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 house. Organized around an axial core of three progressively larger spaces, the central courtyard is the focal point from which all spaces radiate. Designed by architect Conrad Onglao, the large, five-bedroomed bungalow (a reworking of an older house) is a safe haven for its owner. The house is entered via a canopied threshold into a courtyard framed around a koi pool. Hints of the succeeding spaces are glimpsed through the Iimbs and foliage of a large pandanus tree and the textured bricolage of stone and wood figures This hinting of spaces and layers beyond reoccurs throughout the house—a spatial conversation hat pleasantly leads one into the house.
The central sanctum is a high-ceilinged living room that branches left and right into the bedroom wing and a dining pavilion. The spaces are liberally accented with pieces from an exquisite collection of Asian artifacts and the paintings of the owner's renowned artist-mother Anita. But the real core of the house is the next space, the central courtyard. Most social activity extends or is visually directed into this space A geometric pool lined with French limestone sets the stage for and reflects wonderful dinner parties, intimate soirees, or the morning scene of a poolside breakfast under the fauvist purples of bougainvillea blooms. In fact, all the spaces in the house have this connection between outside and inside.
Yin and Yang is mirrored in the contrast of the tropical textures of native hardwood, woven coverings, and cane of furniture against the white flat concrete and glass planes of the house. The palette of spaces Onglao uses allows his client and her guests settings with appropriate levels of sociability, privacy, and intimacy. The house's spaces are further framed by a lush landscape that soothes and calms rather that confines. This is the substance of the house, warmly reflecting the owner's persona and the designer's understanding of it'.
Interiors are elegant and Oriental with modern paintings by Anita Magsaysay-Ho, the owner's mother. Fine prints and paintings and cushioned furniture are enjoyed on the open-air terrace (left)—a non-traditional design notion introduced by LA-experienced designer Conrad Onglao.
(Previous pages): Oriental feng shui plays a spirited role in the design. In all directions there are multi sized water ponds and pools, set with requisite statuary. Out back, a grove of trees and gazebo honors Ganesh within the lush landscape by Ponce Veridiano. The visual