The picturesque coastal town of El Nido in Palawan is a tropical paradise that serves as a respite and sanctuary for urban city dwellers. No wonder Filipino Architect Justin Guiab fell in love with the place and decided to move and build a home for his family in the aptly named area of Happy Valley in El Nido.

Photo courtesy of Stacked Homes

Known for his work on the Cubao Zen micro-cinema Sine-Pop, Guiab earned further recognition for his home when Stacked Homes, a YouTube platform that showcases unique homes and the latest design trends, featured a video of his Palawan home and went viral. From there, netizens fell in love with his El Nido home. It was a home designed to be eco-friendly, sustainable, and more importantly, attuned and harmonious to its natural surroundings. The architect, however, confessed that the way the house is now wasn’t in the original plan.

“Maybe it naturally evolved lang the more time I spent here [in Palawan],” Architect Guiab shares. Photo courtesy of Stacked Homes

Born in Manila and raised in Lanao Del Sur, Architect Justin found interest in El Nido when his father commissioned him to help and work on a home project for a high-profile celebrity client who was also building a home and a new life in Palawan back then.

“That was actually my first project here [in Palawan] and I learned so much from him. One of the briefs for his house was that he didn’t want to cut a single tree. For me, that was such a powerful design brief. That condition really changed how we designed the house that’s why it also took us a long time to design it but it was all worth it. We spent a lot of time studying the site,” Guiab says, sharing that he learned so many things that he’s able to apply in his designs.

Because of that project, Architect Guiab spent more time in El Nido and learned how to build homes there using the natural materials available in the vicinity.

“It wasn’t just the principle of using the natural materials, but it was also the most practical and cheapest,” he says.

After learning the most impactful lessons from the high-profile project, Guiab was eventually inspired to do a personal one: his very own home.

Photo courtesy of Stacked Homes

Designed By Nature

As aesthetic and beautiful as the Guiab home in El Nido is, the more remarkable aspect of it is its sustainability features. He started with the desire to build the house without cutting off the trees in their space.

“We didn’t cut down a living tree to build this house,” he declares.

“When I first saw this land, I would meditate and spend a lot of time here. I believe the land has consciousness and it will tell you where it’s okay to build,” Guiab thoughtfully shares. He also consulted a lot with the locals to know the best and locally available natural materials to use for building the house.

The first consideration for their Palawan home is to make use of the local wood available. In this exercise, he learned that using endemic wood, like the sturdy and termite-proof Ipil, for his homebuilding project is good and not as detrimental to the environment. He also made the effort to plant more trees in place of the local wood utilized. 

Photo courtesy of Stacked Homes

“If you build with local wood like Ipil, number one is hindi siya inaanay [it is not prone to termites]. It can also be rained on. So, this means the house can be here for hundreds of years,” he notes, adding that Ipil trees are easy to propagate in Palawan but are slow-growing trees. This is why he also advocates for more Ipil tree-planting.

For the roof of the house, Guiab made use of cogon and pawid giving it a bahay kubo appearance and a refreshing feel inside. Amid those native materials for the roof, he put up scattered skylight fiberglass installations to allow natural light to abundantly seep into the home.

“We used cogon, which is grass. We also made use of pawid, it's a leaf from the nipa tree that grows around the banks of rivers close to the ocean. Medyo salty ‘yung water where they grow in kaya hindi na kinakain iyong pawid ng bugs,” he describes. [The river where they grow is salty so the pawid is not eaten by bugs.]

He followed his former boss Architect Ed Calma’s principles of minimalism in building so his Palawan home did not use many materials. They basically used a combination of ipil, cogon, concrete, and rattan to build. 

Photo courtesy of Stacked Homes

The house was also built following the slope of the land, which minimized the amount of concrete used, and was oriented towards the wind so the “wind tunnel effect” takes place and facilitates better air circulation which cools down the house, especially during the sweltering heat of the summer.

The design was also made special by the concept of making one huge space for the dining, kitchen, and the living room.

“I remember growing up, we'd always spend most of the time in our kitchen or dining room. We didn't really have a living room to sit and do stuff. So, I scraped off the living room, and then the kitchen and dining became the gathering space,” he explains.

Photo courtesy of Stacked Homes

The bathroom also felt like a part of nature as it has an “open” concept.

“The traditional bathroom has four walls so I took a few walls further out and added what looks like a garden in the courtyard,” he says. It also features a huge rock repurposed into a bathtub. The water used for the bathroom and the entire house comes from the nearby spring.

Every space in the house from the loft, to the bedrooms, bathroom and the shared space of kitchen, dining, and living rooms is warm-looking and airy as the house thrives on natural light streaming through.

“If you look at how houses are lit today, it’s [central and direct from a bulb] but in nature, it's usually just the sun and clouds that diffuse the light and I wanted to try to incorporate that here. Wherever the activity is, that’s the only place we put to light. We use the lamp or natural light from the outside if there’s a need. It's very unnatural to have direct light unless it’s from the sun. I don’t know the studies but I feel more comfortable with diffused lighting. It's more relaxed,” Guiab explains the concept behind the home lighting.

To power up the house or to supply power when there’s a power outage, the family also built a storehouse where the solar battery is kept. This contributes to a reduction in paid energy consumption.

With his home being next to a forest and designed in a way that harmonizes with it, Architect Justin and his family felt the positive impact and benefits of it to their lives.

Photo courtesy of Stacked Homes

“Before, I would look forward coming back to Manila. But after living here, every time I’m in Manila, nakikita ko na ang swerte ko dahil ang sarap dito. [I appreciate how lucky I am because it's wonderful here.] Even if we spend a lot of time in the city, our DNA is hardwired to look for getting closer to nature,” he confesses.

“Everything I hear from Huberman (podcaster) about living a healthy life and getting the morning sun, you don't have to think about that when living here because it’s automatic that we have morning sun, super fresh air and just being around nature. We’re so blessed,” he says, sharing that his wife Sarah is actually the one who’s more into nature so they were on the same page when it came to deciding to move to Palawan.

Asked how he would encourage people to apply the same efforts of sustainability, Guiab made a simple proposition.

Photo courtesy of Stacked Homes

“Maybe just spending a little more time in nature every day and also just being grateful where we are every day is a good way. There are lots of benefits when living out of the city. If you’re here, you don’t really need a car. It really doesn’t cost a lot to live here. In the city, when you go out, you spend on parking and gas or to eat something,” he says. 

He had a greater appreciation for sustainable living since they’re now immersed in nature and it costs considerably less. Their family is also a few minutes away from the beach and waterfalls so this takes the form of entertainment without having to spend so much.

“We don’t have to and we skipped this cycle of needing to make money and spending. It’s an endless cycle—needing to make money to enjoy life. You can go straight to the ‘enjoying life’ part and look forward to retirement,” Guiab pensively says.

He mentioned on the Stacked Homes feature that after working on their home, he now understands better how to design for others. He explains this further to Metro.Style.

“When I was living in Manila, I lived with my parents but I didn’t really run a household so I didn’t know you would need space for little things like storage and [these learnings] influenced my designs as an architect. I would try to push for the most beautiful way to build and design things, but there’s a way to balance this and make the best use of the money or resources rather than just making the most beautiful thing,” he ruminates.

Though it can be challenging, Guiab remains inspired to push through and move forward with projects that have elements of sustainability and being eco-friendly. In fact, he’s currently working with broadcast journalist Ces Drilon and building a house for her using rammed earth and cross-laminated bamboo.

“We’re building a house for her which will reduce carbon emissions by about 70%. We’re experimenting with sustainable building materials like that,” he shares.

Likewise, it inspires him further when he knows that what he does for a living could impact how people live sustainably and bring about positive change.

“Wanting to change how people live is very interesting when I think about it more and more. There's a quote that said ‘Great civilizations believe that the arts could reform people, and architecture affects you most of all because it's the art that you live in,’” Architect Guiab concludes with optimism.

Special thanks to Stacked Homes