Joglo And Rumah Gadang, As A Solution Earthquake Resistant Houses In Indonesia

Abstract

Traditional culture of the world situated in natural disaster areas usually have local wisdom embedded in their house design. The Javanese Culture of Yogyakarta and The Minang Culture of West Sumatra are two indigenous cultures in Indonesia that has unique traditional house design resistance to earthquakes. The two cultures are situated near the east coastline of Sumatera and south Java coastline where earthquake is a major disaster. Traditional houses of the two cultures, namely The Joglo of Jogjakarta and The Rumah Gadang of Minangkabau apply wood as primary raw material. It has been said that various traditional houses are made of wood which have better resilience than concrete house. We all know that the earthquake-prone countries such as Japan, its traditional houses were made of wood. This paper studies the uniqueness of wooden traditional houses made of wood that is used by the people of Yogyakarta (Joglo) and Minangkabau (Rumah Gadang). Uniqueness, strengths and weaknesses of both traditional wooden houses in both earthquake-prone regions are also described. Methods of the study applied were literature enquiry and secondary data analysis. The results showed that both traditional Joglo and Rumah Gadang has some similarities and differences in spatial concept and that both can be a model of earthquake resistant houses in Indonesia.