case of study in the paper are not exactly representing the traditional buildings of each ethnicity.
Nonetheless, the architectural designs are considered to reflect the traditions in every provincial
area1.
The memeplexes used in the case of study are made up in series of binary digits representing yes-no
questions (Heylighen, 1993 & Situngkir, 2004). The details are,
1. Is the building can be categorized as “rumah panggung”?
- if yes, what kind of rumah panggung is it?
-> how high is building? Is it constructed for defense from predators or sea-waves?
- if yes, is the below spaces under the building functional, e.g.: stables?
Probably this is one of the most important and specific feature of Indonesian traditional buildings as
environmental response to Indonesian natural aspects, i.e.: archipelago in the tropical climates.
“Rumah Panggung” is an architecture of Indonesian traditional buildings built up on stilits. This
architecture keeps the rain and mud out while it allows cooling upper breezes and underfloor
ventilation, discourages mosquitoes, allows movement during earthquakes minimizing damage,
keeps away from dry rot termites, and provides additional security. Some buildings are built upon
relatively high stilts thus can also be functional for stables of livestock while some other built upon
relatively not-too-high as their places in the near shore soils.
2. What is the building made of?
- Is it permanent or non-permanent (made of woods)?
Most of Indonesian traditional buildings are made from woods, bamboos, etc. thus not permanent,
while some other have used stones as materials of the buildings.
3. How is the shape of the building from the bird-view?
- is it in a circling shape?
- is it a rectangle?
-> if yes, where is the door? Is it in the long side or in the short one?
The shape of the buildings can be circles or ellipses while some other can also take the shape of the
standard rectangle designs. However, the rectangle buildings can be differed by the location of its
main door: some buildings place the door in the length side and some other in the short one.
4. How is the decoration of the building? How is the building colored?
This is an interesting part when we talk about the traditional buildings in Indonesia. The decoration
is somewhat unique representing the availability of the colors used as the paint. In addition, some
traditional buildings are also decorated with some engraved decoration. Balinese traditional
buildings are considered one of the most richest with this kind of decoration but yet, use the natural
colors of stones and rarely painted. In this discussion, we count the numbers of color used to
decorate the buildings (excluded the natural color of the material) and for the sake of simplicity, we
transform it into binary-digit, thus we still have the “1” and “0”.
5. How is the spatial exploitation outside the building?
- is there any other construction established in the yard?
- is there any functional construction established in the yard?
Some tradition-inspired buildings in Indonesia exploit the front-yard of the buildings. This front yard
is usually used to build other building for food-storage, traditional religion-related artifacts (e.g.:
statues), etc. The two questions above are shown in order to see whether the front yard is used for
1 The numbers of province portrayed in the paper are as shown in the park namely 26. To day, the number has
been growing for the emergence of new provincial administrations after the New Order Era (1999)..