Disaster-friendly sundanese traditional building construction

Abstract

Indonesia is one country that is highly prone to earthquakes because it is located at the juncture of four tectonic plates, namely the Asian continental shelf, the continental shelf of Australia, the Indian Ocean plate and the Pacific plate. In the southern and eastern parts of Indonesia there is a volcanic belt that extends from the island of Sumatra, Java and Nusa south eastern Sulawesi, the sides in the form of old volcanic mountains and the lowlands are mostly dominated by swamps. The condition of potential and proneness to disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and landslides. Indonesian society have a local knowledge for facing disasters. Local communities in particular areas have local knowledge for facing disasters. Such knowledge is commonly kept by members of the communities and applied to their environments, including houses. This research aims to describe disaster-friendly Sundanese traditional building construction. It employs the evaluation method, by comparing Sundanese traditional house construction to the standards of disaster-friendly construction. The results indicate that the Sundanese traditional building constructions have been qualified as disaster-friendly buildings.