Indigenous Rice Barn into Tiny House Conversion (Earthquake Proof)

Have you heard of a rice barn before? I hadn't until living in a village in North Lombok Indonesia. A modern Indonesian village is made of brick and concrete houses a symbol of americanised wealth, in a country with high humidity and earthquakes is a recipe for disaster however some tradational building were scattered between the houses, wooden pagodas for sitting, eating and chilling outside. Another version of these pagados have a little barn on top, the design is slightly different with chunky Jack fruit tree beams for legs and a type of wood work towards the top that prevents rodents from climbing into the barn.

During the months after the huge earthquake that struck Lombok in 2018 local people began converting barns into tiny houses as a safer place to sleep and dwell since the tremors continued on.

We helped fund the conversion of this barn and documented the process of the build which you can watch in this video.