Urbanista Lesson No. 11: Bamboo as Resilient Material for Shelter

A common primitive material in the Philippines is Bamboo. Filipino Traditional houses that are mostly found in rural areas or what we call as “Barrio” gave the Philippines a distinct culture that started on its Pre-colonial era, that even today because of its versatility as a material to adapt into its Modern Architecture is also marked on Philippine’s heritage. The “Bahay Kubo” -(Nipa hut) has evolved also into “Bahay na Bato” since then to even imprint a strong recognizable durability to endure Philippine’s climate and environment.

The Traditional “Nipa Hut” is customarily an elevated structure for the purpose of flooding on wet season and hot climate during summer. The ceiling is designed to have that lofty-spacious area in order to not let the hot temperature travel faster than usual during summer months of March to April. The space below the elevated structure which they call it “silong” has many uses as it can be used also to dry clothes, storage or it is often used by the animals as shelter when rainy season of June to September takes place. As for the living space, it has an “open planning” concept for flexibility purposes, as usually present itself as a living room in the morning and a bedroom at night. The walls use inexpensive, multiple weaved Bamboo material which later on is reused if not used by nails in order to maintain its durability. Usually, Bamboo can be fully grown after 3 years as compared to wood or timber material which needs at least 10 years before it can be used for lumber.

By Carmelo Bayarcal - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

The “Modern day Bamboo-Nipa Hut” did evolve today into different building structure not only represented as a Residential use but also uses it into Commercial uses like restaurants and even Institutions like schools.

One significant example is the Millennium school in Visayas, which is the first school in the Philippines to be constructed from Bamboo. As part of the post-disaster project implemented in the Philippines is a design competition for the said Millennium school that aims to assist rehabilitation in a more resilient, safer and sustainable infrastructure. In the Philippines, nationwide, in times of unforeseen natural disaster, specifically strong typhoons, school establishments are to be used as a temporary evacuation facility of the unprivileged community residents. The goal of the design competition is to design an infrastructure that can withstand typhoons and provide natural ventilation for students while studying and induce natural cross-ventilation, but at the same time use a low-cost material which is available locally. An inexpensive material like Bamboo can ultimately withstand multiple typhoons and strong tropical winds. This resilient material is also indeed a renewable material which is locally grown throughout the Philippine island.

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In 2010, on Bicol area, which is a region in the Philippines that frequently hit by massive typhoons year after year. Eleena Jamil of Malaysia manages to win the design competition where she re-introduced the use of the vernacular house found throughout the Philippine island. She adopted the simple-shaded veranda on the side which is typically present in the traditional Nipa Hut which can satisfy the purpose of cross-ventilation within its interior. The classrooms are arranged one side after the other to maximize the space inside but at the same time provide a common space (veranda area) for the students to sit, socialize or play.

“Every blade of grass, each leaf, each separate floret and petal, every trunk is an inscription speaking of hope.” - Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)