Learn more about the life of the Bana ethnic minority through their small houses

Hi Hivers in the Architecture+Design community,
How are you today? Today I would like to share about the houses of Bana ethnic people in a village that I recently visited during my trip to give them coffee seedlings. It's just a small village located near Kon Chu Rang nature reserve which lies between the border of Gia Lai province and Binh Dinh province. Looking at the houses of the locals, I learned a lot about the people and their lives. Most of the houses in the village are small wooden houses. About half of them still retain the traditional architecture of wooden stilt houses. This is a typical house architecture not only of the Bana people, but also of many other ethnic minorities. Because they live near the forest, to avoid wild animals, they build houses on stilts.

Today, when the population density is thicker, the forest area is smaller and there are not many wild animals, some people have started to build their houses directly on the ground. This makes building houses simpler and they also save a certain amount of wood. They simply put wooden pillars in the ground, framed the house and covered it with wooden planks around and bricks on the roof. The shape of their house is also very simple. It's just boxy shapes with no clear division between the rooms. Through these houses, I have understood more about the simple life, honest and hard-working people of this land.

They then realized that building wooden houses directly on the ground could cause problems with the longevity of the houses. So they built their houses on brick or cement foundations. This helps prevent termites damage to homes and helps them to live longer. However, the structure above is also kept the same with wooden frame, wooden planks around and roof tile above.

And today, with the influence of Kinh people and the amount of wood decreasing, some families have started to build their houses with bricks. You can easily find houses like that in this village. Although they were built of bricks, they were just small houses with simple architecture.

Next to the main house where the locals use as a bedroom and a living room, they often build an outbuilding where they often use it as a warehouse and kitchen. These outbuildings are even much smaller than the main house depending on the conditions of each family.

An interesting point is that not many houses here have toilets. The locals are simply going to the toilet right out in the wild. This is also a habit that they have maintained for many generations. There are also a few families with toilets but they are just small and rudimentary toilets. Will you choose to use this toilet or defecate in the wild?

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I hope you can learn something from my post too. Wish you a nice day!

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