C h a p t e r 1

Between the Earth and Sky

Early Philippine shelter
Architecture began as a response to nature; cave was a refuge, a
serendipitous place of dwelling.

Prehistoric People

Fire, drives animal savage away from the cave habitat
The burning fire marked as new human territory and serves as a
site for rituals and other gatherings

Stone tools


Prehistoric cave
shelter were the earliest form of human habitation. The use of
natural caves predated the emergence of the homo sapiens.

HOMO SAPIEN
A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H.
sapiens.
the extraordinary humans who explored Antarctica.

In the Philippines, the earliest dweller in the caves were the
Pleistocene people, offspring of the ice age
Pleistocene people

Tabon cave complex
The most antiquated, and perhaps the largest, cave
periodically dwelt in the prehistoric families for thirty
thousand years

A human bone fossil tentatively dated from 22,000b to
24,000 years ago was discovered in Tabon Cave in the
1960s by a team of national Museum archaeologist
headed by the late Dr. Robert B. Fox.
Twenty-nine of these cave were fully explored and found
to have been ideal for habitation or burial by ancient
Filipinos.

Taut Batu People
During monsoon season, they spend living in the caves of
the Mantalingajan mountain. But, occasionally, they
move to the wooden houses and shelter near the fields
they cultivate. A Taut Batu cave may shelter more than
one famliy.


Basic sleeping platform, known as DATAG


Fear of thunder is one of the main reasons why they
retreat into caves.
The Taut Batu believe that their world is inhabited by a
vast population of forest, rocks, and water spirit, with
dieties responsible for the different spect of nature

Petroglyphs
in a rock shelter in Angono, Rizal, provide evidence of
the ancient Filipinos.
The mountaintop citadels of Savidug, Batanes, known as
idjang. These settlements could have been used as
lookout point to monitor marine life for food and to
warn against invading forces.

Nomadism and Ephemeral Portable Architecture
Ephemeral architecture was one of the first artifacts
created by humans.
In the Philippines, the fundamental act of building was
practiced by nomads in the form of the windbreak (lean-
to), windscreen, or windshield. Early Filipinos
constructed a wind-sun-and-rain screen anchored by a
pole stick at an angle on the ground.
The lean-to is the early dwelling of the aeta. It is still very
popular among Aeta groups, although the acculturated
Aeta of pampanga and Zambales,

Lean-to shelter


Stilt Houses


The lean-to or pinanahang of the Agra of Palanan is a
transient shelter built close to streams, coastlines, or
river banks during the dry months. This shelter are
readily move to higher areas during the rainy season as a
protection against wetness and humidity and for better
air circullation.

The dait-dait Is the simple windscreen used by the
Mamanua of northeastern Mindanao when hunting.

A typical hawong of the Pinatubo Aeta has no living
platform and is usually constructed with the ridgepole
supported by forked stakes or limbs.

Arborel shelter: dwelling high on trees
in nineteenth century, arboreal shelter reinforce the
racial stereotypes of post-Darwinian evolutionary
concepts as climbing down from trees, representing
the transition of man from ape to sentient human being.

Tinguian had a separate daytime and nocturnal adobe.
The day adobe was a small hut of bamboo and thatch
built on the ground, while the night adobe, the alligang
was even smaller and rested on a tree top.
Tree houses is an old institution, built by the Gaddang
ang Kalinga of luzon Manobo and Mandaya in Mindanao

There are two types Arboreal architecture:
One simply rest on the limbs off the trees, its shapes and
size adapting the features of the supporting branches


Is more predominant and sturdily built, is constructed in
the trump of a large tree



Kroeber stressed that tree house are highly elevated to protect
families living in isolated communities from the attack of animals
and human enemies.

The negritos, perhaps the first inhabitants of the Philippines,
according to anthropologists, also built tree houses. They first live
in the tropical forest of the Zambales province, near Mt. Pinatubo.

Rice Terraces in the Cordillera


The network of rice terraces in the Cordillera is a
testament to a Philippine premodern engineering.
Including the UNESCOs World Heritage list, it is a living
proof the mans genius of turning a ragged and
forbidding terrain into a continuing source of sustenance.
Originally covered with wood land and perpetually
visited by tremors, the landscape has been altered by
human hands
Race Every terrace construction in the Cordillera
Highlands contains three basic elements: the terrace
base, the embankment, and the soil body. The findings
readily refuge that there are was no age determination
of rice terraces site itself




The stone walls, canals, dams, and reservoirs of the
cordillera can also be considered as types of megalithic
architecture, or, at least, of stone engineering. The
amount of stone used by the Ifogao in their hydraulic
engineering works is estimated far exceed in bulk those
used in building the pyramids or the great wall of china.
Many of these walls and canals are thousands of years
old and have withstood countless typhoons and the
effect of sun, wind and time

C h a p e r 2

PHILIPPINE VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE
AND ITS AUSTRONESIAN ANCESTRY

VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE IS A TERM NOWBROADLY APPLIED
TO DENOTE INDIGENOUS, FOLK, TIBAL, ETHNIC, OR
TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE FOUND IN THE DIFFERENT
ETHNOLONGUISTIC COMMUNITIES IN THE Philippines.

Majority of the vernacular build form are dwellings,
whether are permanent or makeshift, constructed by the
owner or by the communities, which assemble the
building resources, or by local specialized builders or
craftsmen.
The pervasive phrase primitive architecture is an
implication emphasizing the dualistic distinction between
primal and cultivate, barbarism and civilization, and
nonwestern and western.

Vernacular from the Latin vernaculus means native.

Vernacular architecture refers to the grammar, syntax,
and direction expressing building in a locale, while
signifying the diverse of building tradition in a religion.

There are five principle features vernacular architecture. These
are:
The builders, whether artisans or those planning to live in
the buildings, are nonprofessional architecture and
engineers;
There is constant adaptation, using natural materials, to
geographical environment;
The actual process of construction involves intuitive
thinking, done without the use of the blueprint and is
open or later modifications;
These are the balance between social / economic
punctuality and aesthetic features;
And architectural pattern and style are subject to a prop
acted evolution of traditional styles to an ethnic domain.


The vernacular balai as the pure, Southeast Asian type
of domestic architecture found in the non Hispanized,
non Anglo-Saxon community around the country. The
house lifts its inhabitants to expose them the breeze,
away from the moist of the earth with its insects and
reptiles.

All forms of vernacular architecture are meet specific
needs, primary of which is the accommodation of values,
economies, and ways of living of the culture that produce
them.

Beyond the basic requirement of shelter, they stand as
paradigms of man-made order constructed for response
to a tangible and immediate world of nature.
The inventor of the new structural technique, William
Chicago school, formulated and developed the steel
frame skyscraper from the building tradition originating
from the Philippines source-the wooden frame
construction of the bahay kubo.
Bahay kubo
Vernacular architecture embodies the communal,
symbolizes the culture, and concretizes the abstract. As a
product of a material culture, the balai is where the
values and the beliefs of its builders and users culminate.
In other words, vernacular architecture can address the
common of structure problems with its simplicity and
logical arrangement of elements.
Community still employ vernacular building methods
even today. Mass urban migration to the city has led to
the crafting of informal urban dwelling, or the act of
squatting on others peoples lands, which in turn allow
different form of vernacular building practice to
proliferate in a metropolitan contex.

The range of construction forms, array of methods and
materials, multiply of uses, layers of meaning, and
complexity of the cultural milieu of vernacular
architecture is indeed diverse. To seek a singular
definition and appoint rigid stylistic essential of
vernacular architecture is, perhaps, imprudent and
futile, for the project traps the richness of the Philippines
architectural traditions constricting vessels of national
identity.