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.