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
| Dimension | Value | Class | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.20 mIf 20% out: 6.72 m | Interpolated | Length of one household’s share along the building. This is the unit the building is made of: the whole length is this figure times the household count, and never a dimension of its own. The only house in this project whose length is never declared. | |
| 5.40 mIf 20% out: 1.08 m | Interpolated | Depth of a family’s bilik, measured across the building. The enclosed part, and the part that belongs to one household. | |
| 4.60 mIf 20% out: 0.92 m | Interpolated | Width of the sami, the common gallery in front of the bilik. Nearly as deep as the private room itself — which is a statement about how much of life here is lived in common. | |
| 2.90 mIf 20% out: 0.58 m | Interpolated | Height of the floor above the ground. High because the river rises, because pigs and dogs live beneath it, and because a raised house is easier to hold. | |
| 0.28 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Section of an ironwood post. | |
| 2Moves no measurement | Interpolated | Ranks of posts for each household’s share. Adding one household adds this many ranks — so even the posts are a count rather than a dimension. | |
| 0.24 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Depth of a bearer spanning between posts. | |
| 0.16 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Width of a bearer. | |
| 0.08 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Thickness of a board floor. | |
| 2.40 mIf 20% out: 0.48 m | Interpolated | Height of a bilik wall from the floor to the plate. | |
| 0.06 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Thickness of a board wall. | |
| 0.06 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Thickness of a partition between bilik. This partition is the boundary between households, and there is always one fewer of them than there are households. | |
| 0.90 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Width of the door from the sami into a bilik. Each household has one, and every one of them opens onto the same gallery. | |
| 3.40 mIf 20% out: 0.68 m | Interpolated | Rise of the ridge above the eave. | |
| 1.30 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Depth of the overhang. Generous, because the gallery beneath it has to stay dry. | |
| 0.10 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Section of a rafter. | |
| 3Moves no measurement | Interpolated | Rafters over each household’s share. | |
| 0.20 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Exposed depth of one course of shingles. | |
| 0.03 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | How far a shingle course stands proud of the one below. Far thinner than a thatched roof: this is split wood, not leaf. | |
| 0.50Moves no measurement | Interpolated | The share of a course the course above laps. Greater than on a thatched roof, because a shingle that does not lap enough leaks at its joints. | |
| 0.03 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Clearance between the frame and the first course. | |
| 3.60 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Length of the hejot, the notched log leaning against the gallery edge. The only way up, and at night it is pulled in. | |
| 0.34 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Section of the hejot. | |
| 0.30Moves no measurement | Interpolated | Depth of the tested joint engagement, as a share of the smaller member. | |
| 1Moves no measurement | Canon | The length of the house is the number of its households. It grows by adding bilik one at a time, so it may be forty metres long or two hundred with no proportion governing the difference — because the length is not a proportion, it is a census. It is the only building in this project with no characteristic size. | |
| 1Moves no measurement | Canon | One bilik per household, all the same size, all opening onto the same gallery. This is not a large house divided up; it is a row of equal shares under one roof. | |
| 1Moves no measurement | Canon | The sami runs the length of the house in front of every bilik and belongs to everyone. Most of life is lived on it, and its being nearly as deep as a bilik is a statement about that ratio. | |
| 1Moves no measurement | Canon | The house stands high on ironwood posts. | |
| 1Moves no measurement | Canon | The way up is the hejot, a notched log, and at night it is pulled in. One building, one way in, and that way can be removed. | |
| 1Moves no measurement | Canon | The posts and shingles are ulin, ironwood. That material is why a building of this length lasts for decades in a climate that consumes other timber. | |
| 1Moves no measurement | Canon | A rumah betang stands parallel to the river with its gallery facing the water, and in Borneo the river is the road. This house’s length is a census; its position is a bank. | |
| 70.00 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Width of the water drawn in front of the house. Wide enough to run past the edge of the drawing, because a Bornean river does not stop a few metres from the house and a rectangular pond would say that it does. | |
| 0.08 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Thickness of the water sheet on the model. The water here is a poured surface a few centimetres proud of the ground rather than a river cut into it: the ground in this model is one flat plane, and sinking the water below it hides the water completely. | |
| 14.00 mMoves no measurement | Interpolated | Distance from the front of the house to the water’s edge. |
Bibliography
sellato-1989 · reference
Sellato, B., Hornbill and Dragon: Arts and Culture of Borneo (Elf Aquitaine, Jakarta / Kuala Lumpur, 1989).
waterson-1990 · ethnography
Waterson, R., The Living House: An Anthropology of Architecture in South-East Asia (Oxford University Press, Singapore, 1990).
schiller-1997 · ethnography
Schiller, A., Small Sacrifices: Religious Change and Cultural Identity Among the Ngaju of Indonesia (Oxford University Press, New York, 1997).
depdikbud-kalteng · reference
Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Arsitektur Tradisional Daerah Kalimantan Tengah (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.
- 6.72 m
- 1.08 m
- 0.92 m
- 0.68 m
- 0.58 m
- 0.48 m
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.
- passBilateral symmetry about The members running the whole length of the house mirror about its middle
40 points (5 of 189 parts); largest mirror deviation 0.00 mm.
- passEvery tenon contained in its mortise
101 pasak, takik and tumpu joints; every one engaged.
- passNo joint spans more than one stage
Every joint engages two parts from the same stage or from consecutive ones.
- passStage ordering, and nothing below ground
189 parts, every one bearing on something already standing or on the ground.
- passMesh integrity: indices, triangles, normals
288 triangles; indices in range, none degenerate, every normal unit length.
- passEvery household’s share is equal, and there is always one fewer partition than households
8 shares of 4.20 m each, divided by 7 partitions. This is not a large house divided up; it is a row of equal shares. Note that no mirror check is made here: a house grown from one end is genuinely not symmetric along its length, and picking an axis that happens to pass would state something untrue.
- passThis building has no characteristic size: its length is a census, not a proportion
From 3 households to 20 the length-to-width ratio runs from 1.3 to 8.4 — 6.7 times — while the width, the floor height and the ridge height do not move at all. Each household adds exactly one share and adds nothing else. It is the only check in this project that passes by showing a proportion failing to hold.
- passOne floor, continuous end to end, under both the bilik and the gallery
One plane 33.60 m long. This is one building rather than a row of houses touching — which is what separates it from a village.
- passThe sami is never walled: the part that belongs to everyone cannot be claimed
A gallery 4.60 m deep, open along all 33.60 m of the house, enclosed only by a rail 0.77 m high. It is nearly as deep as the private room behind it, and that ratio is the statement.
- passOne way up, and it is at the end the house did not grow from
One hejot at z = -14.70 m. Tumbuh ke hilir: the house lengthens at the other end, so the way in stays where it has always been through the building’s whole history. At night the log is pulled in.
- passA gable: the ridge runs the whole length of the roof
A ridge of 36.20 m, the same length as its eave, so the two ends stand vertically instead of falling inward. The third distinct form out of one primitive — a stepped hip, a pyramid, and now a gable.
- passShingle courses lap with no bare band, from the eave to the ridge
36 courses over 7.16 m of slope; smallest lap 2.8%. Split shingles need a greater lap than a thatched roof, because what leaks is the joint.
- passEvery part declares the dimensions it came from
189 parts, every one tagged. By least-sourced input: 0 measured, 0 canon, 189 interpolated.
- skippedChecked 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.
The two strongest checks in this pack cannot be broken by pushing any single dimension — a length that is not a proportion stays not a proportion whatever the numbers are, and the bilik wall stands exactly on the gallery boundary by construction. Both are tested directly in the test file, against their own arithmetic. What is shown here compares two genuinely independent numbers: a shingle roof does not leak through its shingles, it leaks at the joints between them, and the only thing holding water out there is how far each course laps the one below. Take the lap away and the roof is still made of exactly that much ironwood, over exactly the same rafters, and it stops covering itself.
The house as built
Rear prow raised to 0 m
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.