In Dumaguete, the capital city of Negros Oriental popular among university students, this contemporary home was designed to mutually shield from and participate with the bustling city.
After having a penthouse on top of a commercial building along Perdices St., which is typical of a Filipino-Chinese family, the owners of AngTay House knew it was time to flinch a new phase after more than 20 years. They decided to move from downtown to take up permanent residency in one of their haciendas.
Situated at the backdoor of a farm estate, the lot’s 20,000- square-meter area affords the utmost privacy.
“Not a soul of the outside neighbors is evident from inside the house,” said architect Ned Carlos. “The sights spring across protected farmland and grass, to Claytown beyond and all the way to the clan’s clubhouse.”
The 400-square-meter structure was designed so that the ground floor functions as a single-level home for the owners, with the kitchen, living room, master suite, laundry, music room and outdoor entertaining areas. The house is elevated a few steps from the original ground which is reachable via a flight of stairs at the front entryway and offers an open courtyard for parties and guests.
Glass windows and picturesque views offer a spectacular vista of the nature reserve, while inside, the light-filled interiors feature an unbiased and exceedingly textural palette of vigorous, low upkeep materials like concrete and hardwood timber that gives an ambience of calmness.
“We wanted the nearby landscape to be the entity that transports paint into the space. It’s a gorgeous, incessant scene that will not once be built out,” said the architect.
The iconic setting, matchless geography and a chance to design a pristine home were some of the influences that induced Ned to yield on the project. Partway enthused by the modernist form and rectilinear verbal of Frank Lloyd Wright’s sprawling suburban prairie houses, the architect also sought to place a robust weight on the physical.
Reflecting an ethos of tranquility and permanence, this home is, as Ned pronounced, “discreet in nature but with a forceful and polished simplicity.”
“We desired to contest the inkling of the Filipino modern house, which in its quixotic model isn’t certainly all that well matched to the tropical low-land environment,” he said.
The upshot is an abstractly elusive yet visually prevailing architectural retort to the surroundings.