Sources — Rumah kariwari — Rumah Adat Nusantara

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	Citation
Radius of the octagonal plan at the lowest floor, centre to corner. That the plan is eight-sided is canon; its size is the author’s.radius	3.30 mIf 20% out: 9.69 m	Interpolated	No source
Section of a post. The posts are driven into the bed of the bay, so there is no pad stone under any of them — not an omission but the situation: there is nowhere to set a stone.postSection	0.20 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
How deep a post is driven into the mud of the bed. A figure nobody can see on a finished building, and one that has to be declared for exactly that reason.embedment	1.60 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Depth of the water at mean tide above the bed of the bay. In this project y = 0 is the ground; here the ground is the sea bed, and the water is a sheet lying on it.waterDepth	1.50 mIf 20% out: 0.30 m	Interpolated	No source
Tidal range: the difference between the highest water and the mean. It is the figure that sets the floor height, and on the other fifteen buildings no figure of this kind exists.tide	0.85 mIf 20% out: 0.17 m	Interpolated	No source
Height of the lowest floor above the bed of the bay — how high the posts are cut. This is what the builders choose.floorHeight	3.60 mIf 20% out: 0.98 m	Interpolated	No source
The least clearance that must be left between the highest water and the underside of the bearers. This one is decided by the sea rather than by the builders — and that is exactly why it stands on its own: the floor height is a choice, the clearance is a requirement, and the check compares the two. Lowering the choice until the water comes through the floor is this building’s counterexample, and the only one in the project defeated by something nobody controls.freeboard	0.90 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Height of one level. The same for every level: what falls as you go up is the floor area, not the headroom.levelHeight	2.30 mIf 20% out: 1.38 m	Interpolated	No source
Radius at the head of a post against the radius at its foot. The posts lean inward over their whole height and every level reads its radius off that line — one description, not two. The older the grade the fewer the people in it, and the building states that by narrowing upward: the only pyramid of age in this project.taper	0.55If 20% out: 3.66 m	Interpolated	No source
Thickness of a board floor.floorThickness	0.07 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Depth of a bearer.bearerDepth	0.22 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Width of a bearer.bearerWidth	0.14 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Thickness of the board wall on each side of the octagon.wallThickness	0.05 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Rise of the peak above the topmost floor. Tall and sharp: a kariwari is recognised by an eight-sided cone standing well above the water, and this is the figure that makes it — and the figure is the author’s, as with the Sumbanese tower and the Banjar ridge before it.apexRise	6.40 mIf 20% out: 1.28 m	Interpolated	No source
Depth of the overhang beyond the topmost wall.eaveOversail	0.70 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Section of a rafter.rafterSection	0.08 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Exposed depth of one course of sago thatch.thatchCourseDepth	0.26 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
How far a course stands proud of the one below.thatchThickness	0.05 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
The share of a course the course above laps.thatchLap	0.50Moves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Clearance between the frame and the first course.thatchBed	0.04 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Width of the notched pole between two levels. There is one between each consecutive pair and none that skips a level: an age grade is climbed one at a time.ladderWidth	0.42 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Width of the walkway from the shore.walkwayWidth	1.10 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Length of walkway drawn. The village is far larger than anything that fits in the model; this is enough to state that the house is reached along a road over the water.walkwayReach	9.00 mMoves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
Depth of the tested joint engagement, as a share of the smaller member.jointEngagement	0.30Moves no measurement	Interpolated	No source
This house stands in the water of Youtefa Bay, on posts driven into the bed. The other fifteen buildings in this project stand on ground — earth, masonry, tidal swamp, a cleared slope. This one does not stand on ground at all, and every consequence differs in kind rather than degree: there is no pad stone under a single post, and the height of the floor is a statement about the tide.standsInWater	1Moves no measurement	Canon	Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Rumah Kariwari: rumah adat Tobati-Enggros, Teluk Youtefa, Jayapura (catatan warisan budaya takbenda).
The plan is eight-sided. The other fifteen buildings here are rectangles or circles, and an octagon is neither: it has corners, but it has no long face and no short side — so no side becomes the front by being the widest.eightSided	8If 20% out: 0.86 m	Canon	Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Arsitektur Tradisional Daerah Irian Jaya (Proyek Inventarisasi dan Dokumentasi Kebudayaan Daerah, Jakarta).
The levels are age grades: boys are taught below, young men live above them, and the elders meet at the top. It is the only vertical division in this project that a person passes through rather than belongs to: a man does not choose his level and does not stay on it — he climbs it, once, over a lifetime.levelsAreAges	1Moves no measurement	Canon	Mansoben, J. R., Sistem Politik Tradisional di Irian Jaya (LIPI–RUL, Jakarta, 1995).
Each level is smaller than the one below it. The older grades hold fewer people, and the building narrows to match — a pyramid of age that is built rather than drawn.fewerHigherUp	1Moves no measurement	Canon	Mansoben, J. R., Sistem Politik Tradisional di Irian Jaya (LIPI–RUL, Jakarta, 1995).
A kariwari is a men’s house. Women have their own building, and this project does not model it — an absence stated rather than a building presented as neutral.menOnly	1Moves no measurement	Canon	Mansoben, J. R., Sistem Politik Tradisional di Irian Jaya (LIPI–RUL, Jakarta, 1995).

Bibliography

mansoben-1995 · ethnography
Mansoben, J. R., Sistem Politik Tradisional di Irian Jaya (LIPI–RUL, Jakarta, 1995).
depdikbud-papua · reference
Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Arsitektur Tradisional Daerah Irian Jaya (Proyek Inventarisasi dan Dokumentasi Kebudayaan Daerah, Jakarta).
kemendikbud-kariwari · reference
Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Rumah Kariwari: rumah adat Tobati-Enggros, Teluk Youtefa, Jayapura (catatan warisan budaya takbenda).

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.

1radius9.69 marea of the lowest level
2taper3.66 marea of the topmost level
3levelHeight1.38 mheight of the point
4apexRise1.28 mheight of the point
5floorHeight0.98 marea of the lowest level
6eightSided0.86 marea of the lowest level
7waterDepth0.30 mclearance above the tide
8tide0.17 mclearance above the tide

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 z = 0 — one of its eight mirror planes
942 points (84 of 98 parts); largest mirror deviation 0.00 mm.
pass
Every tenon contained in its mortise
16 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
98 parts, every one bearing on something already standing or on the ground.
pass
Mesh integrity: indices, triangles, normals
424 triangles; indices in range, none degenerate, every normal unit length.
pass
Everything above the highest water, and not one pad stone
Mean water at 1.50 m, a 0.85 m tide, and the lowest bearer 0.96 m above the highest water. The posts are driven into the bed with no pad stone — there is nowhere to set one, and the part of the post that holds this building up will never be seen.
pass
Every level is smaller than the one below it
The boys 22.0 m² → The young men 17.2 m² → The elders 13.0 m²
pass
One pole between consecutive levels, and none that skips
2 poles for 3 levels. A grade is left by climbing into the next one: there is no route from the boys’ floor to the elders’ that does not pass through the floor between.
pass
Eight-sided, and the plan and the peak agree about it
Eight sides, eight posts, eight rafters, 24 wall panels. The other fifteen buildings here are rectangles or circles; an octagon is neither, and no side of it becomes the front by being the widest.
pass
Thatch courses lap with no bare band, up to the point
27 courses from the eave to the point, rising 6.4 m.
pass
Every part declares the dimensions it came from
98 parts, every one tagged. By least-sourced input: 0 measured, 0 canon, 98 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.

Cut the posts shorter and the building is still perfectly well made: eight posts, eight walls, every level smaller than the one below, a pole between each pair, and a cone over the top. What happens is that the sea comes up through the floor twice a day. Sixteen buildings, sixteen rules that cannot be carried out — and this is the first defeated by something nobody controls. A rank can be refused, a screen can be left low, a ridge can be built high. The tide comes in whatever anybody decides.

The house as built

pass3.60 m / 2.35 mlowest floor · highest water

Mean water at 1.50 m, a 0.85 m tide, and the lowest bearer 0.96 m above the highest water. The posts are driven into the bed with no pad stone — there is nowhere to set one, and the part of the post that holds this building up will never be seen.

Rear prow raised to 3.24 m

fail3.24 m / 2.35 mlowest floor · highest water

only 0.60 m of clearance, where 0.90 m is needed

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.