Prefab Balinese houses in great demand

Wahyoe Boedhiwardhana, Contributor, Denpasar

Sitting on a circular bench in a wooden gazebo surrounded by a Balinese tropical garden is like staying in one of the island's palaces. But it is not Bali, it is a busy housing complex in Singapore.

With the presence of prefabricated gazebos and houses with alang-alang (thatched) roofs and other products from Bali, it is now possible to create the ambience and atmosphere of Bali anywhere in the world by importing these items along with statues, carvings and even textiles.

The number of companies producing prefab houses and gazebos is growing rapidly in Bali to cater to the increasing demands of those wanting to instantly "Balinize" their surroundings.

The marketing manager of Bali Carpenter Wood and Furniture Company, I Made Purna Wibawa, said that his company had received a bulk of orders from overseas.

"The trend started in early 2000 and is still flourishing," Made said.

The company, he said, can produce various designs and forms of prefab houses depending on customers' needs.

Made explained that most Balinese houses were freestanding.

"Therefore, it is easy to erect a single Balinese house without having to link it to another structure, like a main building," he said.

Other furniture companies are eyeing this golden opportunity to diversify their businesses from mainly furniture products, which are reaching saturation point, to the more profitable prefab wooden house business. The products range from simple gazebos to multistoried wooden houses.

Dewa Suprayasa, a designer at PT Tunas Jaya in the Sanur resort area, some 15 kilometers southeast of Denpasar, said the company was currently making three wooden houses with windows to be shipped to Costa Rica, South America.

"They like the houses as they are made of wood, something they cannot obtain in their country," Dewa said. His Costa Rica clients told him that it was very difficult to find wooden products in their country. "Permits from relevant agencies are needed before anyone can even cut down a tree, let alone for mass production," he quoted the clients as saying.

Dewa said his Costa Rican clients ordered three beach houses with large windows to be erected on a rocky hill on a well-known part of the country's coastline. "They said they could easily reconstruct or move the structures to other places," Dewa said.

Most local companies procure their wood from Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua.

"We only use alang-alang from Bali for the roof," Dewa said.

For one 1,250-square-meter beach villa, at least 1,000 cubic meters of Bengkirai wood from Kalimantan, Indonesia's largest forested island, is needed.

For a gazebo, most companies use coconut wood and alang-alang for the roof.

Bengkirai wood is often used for walls and flooring because the cutting must be precise, said Dewa, a graduate from Dr. Soetomo University's Technical School, in Surabaya, East Java.

Making a simple, standard four-square-meter gazebo or house takes about one week, including the packing. Each cubic meter of wood costs about Rp 875,000 (US$97). A simple gazebo takes around 40 cubic meters of wood.

"A more elaborate villa takes around five months to finish and could cost around Rp 1 billion (over $110,000) for material only," Dewa said.

Various technical problems as well as late delivery of materials have frequently hampered the completion of prefab houses, he said. Before completion, owners usually come for a last check, Dewa said.

In l996, Dewa said his company received a big order for 100 bungalows from a client in Saudi Arabia.

The price of each gazebo or house does not include packaging and shipping. "Clients have to pay these additional costs," he said. Upon shipping an order, the company provides the client with a complete and informative diskette or CD ROM on how to construct the structures, Made said.

Made continued that the prospect for the prefab house business would remain lucrative for at least another 10 years. "We have not yet worked on the domestic market," he said.

To date, the products have been shipped to some Asian, European and African countries as well as the United States and Latin America.