Building Material

Using renewable natural material including timber and bamboo, the dwellings are often built without the use of metal including nails. Instead pre-cut holes and grooves are used to fit the timber elements into one another, effectively making it a 'prefabricated house'.

Although nails had been invented and in later houses used minimally for non-structural elements (for example, windows or panels), structural flexibility was a benefit which nailing inhibited. Without nails, a timber house could be dismantled and reconstructed in a new location. Most of the ancient Malay peoples of South-East Asia maintained a form of self-regenerating environmental culture.