The Philippine nipa hut; a native Filipino dwelling house which is usually made from bamboos for structure and nipa leaves for roofing. The bahay kubois very airy, and provides a cool shelter even under the hot climate.

The 'traditional bahay kubo follows the centuries-old Southeast Asian rural archetype of the single-room dwelling where all family activities happen in one space. After sleeping mats are rolled up in the mornings, the same space is given over to daytime activities that sometimes spill outdoors to the shaded areas underneath the house.

The 'rural bahay kubo evolved into the bahay na bato, where the size of the house was enlarged but much of the single-room lifestyle remained. It was not uncommon for sleeping mats to be laid out in the living room for the children every night.

Unlike today's homes with separate rooms for parents, children and other family members, the ancestral home's two or three large bedrooms were shared. Rows of canopied four poster beds were laid out in the rooms with each occupant assigned his own aparador to keep his things. Although the wooden walls visually separated the different rooms, a strip of calado fretwork between the ceiling and the tops of the walls circulated both air and sound freely around the interior. So much for privacy. However, in houses like these, residents found enough privacy to conceive, deliver and nurse babies, to care for the sick and the aged.

'Communal Space

Unlike the westerner who places a premium on privacy, the Filipino prefers living space that is communal, surrounding himself with people all the time.

The idea of locking the front door, leaving the house in the morning and returning to an empty house in the evening is not even thought of. Someone is always at home, whether family, distant relative or household help.

Maybe the Filipino fears being alone. He makes certain that members of his family keep him company at home. Within his home, everything seems to happen at the same time. Children shriek, adults talk, servants shuffle. The decibel level is at the same extreme as the radio or television set that is constantly going.

Three or more generations of the same family live their separate but interconnected lives under one roof, most of the time hanging out in one room. When in need of solitude, a thin cloth curtain strung over an opening stakes out a private section. Temporary as the privacy may turn out to be, the fluttering illusion of an unlatchable door screens the rest of the family out. Blissful seclusion means not being able to see the others, but still remaining within full hearing range. In the one-room bahay kubo, privacy is sometimes achieved by turning one's back to the room, by facing the wall for a few moments of solitude, but the separation is never total.

Filipinos follow the Asian concept of shared space and limited privacy. The traditional Japanese houses are essentially designed as a single space that can temporarily be separated by sliding paper screens that unify the house and garden into one single area.

To westerners with a non-Asian concept of space, sections of downtown Manila appear chaotic. Houses, apartments, shops, markets, all seem to burst with people. Crowds are everywhere. The hustle and bustle of the people reflects in the architecture. There is a jumble of buildings, unruly roof lines jutting out everywhere, balconies and laundry hanging over sidewalks and streets under a spaghetti of electrical wiring that dangles over neon signs. There seems to be no order at all. Everything visually and noisily competes with each other. Narrow sidewalks are filled with hawkers occupying the space normally reserved for pedestrians.

How different this cityscape is from the orderliness of, say London or Frankfurt, where rows of buildings are clearly demarcated form one another, and sidewalks are wide promenades dotted with clean benches, and people are sprinkled into the streetscape. In contrast to that, we thrive in crowds that teem, enjoying close contact with each other, jostling each other when we walk down a street. We tolerate closer contact with each other, unlike westerners who maintain
more space between each other, as a buffer to avoid close contact among themselves.

One for all

In the western mindset, a man's home is his domain, his castle that is built to last forever. It is where privacy is at a premium. European homes prefer enclosing spaces from each other: Everything is definite and separate, the living room, dining room, kitchen, the bedrooms. Everyone goes into the corridor, disappears into his private room, and closes the door behind him.

This lifestyle is the opposite of the traditional Filipino way of living, where bedrooms do not necessarily open out into an internal corridor but to an external one, the volada, a narrow, enclosed balcony that runs along the exterior of the upper floor of the bahay na bato, linking the bedrooms and the other rooms of the house to each other.

In earlier days, the señora of the house would look out of her window every morning, waiting for her favorite hawkers to bass on the street below. From the comfort of her living room, she shopped and haggled while picking up the latest street gossip. In some neighborhoods of Manila hawkers still come around, and residents remain in contact with each other even if their homes are new and designed in the rigidly partitioned western manner, the traditional pattern of living is still Filipino, where everyone still crowds into a few rooms to sleep, where there are people at all times, and where life is not bound by the walls of the house but goes out to include the lives of the neighbors along the street. In the Filipino lifestyle, it is all for one and one for all.