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

• fox-1977 · ethnography

  Fox, J. J., Harvest of the Palm: Ecological Change in Eastern Indonesia (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1977).

• duggan-2016 · ethnography

  Duggan, G. & Hägerdal, H., Savu: History and Oral Tradition on an Island of Indonesia (NUS Press, Singapore, 2016).

• depdikbud-1986 · reference

  Arsitektur Tradisional Daerah Nusa Tenggara Timur (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. 1bayLength2.60 mlength of the hull
2. 2beam0.92 mthe beam
3. 3keelRise0.68 mkeel above the floor
4. 4roofFall0.33 mheight of the way in

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, x = 0 — as a hull is, and only in that direction

  680 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

  84 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
  The plan holds a hull’s proportion rather than a room’s

  13.00 m long to a 4.60 m beam, which is 2.83 : 1, inside a 2.10–4.60 range. It is the first check in this project to test a likeness: a tradition that calls its house a boat is making a claim, and the claim can be about words or about shape. This checks the second.

• pass
  The two ends are not alike

  A 22 cm bow post against 18 cm elsewhere, and a stern standing 0.45 m above the keel. A boat has a bow and a stern that cannot be swapped; this is the only check in the project that succeeds precisely when a symmetry fails.

• pass
  There is a way in under the eave

  A 1.74 m gap under the eave against the 1.35 m needed. The eave falls with the beam: what sets the height of this opening is not the door but how wide the house was made.

• pass
  The roof is the wall

  Only 1.74 m of wall in a 3.40 m section; the rest is roof. What is a wall on the other twenty-eight buildings here is the lower part of this roof — which is why the way in is a gap under the eave rather than a door cut in something.

• pass
  Every part declares the dimensions it came from

  84 parts, every one tagged. By least-sourced input: 0 measured, 0 canon, 84 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.

A wider house is a better house by every ordinary measure: more floor for the same length, more room around the hearth. And no part of it becomes wrong — the posts still carry, the keel still cambers, the stern still stands above the bow, the roof still comes down to the floor. What stops being true is that the plan is a hull’s. Past a point the proportion is a room’s, and a house that calls itself a boat has stopped resembling one — which on this island is not a figure of speech. Keep widening and a second thing goes: the eave falls with the beam, and the gap under it that is the only way in closes. The likeness fails first, the door afterwards.

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.