Читать книгу 25 Tropical Houses in the Philippines - Elizabeth V. Reyes - Страница 7

the philippine house

goes tropical modern

Modern residential architecture in tropical Asia generally and in the Philippines in particular is going through a fascinating phase of architectural evolution. Stylish new homes in Metropolitan Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and sultry waterside locations scattered around the archipelago's 7000 tropical islands, are providing plush living spaces for increasingly affluent Filipinos. These new houses have sparked a renaissance in residential architecture that is not only changing the Philippine suburban landscape but is also providing fodder for the imagination in international publications, pointing to a nascent design trend: "Tropical modern" is becoming the new modern.

Philippine "tropical modern" is characterized by residential designs that are distinctive in their use of mutable space, sensual local materials, and functional accommodation of hybrid East—West lifestyles. Echoing a pan-Asian trend and a larger trajectory for architectural development in tropical-belt countries, spaces in these homes show creative configurations of often-minimal spaces. Filipino architects and designers are also offering fresh approaches in the use of materials and architectural elements that cater to both the changing cosmopolitan tastes of an ever more discerning Filipino elite and the aspirations of a progressive, budget-conscious middle class. Tropical modern design is affordably "cool."

"Cool" means more than fashionable façades and hip interiors. It includes environmental friendliness. In their search for this, Filipino architects are constantly experimenting with new materials and techniques or rediscovering almost-forgotten materials and traditional arts and crafts expertise. Cross-ventilation, sun screens, wide eaves, raised floors, and sensitive solar orientation—devices long used in local vernacular architecture, perhaps unknowingly—are now given a contemporary twist with the use of steel instead of bamboo, concrete and fiberboard instead of woven mats, glass and plastics instead of capiz shells. These older vernacular materials are not being discarded but are instead being processed in new ways with lamination, machine weaving, heat tempering and shaping to produce attractive building materials. Passive cooling, solar power, recycled gray water, and ventilated roofs are being rationally employed in house designs. Tropical modern is not only architecturally "modern" and affordably "cool," it is also "green."

"Bellavista," the modernist house of Eirvin and Josephine Knox (page 44), casts long afternoon shadows and a trajectory for design development. Architect Ed Calma offers creative configurations of minimalist spaces, using cubist elements that cater to the changing cosmopolitan tastes of a discerning Filipino elite.

The glamorous residence of Gunn and Cris Roque (page 26) is characterized by fluid lines and Art Deco notions, plus the unifying element of wide narra stairs cascading like rice terraces down through the house. Designer Budji Layug demonstrates here his "Tropical Modern" philosophy.

Cultural color is another big factor in the designs of these tropical modern homes. The interiors and exteriors address, both spatially and socially, the lifestyles that Filipinos (as well as many other Asians elsewhere), have grown to know and enjoy. Modern Filipinos adopt Western life, work, and leisure styles to fit cultural norms and social nuances. The demands of the extended family, the need to frequently entertain during the Philippines' numerous festive occasions, the projection of social standing and roles in the community, and the concept of hiyá (face) are intertwined with Western or modern practicalities such as the acceptance of home/office setups, a reduced dependence on domestic help, and the advent of two-career households, multiple-vehicle garages, and modern communications technology. Tropical modern merges cyberspace with traditional cultural space, at the same time retaining the best of both.

The single most important factor, however, that differentiates one tropical modern Philippine home from another relates to site—and the Filipino architects' response to this. Whether the site is a sprawling suburban lot, a small urban core, or an idyllic resort locale well away from Metropolitan Manila with a romantic name like Punta Fuego or Calatagan, the final design of a house is influenced by the site: its size, the limitations imposed by its shape and topography, its location in relation to neighboring sites, its solar and wind orientation, its exposure to seasonal rains, the ease of its access, its potential for views, and its overall visual impact.

Regardless of variations in site, the thrust of this new architectural movement is largely expressed in the styles and themes that consistently recur in Philippine interior design. In contrast to the traditional modernist absence of edge treatments, a leitmotif common to many of the houses shown in this book, notably those designed by Ramon Antonio, Francisco Mañosa, and Andy Locsin, is the use of stained wood frames for openings, thresholds, windows, and cabinetwork. Mostly made of Philippine hardwoods such as narra, molave, and tanguile, these frames provide a welcome contrast to classic modernist white or light-colored interiors. Another constant is the use of bright colors as accents or overall treatments in large areas (in the manner of modernist Mexican architect Luis Barragan) without diluting the essence and lines of the architectural design. Houses designed by Milo Vasquez, Joey Yupangco, Benji Reyes, and Marta Pedrosa exhibit this chromatic tendency, albeit in different color choices and combinations—leaning toward warmer but still colorful tones.

Within these houses and their framed spaces, the renaissance that has occurred in Philippine furniture design is showcased. A new generation of multitalented Filipino furniture and industrial designers, as well as designer-architects, is producing cutting-edge products that rework familiar, sometimes modernist, silhouettes in traditional materials such as rattan, bamboo, fiber, and wood. Notable among the trendsetters featured in this book are Budji Layug, one of the founders of designer group Movement 8, and Benji Reyes, known for his skill with large wooden pieces and the detail of his joinery. Groups like Movement 8 have banded together to expose this new wave to a global market, and with so much success that Western publications now regularly feature their pieces. These smaller-scaled products of Filipino creativity and their acceptance is a prelude to the entry of Philippine tropical modernism into Western and the wider global design discourse.

The innovative adaptation of materials as well as modern furniture and fixture design is carried through to the decor, embellishments, bathroom fixtures, water features, and landscape treatments in a home. This reflects a Filipino (and Asian) heritage of building that has always been sensitive to and respectful of nature. Traditional koi ponds, cascades, reflecting pools, and fountains are recast in modern shapes and used to add texture, movement, and sound, to complement volumes and mirror façades, or simply to provide kinetic relief. Nature and the landscape are brought into interior spaces via water play in toilets and baths, where many innovative permutations of washbasins in stone, glass, or metal, some oversized, some in sculptural masses or assemblages, arc a radical departure from traditional bathroom fittings. Eduardo Calma, Royal Pineda, and Jorge Yulo, among the designers featured in this book, have produced elegant, sometimes quirkily humorous examples of these.

Ethnic decor in fabric, metal, and wood are reworked in (again) modern frames or inserted as accents or layers in furniture, partition panels, room dividers, or screens. Francisco Mañosa, Noel Saratan, and Ramon Antonio have a talent for mixing and matching, putting together a bricolage that completes the tropical modern mise en scène.

Tropical modern does not eschew all things Western and, in fact, provides settings that embrace Western furniture, architectural elements, or decor. The interiors of contemporary Philippine houses are often accented with selected Western furnishing and "branded" set pieces by the likes of Michael Graves or Philippe Starck. It is the heterotopic nature of modern Filipino design that actually provides a more layered reading and enjoyment of the spaces provided—compared to singular themes in Western interiors. The overall look and mood, despite these imports, is unmistakably tropical modern, pointing to another distinctive feature of Philippine houses: an eclectic design flexibility that allows references to Western art and objects without losing local stylistic identity.

As with design in most post-colonial countries, this identity has been over half a century in the making. For 300 years, the Philippines was under Spanish rule, followed by close to another fifty under the Americans. House design during this time was largely in the vernacular tradition, save for the residences of aristocrats in the cities. The Spanish house was adapted as the bahay na bato (literally "house of stone," but in reality stone on the ground floor and timber above), a vernacular house with Western-influenced architectural dress made more permeable to cooling winds and protected from the sun and rain. With the Americans came reinforced concrete and multistory apartments, mainly constructed in the Art Deco style, and bungalows in a gamut of revivalist styles, among them Italianate, Swiss Chalet, and Mission. A few schooled local architects, like Juan Arellano and Juan Nakpil, picked up where the Americans left off and carried residential design into the new urban morphological form of the suburb and residential subdivision or gated community.

As the 1950s brought independence to many Asian countries, each sought to strengthen its national identity in various ways, including through architecture. Modern architecture had, however, already established a firm foothold through the influence of local architects trained abroad. Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and the Bauhaus School influenced postwar architects to adopt flat roofs, bands of windows, and piloti (stilts) for buildings. Residential architecture in the Philippines took the form of California ranch homes and Japanese and Hawaiian themed bungalows. It was only in the 1960s, when nationalism reared its head, that architects such as the Mañosa brothers, Felipe Mendoza, and Otilio Arellano sought to rediscover both their cultural roots and the tenets of vernacular design. These architects mined traditional roof shapes and embellishment patterns, mainly from the southern islands of the Philippines with strong Islamic influences.

Fernando and Catherine Zobel's elegant rest house in Calatagan, Batangas (page 120), resembles a Japanese temple in a field. The house embodies the much-vaunted Asian Modern look produced by the Leandro V. Locsin firm: a sleek vernacular roofline, a rectilinear living space, and serene pavilions formed by planes of stone, glass, and water.

The modernist white abode of designers Tes Pasola and Tony Gonzales (page 162) was shaped by their Movement 8 leader Budji Layug. He wrapped the functions of the house in a transparent "skin" of glass, affording it extra dimension, creative openness, and stimulation for artists. The sala is a gallery for art by Impy Pilapil (marble sculpture), Ann Pamintuan (wire seat), Ingo Maure (paper chandelier), and Milo Naval (abaca-weave coffee table). The abstract painting is by Tony Gonzales.

Styles then swung from Spanish colonial housing models to American-and European-influenced geometric blocks predating the post-modern style. Synthetic adobe formed dark, heavy lower floors of suburban houses. Wide overhangs and eaves were used in predominantly horizontal compositions that mimicked Prairie-style architecture, with ornate Philippine mahogany and arcaded partitions. Many designers had difficulty reconciling tradition with modernity. Nonetheless, this era produced notable work by Andy Locsin and Gabriel Formoso, William Coscolluela and Ben Bautista, amongst others. In the 1990s, houses became brighter, lighter, and more practical in terms of energy use and function. Architectural education also improved, with students now more exposed to trends in the West, to growing research in Philippine architectural history, and to regional variations.

These conditions as well as the emergence of a new generation of Filipino designers have produced modern tropical residential architecture probably in the widest range of housing types to be found anywhere in Asia, among them urban bungalows, modern atria and courtyard houses, pavilion houses, townhouses, and minimalist tropical structures.

Within established central city districts or their immediate periphery in the Philippines can be found urban bungalows that cleverly generate space from lots limited to between 300 and 500 square meters because of high real estate values. Most of the ground floor of these bungalows is taken up by two-car garages, servants' quarters, and laundry areas, reducing the living areas at this level. Nevertheless, a feeling of spaciousness is achieved by generous glazing on two or more sides, bringing in light and melding the outside space with the indoors. This is seen in the Pasola-Gonzalez house by Budji Layug (page 162) and is used to great effect in the Glass residence by Ramon Antonio (page 204).

More usable space in this tropical typology is achieved by stacking space in mezzanines and lofts. In the classic modernist manner, the lack of outdoor space and gardens is compensated by locating them up high, on decks. With improved construction and waterproofing technology, these elevated terraces and gardens replace what would normally be pitched roofs. The Luz Studio home by Eduardo Calma (page 146) and the Ngo house by Joey Yupangco (page 56) are good examples of this strategy.

In older suburban districts as well as in the more exclusive residential gated enclaves, larger plots spawn modern courtyard configurations derived from Asian vernacular precedents, or large atrium-centered and inward-looking spaces that emulate palatial architecture. The courtyards in these houses serve as settings for ground-floor entertainment or as the focus of upper-floor viewing. Outdoor spaces are defined by variations in the way houses are massed into L, C, or U shapes. Their borders are delineated by vegetation or perimeter fencing, oftentimes taking advantage of neighboring landscapes to extend the space visually beyond the boundaries of the property. This strategy has been employed to perfection in the Martinez-Miranda house designed by Anna Maria Sy and Jason Chai (page 198).

Full courtyards have also come back into vogue. A number of these new houses, like the Dee residence by Conrad Onglao (page 18), are so expansive that their atria form just one part of a series of spaces. Such volumetric expressions have antecedents in communal vernacular houses in Southeast Asia. Since these dwellings usually house more than one family, it is possible to think of them as a modern revival, fulfilling the need to define and confirm kinship by sharing space.

An abundance of space provides opportunities for large landscaped gardens to enhance the modern tropical dwellings set within them as well as appropriate settings for freestanding pavilions. The Montinola house designed by Romeo Delfinado and Andy Locsin (page 72) showcases such pavilions, here used for entertaining, dining, or simply reading. The pavilions are linked to the main house by covered walkways with large overhangs, producing, in effect, one continuous verandah.

The designs of these resort-like pavilion homes are undoubtedly influenced by the numerous resorts that have sprung up in Southeast Asia, the now almost generic Amans and Hyatts in Bali, Bangkok, and even Borobodur, that have become favorite destinations for both local and foreign holiday-makers. Images of pampered hospitality and sun-dappled splendor have become stock features of design magazines and coffee-table books worldwide. Pavilion homes carry the same amenities as their larger cousins—spas, pools, sunning decks, and outdoor baths—but on a smaller scale. The resort-style Verandah house by Milo Vazquez (page 104) and the Zobel hacienda by Ed Ledesma and Andy Locsin (page 120) project an ambience well suited to such publications.

Another design direction under the rubric of tropical modern—minimalist modernism, albeit a seemingly revivalist strain—is also gaining ground. Stark, all-white modernist boxes, design allusions to Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Richard Meier, are being introduced in the suburbs and outskirts of tropical Metropolitan Manila, signaling an alternative path taken by a growing number of Asian clients whose lifestyles are defined by "less is more" and the projection of restrained, moneyed elegance. Minimalist interiors, a limited number of materials (usually only glass, stone, and metal), and expanses of glass define these houses. The seacoast setting of the Knox house by Eduardo Calma (page 44) maximizes its minimalist modern mien.

The materials, embellishments, and furniture used in these minimalist homes come from the same palette, leading one to believe that further evolution will take place as experimentation with this style continues. Already adaptations can be seen in response to the problem of preventing white surfaces from staining, minimizing the glare from white surfaces, selecting garden designs that complement rather than conflict with modern geometries, and finding solutions to the same problems with flat roofs that beset the first introduction of modernist styles in the 1960s. This experimentation has also seen adaptations from architectural solutions used in other tropical regions, including hot dry desert climates, and using simplified forms, as evident in the Pedrosa courtyard house (page 98). As the examples of these experiments multiply, so too will post-occupancy evaluations that will provide feedback to the designers on the possible approaches to this trajectory's functional and aesthetic evolution. This will eventually lead to greater public acceptance.

This experimental glass and concrete mansion (page 56) was built for Edwin and Alice Ngo by cerebral designer Joey Yupangco, who has always favored the new European modernism. The rear elevation comprises a fully glazed sculptural steel grid, interplaying translucent and clear panels. The house of raised ramps and bridges hangs over a lucky koi pond visible through the dining room floor.