Note that these 3 – 4 workers seem to be the whole framing crew.
I have been meaning to write something about the building techniques here in Jakarta, and I imagine everywhere else in Indonesia. It has been a real education to watch buildings going up. There are small projects – buildings of 2 to 4 floors – and large ones 20 – 40 floors but of course some in-between. There is one, that I think is going to be about 4 floors, going up right next to the chapel so we have watched it grow each day.

The first thing that is interesting to watch is how few people work on even a major building most days. Most of the time it looks like very little or nothing is going on. There will be huge skeletons of buildings with a half dozen people working. Of those probably 3 were actually working and 3 were sitting around or sleeping. It seems amazing that anything gets finished – but it does. It is almost like that a crew of elves come in at night and finish the work.

The second interesting thing is the use of bamboo. If a building is under 4 floors, all the scaffolding is usually made of bamboo that is tied together. Ladders, crossbeams, and anything else needed to work on the building is mainly bamboo. And of course this is not only on buildings but wherever there is a need for a ladder, or something to stand on, it will 9 times out of ten be made of bamboo.

Third is the way they frame a multi-floor building. Usually they lay a concrete floor, then they put up columns around and with in the structure at what looks like about 10 to 15 feet. Then once the columns are up they put down another concrete floor, and then more columns, until you have a skeleton of a building. The next step is to fill in the blank spaces – a except where there is going to be windows – which is often only in the front of the building – with bricks and mortar. They use lot of cement between the bricks. They do not need to be too neat here because the finishing coat – both inside and out is a thick layer of concrete. Which makes hanging things really interesting because you are always driving nails into concrete.

There is not much in the way of machines used. You do not hear the buzz of many power tools because so much is still done by hand. I watched a group of brick layer working on the third floor of a building. The mortar was mixed by hand and then carried up two flights of bamboo ladders in buckets. The hod carriers get paid about $3 a day and there is no such thing as paid vacation or workman’s compensation.

In most building we have seen they use very little wood except for framing, doors and cabinets. Floors are almost universally tiled. This makes a lot of sense since the amount of moisture in the air, the rain and the number of floods they have would mean they would be replacing the wood every couple of years. Also tile is cooler – something that is very important here.

I am including a few pictures of the building next door. The most I have seen working on it was 3 people and you can see the bamboo scaffolding, the concrete columns and the brick work. I am hoping that it will be finished by the time we leave so I can show the finished product.