Pillar dwellings are a common architectural style in Southeast Asia. On the east coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, locals have lived in pillar dwellings for many years. This paper examines the maintenance system of such dwellings, especially timber piles, which form an essential structural aspect. The analysis was conducted through interviews with locals and evaluations of timber piles’ deterioration. The following observations were noted. Locals built pillar dwellings at the river mouth, and many of them did not own the inland areas. Some dwellings were more than 50 years old and had been passed down through the generations, while others were newly constructed. In all the researched dwellings, local people maintained the timber piles by replacing the deteriorated parts with new ones every few years. They usually used leban (Vitex pinnata. L.)—which grows in the lowland forests—for piles; however, it became difficult for them to obtain leban piles in later years due to the continuing stock shortage. This paper concludes that locals constantly maintain pillar dwellings by using timber pillars. It also suggests that the right to timber utilization by landless people in coastal areas needs to be discussed in future tropical forest management.
