Timber Culture

hardwoods are Chengal, Balau, Merbau, Belian, and Resak. Hardwoods such as Kempas, Keruing, and Kapur are categorised as medium hardwoods while Meranti, Rubberwood, Nyatoh, Ramin, Kembang, Semangkuk, Sepetir, Tualang, Jelutong, Sesendok, Durian are examples of light hardwood in Malaysia.

Timber Culture

According to research done by Wong (1995), the tree has always been a symbol of shelter, an embodiment of security. He states that the earliest building materials use by the first inhabitants of Malaysia were the branches of trees, laid against each other and tied together to form free standing structures In the Malay timber culture, there are several building typologies with the prominent ones being the Malay traditional house, traditional palace, and traditional mosque.

Figure 1: Early timber structure. (Wolfram, 1990).

Although these structures are built for different purposes, there are several recurring commonalities between them. Despite each structure typology having different layouts, all of them follows a hierarchy of space where some spaces are regarded as higher and more important than others. For example, based on the research done by Wong (1995), the traditional Malay house consists of two basic building units, the main house (rumah ibu) and the kitchen (rumah dapor).

Wong (1995) further details those variations in form and scale of buildings are achieved by different combinations or arrangements of these basic units which reflect the traditions of a particular region.

Malay timber structures follow the traditional post and beam method with slight differences between them. Wong (1995) states that the system of construction of