SCIACCA Y LA POSIBILIDAD DE LA INMORTALIDAD

made of either bamboo or wood planks, is a built-in fur- niture in the bahay kubo to accomadate guest and infor- mal gatherings.

P H I L I P P I N E V E R N A C U L A R A R C H I T E C T U R E 57

Organic Materials for Indigenous Constructions

Traditional vernacular houses are almost wholly made of organic materials—wood, bam- boo, palm leaves, grass and plant fibers—which are deployed in a number of ingenious tech- niques to ensure that the residences are protected against sun and rain.

Bamboo

Bamboo is found in large quantities nearly every- where in the archipelago. There are around 32 spe- cies of bamboo in the Philippines. The commercially important bamboo species in the country are kauayan tinik, or spiny bamboo (Bambusa lumeana); kauayan kiling (Bambusa vulgaris); Bayog (Dendrocalamus merrillianus); Bolo (Gigantochloa levis); and buho (Schizostachyum lumampao). Among the five species, spiny bamboo and kauayan kiling are the preferred species for building, furni- ture making and boat outriggers. Bayog is used for tying and making ropes.

Bamboos are tall tree-like grasses. Mature bam- boos are cut during dry season, or when the sap flow is sluggish and sugar content is low – a condi- tion where powder-post beetle (Lyctus brunneus) locally called bukbok is no longer drawn to its cane. To eliminate all insects, the bamboo canes are soaked in river or lake water or buried in the sand for some six months prior to application. Bamboo can be used as full cane or split longitudinally into halved or quartered strips or segments. The bamboo is spliced in this way to maintain its structural properties. In the construction of the bahay kubo, bamboo performs as a structural element in the form of canes (for post, beams and rails) or stiffening frame (lattice) and as cladding material (for floor, wall and fence) in the form of planks and lattice panel. The components can be easily prefabricated, assembled, and replaced.

Depending on the age and species, bamboo can have variable diameters. Bamboos having diameters 5- 12 cm are commonly employed for building. Aside from being cheap, readily available and easily worked with basic tools, a variable cross-sectional diameter, and an ability to grow fast, makes bamboo a popular building material.

Cogon (Imperata cylindrica)

Cogon is a perennial that grows in dense clusters to a height of 1.8 – 2 m with narrow, rigid leaf-blades. Although inferior to nipa, it is efficient for thatching and is widely used in wherever nipa is unavailable. Notwithstanding its architectural application, cogon is used for soil erosion control, mulch in coffee plan- tations, fodder, papermaking, packaging, fuel, and ornamental purposes. The rhizomes and root ex- tracts are used medicinally.

To make a thatched roof, the cogon is first made to dry. Bundling the dried grass follows after a few days. Then the butts are cut in a square with a thatching needle 40-45 cm. long. The bundled grass is fixed firmly to the purlins with the butt downward for the first row and alternately thereaf- ter, until the ridge of the roof is reached. For every three or four bundles, a stitch is firmly tied to prevent slippage. The cogon thatch should at least be at least 15 cm. thick. A pair of smoke vents can be placed in the roof 50 cm. below the ridge. Smoke coming from the firewood stove in the kitchen adds to the durability of cogon thatch as the smoke passes among the beams and goes outside through a hole on top of the roof. Thus, the beams and thatch are continuously smoked and are protected from vermin and decay through the sta- bilizing and drying effects of the smoke.

58 A R K I T E K T U R A N G F I L I P I N O

Nipa (Nipa fruticans)

The leaves of nipa, a non-timber species that thrives well along tidal flats and brackish swamps are made into thatching materials, bags, baskets, hats and raincoats. From the nipa’s stalk, sap is extracted and made into alcohol, vinegar, wine and sugar. Kernels of young nuts of nipa are made into sweets and preserves.

The nipa palm is believed to be one of the oldest and most extensive palms of the world. Found in India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and in some other Pacific islands, nipa is adapted to muddy soils along rivers and estuar- ies. In the Philippines, nipa is planted in the months of May and August, at the height of the rainy season when the soil is saturated with moisture. When mature, this plant grows to about 3 - 3.5 m in height and its long pinnate leaves acquire a rich green color. Nipa as thatching material is generally regarded as superior to coconut or cogon thatch because it performs better in the repelling rainwater and offers higher resistance to rotting.

Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera)

Coconut palm may have originated in South America or Oceania, but it is widespread throughout the Philippines, Malaysia and India. They can grow at high altitudes, and flourish at sea level, lining island coast and bays. The trunks may grow to as much as 30 m high and 45 cm or more in diameter. Its huge leaves bunched at the crest of the tree are used in its entirety with layers placed from ridge to eaves, or the leaflet stripped from the ribs, relaid and interwoven to make a more permanent roof clad- ding. Coco lumber is also extensively used for house post, roof frames and scaffolding.

Rattan (Calamus)

The rattan is a climbing palm that provides the raw ma- terial for vernacular buildings and the cane-furniture in- dustry. It is the most important forest product in the country after timber. In the Philippines, rattan is represented by 62 species, of which 12 are of commercial value.

Rattan has long and very flexible stems that need support. It is harvested every 15 years when the stems have grown to an average length of 25 m and a diameter of 1.5 - 3.5 cm. After- wards, selective cutting of mature canes is done at a 3 - 4 year gap.

Rattan gatherers need to pull the canes down from the forest canopy and remove the spiny sheaths, leaves and whips, leaving a bare cane. Rattan harvesting is thus a rather dangerous undertaking - dead branches can be dislodged as the rattan is pulled and ants and wasps can often be disturbed in the process. The bare canes are carried out of the forest and partially processed; small diameter canes are dried in the sun and often smoked while large canes are boiled in oil (often a mixture of diesel oil and palm oil) to remove excess moisture and natural gums, and to prevent attack by wood-boring beetles.

Rattans are the widely used material for lashing, binding and knotting where structural materials such as bam-

boo are to be joined. Slender, peeled rattans may be dried of their residual sap and can be coiled, ready for use as a binding material. While thicker rattans, whose stems are solid, are used to make household articles and furniture.

P H I L I P P I N E V E R N A C U L A R A R C H I T E C T U R E 59 In the most bi-level houses, the living area, kitchen and dining room are defined on the ground level while the bedroom is located on the second level. These low levels may be connected by a door without a swing board and may be provided with four-step stairs at the top of which is a sagang, a barrier to prevent children from falling. Some houses have no furnishings except a few functional devices such as the papag or built-in bed, a dulang or low table, a bangko or bench, bamboo grilles, and the sala-sala or bamboo latticework.

The typical Filipino house or the bahay kubo is consequence of centuries of evolution. Some Hispanic influences are evident, such as the altar niche for the villager’s santos. Originally the empty floor space and a low table called the dulang were used for sitting and dining; later a built-in long bench of split bamboo called the papag was introduced, along with tables and other furnishings obligated by Hispanized domestic practices.

Although commonly claimed to be of Hispanic influence, the silid or kuwarto (room), where the women of the house could change clothes in private, seems to have been present prior to Hispanization, as evidenced by early chroniclers like Fray Francisco de San Juan Antonio, who provides a detailed description of a nipa hut with interior partitions.

Iskwater: Vernacular Architecture for the Urban Margins

Even though canons of architecture have marginalized the study of vernacular architecture, residues of the latter form persist in the metropolitan context. The prospect of building a house with one’s own hands—which is in fact the essence of the vernacular mode—will always remain trivial in a highly industrialized setting. Massive migrations from the provincial areas to the big cities have produced significant vernacular renaissance: skillful and resourceful people living in a rationalist architectural culture are instead forced to use vernacular modes of building. Although these migrant would have preferred to live in dwellings of a more modern type, the pressure of poverty have forced them to reinvent a degraded vernacular architectural mode—the shanty. Like traditional dwellings, shanties are built by their own inhabitants, with no blueprints, using materials available in the immediate environment; however, because of difficult and particular circumstances, no attention can be paid to social and economic function, or to planned aesthetic values.

With little resources, financial or otherwise, skills or access to them, the drastic option of illegally occupying a vacant piece of land to build a rudi- mentary shelter is the only one available to these migrants, whose presence in the urban landscape is fiercely contested. These makeshift structures form a shanty town, which is negatively viewed by various state agencies and urban upper crust as an invasion of urban areas by the poor and its prolif- eration as both a social evil that needs to be exorcised from the urban ter- rain. Their visibility is consistently being erased via institutional efforts to relocate them elsewhere, away from the urban core.

Technically, informal settlements or squatters can be defined as a impro- vised residential community in the urban fringe, inhabited by the very poor, usually migrant from the countryside, who have no access to legally ten-