from India and Indonesia. The back lanai is a medley of ethnic weaves and fabrics.
Bencab's giant modernist painting of two kimonoed women in the high ceilinged sala (left). Earthy browns, sepia, and rust tones are echoed in all Budji's tropical furnishings creating a strong pan-Asian statement. The dining area (above) makes an impact like a modern art gallery, guarded on either side by primitive tribal artwork from disparate mountains—Mari Escaño's prized African sculptured figure at left, and a dark-wood bulol (rice-god figure) chair at right. (A Fernando Zobel abstract hangs 1 the light above.) The oval dining table is the longest single-pieco nara table in this book Above it hangs an Oriental domed landscape by national artist Arturo Luz.
Miñana hlouse
colonial processional
When architect Manny Miñana had the chance to build a 500-sq-m house to his own dreams and inspirations, he integrated a clean American sensibility with Asian tropical sensitivity. As a conceptual whole, this Ayala Alabang abode reminds one of the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok—all clean and pristine white, with giant trees dominating the space and groupings of rattan furniture among the collonades. Says Miñana: "This is a simple, elemental, conceptual home; an all-white, tropical, contemporary house on the outside, with no moldings and embellishments, and lots of garden." Using a vocabulary learned from Miñana's three Filipino mentors—architects Leandro Locsin, Gabby Formoso, and Bobby Manosa—the house has the feeling of space that dominates the work of Sri Lankan maestro Geoffrey Bawa.
The white bungalow has a "three-layered approach" that culminates with the inner, private quarters. One is drawn inwards seamlessly, entering the front yard and stepping up into an open corridor of white columns, where the orientation is immediately focused down the hallway toward an objet d art: an excavated, antique jar on a pedestal. Between the columns is the outer lanai, set beneath large skylights. This front courtyard is an indoor-outdoor setting of rattan chairs, lush plants, antique furnishings, and a distinctly languid tropical air. Here one senses the passage of time as the light changes through the day—from a creamy glow in the early morning to a deep violet hue at night.
Adjacent to the outer lanai and through wood and glass doors is the elegant, modern sala. From the sitting area in this room there are views of the invisible-edged swimming pool and the lush side garden. At the other end of the room, the sala naturally flows onto the family room, which has another vista of pocket garden as backdrop to the arrangement of daybeds and lounging pillows from Thailand.
(Previous pages) One enters the clean contemporary Alabang house through a colonnade of modern white columns: and steps into the adjacent front lanai—a lush indoor-outdoor setting. "The changing light freely entering the space gives spirit to the house," says architect Miñana.
Denise Weldon, Minana's photographer wife, orchestrates the gracious interiors. The main sala (opposite) is a well appointed room with wide floorboards of yellow narra, a spirited mix of contemporary and heritage furnishings, and walls of modern art. The long dining room (above) houses a large tropical tree; Lanelle Abueva stone-ware table setting; lush flower arrangements by Mabolo; and an eyecatching monochrome artwork by painter Arturo Luz. Weldon's rustic eclectic artifacts grace the pictorial: a cornhusk lamp by Mitos Cooper of Bacolod (left) and a black Ifugao rice measure, now a vase for fresh white roses.
Fernando Zobel House
pan-asian pavilions
"I like to layer the spatial experience of my houses," says Andy Locsin, son, of the famous architect Leandro, and, to prove the point, he explains the layers in a house he recently designed for Fernando and Catherine Zobel. The fist layer is an all-white one-story blank concrete wall that accosts the visitor and draws him under a tiled canopy to the front door. Past this is the second layer: two cooling pools of differing lengths, open on both sides of the foyer. Inside is the third layer—a vestibule that leads to three pavilions housing a dining room, a living room, and a lanai. These are colonnaded, and because they are adjoined by two pools, they appear to float. From the lanai, the visitor discovers another layer: to the side of the lot rises another two-story building that houses the private quarters. This building is connected to the living room by a corridor.
The roofs are steeply pitched and covered in flat, dark gray terracotta tiles made in Pampanga province. They rest on concrete pillars wrapped with reddish-brown narra. Because the gutter runs across the roof, rather than on its bottom edge, to discharge water into pillar-concealed pipes, the roofline juts in a knife-sharp profile. A pleasant contrast is the off-white sandstone paving.
The house has many Southeast Asian connotations: Recessed triangular arches frame the front door, as in Thai temples (left). The open-colonnaded pavilions, linked together by a central courtyard, echo Balinese palace design. In the middle is a huge, almost-black Indonesian jar. The series of V-shapes formed by the exposed rafters alludes to much of the region's vernacular house ceilings. The two-story private quarters are of whitewashed concrete; their sole ornamentation are narra panels that extend across the upper story's lower half and envelop the articulated pillars. The contrast between the stark white and the dark roof suggests a Japanese element, but the exposed pillars recall some 19th-century Batangas townhouses that articulate their wooden support-pillars before their cantilevered facades. The postmodernist Locsin cays he "permutates" rather than copies elements of admired styles, and, in this house at least, variations on triangular shapes pull the allusions together.
(Previous pages) Multiple layers and levels of transparency and privacy are expressed in this aesthetic composition of wood and glass. Roof profiles and proportions allude to Japanese design, while long, processional corridors are reminiscent of Thailand, Patrician homeowner Fernando Zobel, a "frustrated architect," was intensely involved in the entire design and would have no less for his elegant pan-Asian home.
The project comprises three glass-lined pavilions arrayed separately but serenely amid the expansive Makati property. By night the jewelbox pavilions seem to float on the swimming pool waters. The architectural elements are unified within and by the water: a clear canal surrounds the house by the front door; a reed pond by the edge of the dining room; and the swimming pool that comes to the very edge of the formal sala.
Ho House
modernist orientations
Despite its minimalist western framework of flat roofs and white polychromy, the residence of Doris Magsaysay-Ho is a tropical courtyard
