8 th Euroseas conference Vienna, 11–14 August 2015

— The Study of Gayo Traditional House as Design Guidelines for Contemporary Houses in Takéngën, Indonesia 
Sylviana Mirahayu Ifani (Sumatera Utara University)
The Gayo are a tribe in the highland region of Aceh Province which reside in the side of Bukit Barisan mountain range 
and a crater lake called Lut Tawar. The mountainous area of the Gayo highlands with an altitude of 600-1,800 meters 
above sea level has been well-known worldwide for its high quality coffee.
However, little is known about its vernacular architecture even among Indonesians. Caused mainly by income of trade 
and production of the coffee which was first brought by the Dutch, Takéngën as the main city of the Gayo people has 
experienced rapid change in the past 55 years which affected its architectural appearance.
Traditional houses were evolved by a community centered on paddy farming, a number of rituals were connected to 
them, their spatial use was assigning certain spaces to each gender, and they were built from local materials, mainly 
wood. The contemporary houses show different properties: The building type has developed based on practical activ-
ity related to coffee farming, the space within the house is used more uniformly regarding the genders, and modern 
materials are used. Yet, the contemporary society still shows the need to maintain some traditions in seeking their 
cultural identity. Thus, the study aims to find a set of guidelines for cultural-contemporary houses in Takéngën. This 
paper uses qualitative methods to analyse the connection between traditional culture and its architectural form and 
to find which architectural form can still be implemented in the design of contemporary houses. Literature review, 
questionnaire surveys, and in-depth interviews were conducted to collect data, including the perception of Gayo 
people of traditional and contemporary houses. It is found that there are certain traditional socio-cultural factors 
which are still present in the life cycle of contemporary Gayo society that affect the amount of their approval towards a 
specific house design. There are specific properties which need to be accommodated. As a result, a set of guidelines for 
cultural-contemporary houses in Takéngën is presented to assist planners, academics and policy makers in providing 
housing concepts which can fulfil the requirements of contemporary residents without losing their cultural identity.
— Urban Vernacular in Transition: A Case of Historic City of Chanderi, India
Aayush Jindal (School of Planning and Architecture), Sanjeev Singh (School of Planning and Architecture)
Modernism has most often been regarded as propagating the set of values that do not give due regards to the cultural 
identity, historical continuity and climatic relevance. Architects who have been supporting the traditionalist stream in 
modern architecture confronted Modernism as they believed that modernism is obliterating the meaning and social 
consciousness of Architecture. Vernacular Architecture some feel opposes modernity. It seems that any given value if 
not transformed but superimposed by another, are meant to contradict each other and not merge for there is no pro-
cess to understand and relate the beliefs of one with the other. On a city scale, more than the socio-cultural construct, 
this juxtaposition of beliefs and their apparent edges put a question mark on production. Urban Vernacular has been 
a unique and dynamic concept evolving overtime, across place and for different groups of people and users. The mul-
tidimensionality of vernacular as suggested provides a fitting emblem to showcase the creative possibilities of Historic 
buildings, traditional architecture and urban environment (Chang and Teo, 2008).The cities have been transforming 
itself with time as new sectors, urban practices and regimes of representations have been emerging all the time (Short 
and Young, 1999). Such transformations have been replacing the old practices, activities and landscapes that some-
times have been termed as creative destruction of cities (Mitchell et. al. 2001). Placing the urban vernacular into this 
context sometimes puts some questions to us that why urban vernacular is important and how it could be embedded 

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in the emerging concepts of smart and creative cities. The economy should be noted as the objective for a system of 
production as intricately woven as the city of Chanderi. The city is a confluence of handlooms and merchants. The 
small establishment of some weavers grew significantly through the ages, under various rulers (and thus different 
systems of beliefs) to produce extravagant details on saris (a traditional costume) reflected also in the jali work and 
structural members of each dwelling. The symbols of the craft dictate the ornaments of the city. Houses grew to ac-
commodate a handloom as the genius locus where a person on a street is able to look into the modes of production 
without disturbance. Havelis grew out of houses to reflect on the richness of their art and trade sense. This is a tanta-
lizing aspect where the production is omnipresent on the streets, where economy constructs the order of the city and 
that influences, with the palace (the patriarchy) at the centre, the social, political and cultural values.
 Chanderi is dictated by the art of weaving saris. But a cut off of trade in British era and then a sudden superimposi-
tion of the modern values have resulted in lack of intuitive or resilient designs. The edges are apparent in Baiju Bawra 
Haveli where the layers with time show deteriorating values of the craft and production through a symbolic loss of 
ornamentation and jali work. This effect is visible in the city where mere plans of spaces are changing the order and 
changing the outlook towards the craft as the profession. The profession carves out the order and need for spaces and 
spaces influence the outlook towards the profession. It is a cyclic rhythm. The answer to this is also in Chanderi, in a 
state tourism resort displaying the traditional sense of the city with the contemporary and the commercial. The paper 
also takes into account some more projects that show a healthy translation in design that has benefitted the outlook of 
a modern design and a vernacular design and has shown healthy trade-offs. Such an approach is necessary to retain 
the production of a city, as cities depend on economy of some kind, whether a product or a service. Chanderi is an 
effective subject to understand the urban vernacular, its failures, its enclaves and orientalism. The paper seeks transla-
tion of traditional to the modern keeping constant the production and economy of a people as the main objective.
— Alteration of the Room for Traditional House at Hiliamaetaniha Village, South Nias, Indonesia
Dwi Eva Lestari (Gadjah Mada University)
Nias Architecture arose and grew along with Megalithic Era in Nias. In the future, it will encounter obstacles regard-
ing principal changes in the future. The changes occur as the impact of various influences e.g rooms’ alteration and 
Construction Material Technology of traditional house. These changes had already happened in former periods, yet 
it seemed to be rocketing after the 2005’s Earth Quake where numerous national and international humanitarian or-
ganizations made handfuls of reconstruction and rehabilitation programs in Nias Island. One of the examples is the 
Hiliamaetaniha traditional village, located in South Nias District.
The research methodology is qualitative inductive with the result of study shows the buildings physical and the rooms 
insides changes, which had altered the function of traditional houses’ rooms itself, directly or indirectly.
The conclusion is there are physical changes and modifications in the under, rear, and/or in the upper part of the 
houses, even the function of the rooms inside the traditional houses itself do not permanently change. However, along 
with the addition of rooms inside the house and the addition/shift of function in several rooms as the effect of the of 
rooms’ function alterations, emerge a similar function from one to another. Basically the physical and function of the 
room changes in the traditional houses are the representative of the community’s effort to fulfill the residential needs 
and nowadays way of life, along with the adaptation of the lack of natural construction material and the available con-
struction materials on the today’s modern market.
— Changing Face of Traditional Architecture - Examples from Tanah Toraja 
Christoph Müller (architect and historian of art)
Today the Toraja are a more than one million people, living in the mountains in the southern part of Sulawesi Island, 
Republic of Indonesia. The meaning of the word Toraja is highlander, mountain man or other, sometimes more or 
less depreciative descriptions, and the term sums up a large number of different tribes in the highlands of South Su-
lawesi. The Toraja are subdivided in an eastern group, including the Pu-umboto-, Poso- and Towana, a western group 
including the Rampi- Koro-, Kulawi-, Pakuli-, Pakawa-, Sigi- and Kailis-tribes, and a southern group, including the 
Pada-Seko, Rongkong, Manudju, Sadan and Mamasa. These days many Toraja live outside the Tanah Toraja, the land 
of Toraja.
A traditional Toraja settlement, similar to the villages of the Toba-batak, is arranged in two parallel rows of buildings, 
each oriented east-west along a street or long square. The roofs are in north-south alignment with the front gable fac-

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ing the street. In the southern row are the houses, called tongkonan, constructed on square piles. In the second row, 
vis-á-vis in the north, are the rice granaries, called alang, on six rounded piles which are polished to keep away vermin. 
The traditional architecture of the Toraja is still alive and relatively strong. Tongkonan and alang are important parts of 
the heritage and a symbol for tradition and the society of the Toraja in Sulawesi. Contemporary tongkonan and other 
buildings are more and more modernized in construction and materials. Examples next to Rantepao, between Maras-
sik and Lemo, in the southeast in Panrante, Pa´asu or Lologbatu to Siguntu and other villages and buildings around 
Tagari are used to demonstrate the characteristics of changing in traditional architecture.
— Developments in Building Construction Vernacular Mosques and Churches in Villages 
Eugenius Pradipto (Gadjah Mada University)
Mosques and churches form worship places for moslem and christian people. The worship places are regarded very 
sacred especially in villages. Villagers respect churches and mosques so that they give more attention to take care of 
them Compared to Reviews their houses. Mosques and churches form the meeting points, canters of activities in vil-
lages. The buildings seem very distinc-tive using the form of “tajuk” (sharp roof) play with four columns (called “soko 
guru”) completed with its “tumpang sari” (multiplied ring beams). The form of roof “tajuk” is applied according to 
re-views their beliefs. The roof of a mosque usually is decorated with a kind of dome as the most sa-cred place. Roof 
“tajuk” still applied today and those not affected by changing the material which has been modernised .The shape of 
the mosque with four columns in the middle or the top of the roof “tajuk” are still believed as the most sacred place 
and has become the icon of mosque with the top on the dome. 
The concept of roof “tajuk” actually is the concept of macro cosmos, the which is developed in the Hindu religion. The 
middle room forms the important part of building the which functions as the connector of surrounding rooms. The 
middle room also has transcendental relationship is directed to the top the which means the God. 
In its development, modern mosques do not use “soko guru” but still with a “tajuk” roof and dome: the mosque seems 
wider. The space for mosques becomes more convenient functionally. The moderns building of a mosque with the 
“tajuk” roof has dualism of orientation. The orientation pf a church the which is directed to the altar, in fact has the 
same case when the church is using roof “tajuk”. The acculturation of mosques and churches is still going on; the in-
herited orientation of the beliefs on mosques and churches has not been united with the middle room of Macrocosm 
orienta-tion, the people still enjoy the rituals although the building materials and design have been mod-ernised.
 In new modern design with an bamboo, the point of orientation traditional or macrocosm - by tem-ple - with a 
mosque or a church united in one direction, is shifted a little bit. For modern church buildings it does not make a lot 
of influence, but when it is applied to mosques some people still asking about the “mustoko” when the dome of the 
roof was shifted.
— Ease of Access and Its Relation to Transformation, Case Study: Transformation of Vernacular Buildings at 
Mahmud’s Traditional Village-Bandung 
Nurtati Soewarno (Institut Teknologi Nasional-Bandung)
Indonesia is an archipelagic country, its islands are settled by people belonging to various tribes, languages and reli-
gions. Every tribe has its own traditions, but one of these traditions is shared by a wide range of people, namely the 
habit to establish “traditional villages”. The inhabitants of such special traditional villages uphold a way of life that has 
been going on for generations and try to avoid any modernization. Thus building mass arrangements, material use 
and building construction are clearly resembling former times and not modern concepts. Apart from that, locations 
of traditional villages are generally hidden and difficult to reach. 
This study will report about Mahmud’s traditional village located in the suburbs of Bandung city (West Java province, 
Indonesia). This traditional village was built in the 18th century by R.H. Abdulmanaf who was also called Dalem 
Mahmud (a nobleman) as a retreating place to explore Islamic religion. The village is located in the downstream re-
gion of the Citarum river and was built on piles on a small island in a swamp. For non-Moslems it was forbidden to 
enter the site. Buildings in this location were built using local materials; the construction was adjusted to local climate. 
Construction work was supervised by Dalem Mahmud himself. Various ritual sand regulations have been obeyed by 
the community for generations. This little island could only be reached by rafts when the river was calm.
At present time this traditional village has become a religious tourist destination in West Java. In 1996 the local gov-
ernment built bridges on both sides of the island to connect the site to the surrounding area. Ease of access made it 

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easy for outsiders and different culture to reach the area, causing the vernacular buildings to transform. What kinds 
of transformation did occur to the vernacular buildings and how does the society interpret the vernacular buildings 
as a cultural heritage? How can the authenticity of the place be maintained? These and similar questions which will 
be addressed in this paper.
— Nias Island, Before and After the 2005 Tsunami and Earthquake 
Alain Viaro (TU Wien), Ulrike Herbig (TU Wien)
The Indian Ocean tsunami from December 2004 affected Nias Island coasts and was followed by a 8,9 earthquake in 
March 2005 which caused huge destruction. Most of the island’s road network and bridges were destroyed or suffered 
casualties. A huge amount of aid was brought to Nias. According to BRR, approximately USD 590 million were invest-
ed in Nias. Roads, bridges, suspended bridges, stone and gravel paths, were built all over the island between 2005 and 
2012. Villages which were completely isolated since ever, became finally accessible. A large part of these realisations 
have been made with the participation and workforce of local people. Capacity building programmes at community 
level and local government have taken place during all these years. Not only men but also women participated. Right 
after the reconstruction process, road conditions on Nias have been on its best ever.
 This lead to a fundamental change: In the old time the village was seen by his inhabitants as “the world”, as a protective 
unit against the wild animals, the bad spirits and the enemies, living in the “outside world”. Today the village is part 
of a dense network at the island scale. Mountains and rivers are no more frontiers. People can access to better com-
mercial, medical and school facilities. They can get a job outside the village’s area. Many villagers bought motorbikes 
to go to work in towns.
What will be the future situation, will the local population feel responsible for the maintenance of their new equip-
ments in the long term or will they ask the local government to do the repairs? What changes of way of life will take 
place, or have already taken place? How are roads changing the economic situation, how is the replacement of the 
traditional network of footpaths changing the landscape?
This paper will try to describe the development of the road network on the island since the 19th C. through colonial 
documents and traveller’s stories. It will continue with the Government’s projects and realisations from 1980 to 2005, 
and finish with changes resulting from international action between 2005 and 2011.
— (L)Imitations – Do Changes in Material Induce Changes in Building Structure? An Indonesian Overview 
Ferenc Zamolyi (TU Wien)
Several new materials have been introduced to Indonesian vernacular architecture – some considerable time ago, like 
brick or corrugated iron sheets, some in the recent decades, like reinforced concrete – they altered not only building 
technology and the construction process, but quite often also the structure and shape of traditional buildings. 
The statement above would be a very logical and convenient finding, where it not for the fact, that in certain regions 
there are strong exceptions to this rule. In fact, it often turns out, that change in material does not always affect the 
built structure and does not always change the appearance of buildings. In some cases the new materials are used 
to imitate the old ones, with astonishing results and often incorporating structural details which do originate in the 
older technology which is copied. So we find the exact recreation of wooden joints in reinforced concrete structures, 
used in places where in a structural way they simply do not make any sense anymore. However, they make a sense 
in representing a former wooden structure, which cannot be built for some reason, or has not been built, as concrete 
was seen as the more durable material. Thus, these imitations are not about structure and technology, but about the 
representation of the “essence” of the house – apparently in certain Indonesian regions today wooden structure is an 
important hallmark of vernacular buildings, which is worth exact reproduction also in a non-functional context.
 In other cases, however, with new materials, or old materials available in a new form (like squared timber from the 
sawmill instead of round logs from the forest) the appearance and structure of vernacular buildings does change. Usu-
ally this change is limited to certain features, but it is clearly noticeable. Here the new material already influences the 
building with its different, new material properties, and designs are devised to adapt to these changes, which in the 
end result in an altered building.
This paper will include examples from Nias, Java, Sumatra, Timor, Adonara and Sulawesi in which above mentioned 
changes are analysed and their effect on the overall development of vernacular architecture within the region will be 
discussed.

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XIII. Natural Resources, the Environment and Costumary Governance
Panel: New Science, Old History: Understanding the Impact of Natural Disasters  
in Southeast Asian History 
convener: Anthony Reid (Australian National University)
panel abstract
The severity of the earthquakes and attendant tsunamis that hit Sumatra in 2004-5; of the Nargis cyclone that hit 
southern Burma in 2008; Typhoon Haiyuan that hit the Central Philippines in 2013, have served to remind both sci-
entists and historians that mega-events of similar or greater severity have affected Southeast Asian populations in the 
past. The eruptions of Tambora in 1815, Krakatau in 1883 and Pinatubo in 1991 all caused substantial global cooling, 
and strengthened the search for mega-eruptions, tsunamis and climatic disruptions further in the past.
The scientists and the historians have been advancing their knowledge of past disaster events mostly apart from each 
other, each tending to assume that the knowledge of the other discipline is fixed and clear-cut, while their own is un-
certain and rapidly changing. This panel will aim to bring together historians, prehistorians, geologists and climatolo-
gists in the hope of establishing better communication between the disciplines on these critical and dynamic frontiers. 
Its assumptions are that much of the established historiography will need revision in the light of naturally-induced 
discontinuities, while the newer historical evidence will need to inform the research agenda of science.
— Climate Variability in the Western South China Sea: Corals, Climate and Change 
Annette Bolton (Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University)
The Asian monsoon climate in Southeast Asia transports heat and water, creating favourable climatic conditions that 
support the region’s human economies. Unfortunately, we do not know the full range of natural climate variability, 
because the instrumental measurement records are too short. Understanding the monsoon has therefore remained a 
challenge. More recently, proxy records such as tree rings, sediment cores and marine carbonate records have allowed 
a glimpse into this dynamic climate regime at different timescales. For example, trace elements and isotopes incor-
porated into the skeletons of corals can be used as proxy measures of climatic conditions hundreds of years prior to 
the instrumental record at seasonal to annual resolution. Here, we present a 450-year long record from Vietnam that 
traces the sea surface temperature (Sr/Ca), precipitation (del18O), ocean circulation and upwelling (del14C) in the 
western South China Sea back into the Little Ice Age (LIA). Del14C  during the LIA shows abrupt changes, whereas 
Sr/Ca and d18O share similar inter-annual trends up until the 1900s. This suggests that since that time there are some 
external drivers of climate in the SCS. The d18O increases towards the present, also suggesting a shift in the monsoon 
system and/or increased precipitation compared to the LIA. We discuss these seasonal to inter-annual proxies in the 
context of tropical Pacific climate change.