Traditional Buildings

Rumah Melaka

Origin: Kampung Padang Sebang, Alor Gajah
Age: About eighty years (build in 1917)

The design of the house was based on the " Bumbung Panjang"type for the main house (Rumah Ibu). Parallel to the main house is a verandah (Serambi) in the front. At the back, an identical house is often added as a kitchen with a side entrance and an adjacent fenced working area. For this particular house, these additions were in a desolate state and could not be reconstructed.

The small structure near the house is a rice-storage shed.

Natural Building Materials : Functional and Inexpensives.

Natural building materials are superior to modern ones in terms of cost and their suitability for keeping the house cool. They are also much more attractive and 'warm' in the figurative sense of the word. These advantages make up for the disadvantage of lower durability. Unfortunately, with forests giving way to plantation agriculture, some of these materials are no longer freely available in many places.

Attap, wooden shingles and clay-rooftiles do not absorb heat and radiate it into the house, like corrugate iron. They will absorb some water evaporates.

Bamboo, palm trunks, and timber have a low thermal capacity, They do not store the heat of the day and release it at night, like bricks and concrete walls.