has one — a compass bearing, a granary across a yard, a river, a road, a stone, the root of a tree, the fall of a hillside, the direction of prayer. This boat has none: a bow is not a direction, and there is nothing fixed to face. The absence is canon rather than an oversight.noOrientation0Moves no measurementCanonNimmo, H. A., The Sea People of Sulu: A Study of Social Change in the Philippines (Chandler, San Francisco, 1972).
The weight is kept low and on the centreline. A house that lists is a house taking water, so balance here is a building requirement rather than a sailing one — the only canon rule in this project about a building’s equilibrium rather than its shape.staysUpright1Moves no measurementCanonSather, C., The Bajau Laut: Adaptation, History, and Fate in a Maritime Fishing Society of South-eastern Sabah (Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1997).
The kajang is what makes a lepa a house rather than a hull. Under it people sleep, eat and keep what they own. Taking it down changes not one plank of the boat, and the thing stops being a dwelling — the clearest statement in this collection about what the difference is.awningMakesItAHouse1Moves no measurementCanonNimmo, H. A., The Sea People of Sulu: A Study of Social Change in the Philippines (Chandler, San Francisco, 1972).
This household cooks on floating timber, and its fire stands in a box of sand. It is the only hearth in the project whose bed has to be carried along.hearthAboard1Moves no measurementCanonSather, C., The Bajau Laut: Adaptation, History, and Fate in a Maritime Fishing Society of South-eastern Sabah (Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1997).

Bibliography

  • sather-1997 · ethnography

    Sather, C., The Bajau Laut: Adaptation, History, and Fate in a Maritime Fishing Society of South-eastern Sabah (Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1997).

  • nimmo-1972 · ethnography

    Nimmo, H. A., The Sea People of Sulu: A Study of Social Change in the Philippines (Chandler, San Francisco, 1972).

  • depdikbud-sulsel · reference

    Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Arsitektur Tradisional Daerah Sulawesi Selatan (Proyek Inventarisasi dan Dokumentasi Kebudayaan Daerah, Jakarta).

Which of these matters most

Nearly every dimension on this page is the author’s own. What the provenance bar does not say is whether that matters. Each row below is computed by rebuilding the house: one dimension is pushed 20%, and the house is measured to see how far it follows. Nothing is estimated — the figures are the difference between two runs of the generator.

  1. 1lengthMedium1.90 mlength of the boat
  2. 2beamRatio0.42 mbeam
  3. 3kajangRise0.19 mheight of the awning over the deck
  4. 4depth0.16 mheight of the deck
  5. 5draught0.07 mfreeboard above the water
  6. 6keelSection0.02 mfreeboard above the water
  7. 7deckThickness0.01 mheight of the deck

If only one dimension could be surveyed, this is the one. This is sensitivity, not uncertainty: it shows what moves, not how likely the value is to be wrong. The 20% is itself the author’s choice.

Invariants

There is no measured drawing yet, so correctness rests on structural truth. These checks fail the build.

  • pass
    Bilateral symmetry about Symmetric about the keel plane, z = 0 — here symmetry is not a matter of looks

    4132 points; largest mirror deviation 0.00 mm.

  • pass
    Every tenon contained in its mortise

    13 pasak, takik and tumpu joints; every one engaged.

  • pass
    No joint spans more than one stage

    Every joint engages two parts from the same stage or from consecutive ones.

  • pass
    Stage ordering, and nothing below ground

    41 parts, every one bearing on something already standing or on the ground.

  • pass
    Mesh integrity: indices, triangles, normals

    6912 triangles; indices in range, none degenerate, every normal unit length.

  • pass
    The weight is low and on the centreline

    The centre of all the parts sits 0.52 m above the waterline against a 0.55 m limit, and 0 mm off the keel plane. This check cannot say the boat is stable — this project has no material properties — only that its parts are where a floating house has to keep them.

  • pass
    Nothing touches the ground, because there is no ground

    Zero pad stones, zero driven piles, zero footprint. The only thing at this pack’s zero is the keel, and what is under it is water: 13 parts sit below the waterline. The other twenty buildings stand on something; this one does not stand at all.

  • pass
    The deck stands above the waterline

    The hull sits 0.34 m deep and the sheer stands 0.56 m above the water. The kariwari also keeps its floor above the water, and means something else by it: there the floor clears a tide that comes and goes, here this figure is the same at high water and low — because the house rises with it.

  • pass
    The awning is the house, and it is low

    The awning stands 0.95 m over the deck: people sit and lie under it, they do not stand. That is not a matter of headroom but of balance — weight high in a narrow hull is a boat that rolls.

  • pass
    Every part declares the dimensions it came from

    41 parts, every one tagged. By least-sourced input: 0 measured, 0 canon, 41 interpolated.

  • skipped
    Checked against a measured drawing of a real house

    Skipped. No measured drawing has been wired in, so there is nothing to compare against. This check will not be made to pass by weakening it.

What a check is preventing

Ten green rows are not a reason to believe anything. So one check is run against a house built to break it, and what is printed below is that check’s own verdict rather than a description of it.

Raise the awning and this house improves by nearly every measure a house is normally judged by: room to sit up, room to stand. Not one plank of the hull changes. What happens is that the weight of the dwelling goes up, and a narrow hull with weight high in it is a hull that rolls. Twenty-one buildings, twenty-one rules that cannot be carried out — and this is the only one brought down by exactly the improvement anybody would most want to make.

The house as built

pass0.52 m / 0.55 mcentre above the water · the limit

The centre of all the parts sits 0.52 m above the waterline against a 0.55 m limit, and 0 mm off the keel plane. This check cannot say the boat is stable — this project has no material properties — only that its parts are where a floating house has to keep them.

Rear prow raised to 1.8 m

fail0.56 m / 0.55 mcentre above the water · the limit

the centre sits 0.56 m above the waterline, and 0.55 m is the limit

The second house is never rendered. It is built during the build, failed, and thrown away.

This bar moves as real surveys are wired in. That movement is the project's progress metric.