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

• arndt-1954 · ethnography

  Arndt, P., Gesellschaftliche Verhältnisse der Ngadha (Anthropos-Institut, Wien, 1954).

• schroter-1998 · ethnography

  Schröter, S., “Death in Ngada: Ancestor Worship, Rituals and Social Structure”, Anthropos 93, 1998.

• depdikbud-1986 · reference

  Arsitektur Tradisional Daerah Nusa Tenggara Timur (Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Jakarta, 1986).

• anthropometry · none

  Ukuran tubuh manusia yang ditetapkan penulis, bukan dari sumber tentang Ngada. Kunci yang sama dipakai pak Bali dan pak Waruga.

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. 1pairSpacing3.90 mlength of the square
2. 2ngadhuMid0.82 mheight of the ngadhu post
3. 3nuaMargin0.80 mlength of the square
4. 4crouchingHeight0.26 mmargin between the opening and a body
5. 5bhagaRise0.22 mridge of the bhaga
6. 6capRise0.21 mapex of the thatch cap
7. 7bhagaWallHeight0.17 mridge of the bhaga
8. 8bhagaFloorY0.11 mridge of the bhaga

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
  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

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

• pass
  Mesh integrity: indices, triangles, normals

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

• pass
  Every post has its little house, standing with it

  3 ngadhu and 3 bhaga, facing each other 3.20 m apart, one pair to a clan. One without the other is not a smaller statement but an unfinished one — and this is the only check in the project whose subject is two objects of different kinds having to exist together.

• pass
  Nobody can get into the bhaga, and that is what makes it a model

  The opening is 42 × 50 cm against 46 cm shoulders and a 128 cm stooping body; the floor is 1.35 m across — room enough to put something in, and no way to get into it. A Balinese bale is measured by its owner’s body so that they fit; a waruga’s chamber is measured against a body seated and folded so that one fits inside; this one is measured so that nobody does.

• pass
  Neither of them shelters anybody

  The thatch cap covers its own post: there is no floor under it, so there is nowhere for anybody to stand. The bhaga is closed on every side but one opening nobody fits through. The bade’s tiers shelter nothing either, but a bade still carries a body; these carry nobody.

• pass
  The pairs are ranged inside the nua, at one spacing

  3 pairs at 6.50 m within a 23.5 m square. The length of this square is a count of clans — as a betang’s length is a count of households.

• pass
  Every part declares the dimensions it came from

  52 parts, every one tagged. By least-sourced input: 0 measured, 0 canon, 52 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.

Making the opening bigger is the most reasonable thing anybody could do to this object: whatever is kept in a bhaga has to go in and come out again. And not one part of it becomes wrong — the pair still stands complete, the post still carries its cap, the spacing still holds, everything is still as well made. What stops being true is what the thing is: past the height of a stooping body, a model of a house nobody can enter has become a very small house somebody can — and the difference between those two is the entire reason a bhaga is built.

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.