Sources

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

Bibliography

• vanenk-devries-1997 · ethnography

  van Enk, G. J. & de Vries, L., The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Their Language in Its Cultural Context (Oxford University Press, New York, 1997).

• stasch-2009 · ethnography

  Stasch, R., Society of Others: Kinship and Mourning in a West Papuan Place (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2009).

• depdikbud-1986 · reference

  Arsitektur Tradisional Daerah Irian Jaya (Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Jakarta, 1986).

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. 1clearingRadius3.00 mradius of the cleared ground
2. 2heightMid2.20 mheight of the floor
3. 3bayLength1.04 mlength of the floor
4. 4wallHeight0.37 mheight of the ridge
5. 5roofRise0.30 mheight of the ridge
6. 6trunkBase0.19 mtrunk diameter at the floor
7. 7trunkBearing0.06 mtrunk left over the bearing limit
8. 8trunkTaper0.04 mtrunk diameter at the floor

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 partition, z = 0 — the two sides are built alike, and what tells them apart is not their shape

  264 points; largest mirror deviation 0.00 mm.

• pass
  Every tenon contained in its mortise

  9 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

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

• pass
  Mesh integrity: indices, triangles, normals

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

• pass
  What holds it up is alive, and still growing

  One wanbon from the ground to 16.8 m — 2.4 m above the ridge — with the middle floor bearer framed into it. The other twenty-three buildings here stand on something dead; this is the only one part of whose structure will be bigger next year.

• pass
  The trunk is still thick enough at floor height

  A diameter of 950 mm at the ground becomes 752 mm at 11.0 m, against a limit of 280 mm. The height is the household’s; the taper belongs to the tree. Nothing ties those two numbers together.

• pass
  There is nothing under the floor

  11.0 m of empty air, and the emptiness is the point of the building: a house put out of reach. In the other twenty-three buildings here the space under the floor is a consequence of something else — a storey, a step, a tide, a slab. Here it is the statement.

• pass
  Every fire can be dropped

  2 hearths, each hung in an opening with nothing under it all the way to the ground 11.0 m below. On the other buildings here an opening in a floor is a way through for a person; here it is a way out for a fire.

• pass
  Two sides, one partition, and a way up for each

  1 hearths on the women’s side and 1 on the men’s, divided by one partition, each with its own ladder at its own end. The Karo siwaluh jabu holds eight households in one room and divides nothing at all — the same question, the opposite answer.

• pass
  Every part declares the dimensions it came from

  32 parts, every one tagged. By least-sourced input: 0 measured, 0 canon, 32 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.

Build it higher and the whole house stays correct: the frame, the floor, the two sides, the partition, the fires that can still be dropped. What runs out is the tree. A wanbon narrows as it rises, and past a point the trunk where the floor is framed in is no longer thick enough to carry it. It is the only refutation in this project whose two numbers belong to different parties: the height is the household’s, the taper is the tree’s, and no amount of care on the builder’s side moves the second one at all.

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.