Territorial Characteristics of the Tamping Room of the Buginese Traditional Houses: Insights from the Aristocrats Houses in Bone, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Buginese traditional architecture is closely related to the history of the Buginese kingdom, where the City of Bone existed as the base of South Sulawesi in Indonesia. Interestingly, the traditional Buginese aristocrat house in Bone has been horizontally divided into three spaces: lontang ri'saliweng, lontang ri'tenggah and lontang ri'laleng. Among these, the space of ‘tamping’ is a circulation path having a distinctive form connecting the entrance with the third chamber. It has a territorial characteristic which gives an expression of its own. Indeed, the territorial characteristics of the space of tamping can influence the characteristics of the traditional Buginese aristocrat house in Bone. As a national architectural heritage connecting the past and the future, this house type has not received sufficient attention. In this context, this study examines the tamping room of the Buginese traditional houses of the Aristocrats in Bone, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It employs a qualitative approach within a rationalistic paradigm. As a research methodology, it engages a literature study, observations, a preliminary survey and interviews to gather data. The findings show that in this house, the spatial order is linear. It has a backward elongated shape with spaces of ‘indo bola’ located parallel to the main door. Its indo bola orientation faces towards the street. While the territorial characteristics limit and direct the people to the entrance, it marks the spatial separation of clear and unequivocal form of low and high floor differences. The physical territorial characteristics suggest that higher the tamping size, their aristocrats establish a higher level. This demonstrates that the territorial characteristics of spatial elements of this house could influence people's perceptions and restrict their movements.