Rumah Panggung is one type of traditional Betawi house whose floor is raised from the ground using wooden poles. This house is different from a Rumah Darat that sticks to the ground. Betawi houses on stilts are built in coastal areas with the aim of dealing with floods or tides. Meanwhile, stilt houses located on the banks of rivers such as in Bekasi are not only built to avoid flooding, but also for safety from wild animals.
Betawi houses generally do not have a distinctive building form. In addition, Betawi houses also do not have standard rules in determining directions. Even so, Betawi stilt houses are still characterized in terms of details and terminology. One of them is the staircase in front of a Betawi stilt house called balaksuji. Balaksuji is believed to ward off bad luck; before entering the house through balaksuji, one must wash his feet first as a symbol of self-purification.
Materials for building Betawi stilt houses are taken from the surrounding area, such as sawo wood, jackfruit wood, bamboo, lute wood, cempaka wood, juk, and thatch. Other woods can also be used, such as teak wood to make poles. In building a house, Betawi people believe that there are various taboos and rules that need to be followed to avoid disaster. For example, the house should be built to the left of the parents' or in-laws' house. There is also a prohibition on making the roof of the house from materials that contain earth elements. The Betawi stilt house itself has been influenced by various cultures, from Javanese, Sundanese, Malay, to Chinese and Arabic, and Netherlands.