Bicol Architecture

In pre-colonial times, many Bicol houses were perched on trees for protection from the sun and insects.

In the Spanish and early American colonial periods, the less privileged lived in native huts located some distance from the center of town, in coastal or inland barrios. They used light materials for their houses.

Theses dwellings had wooden posts and were elevated about 1 to 2 m above the ground. The framework and floor were made of bamboo; their walls, flap windows and hip roof of leaves of nipa or gogon grass.

These one room houses, which usually had no divisions, had minimal furniture, like a bench; allow table and a chest of storage of clothes.

But in the contemporary period, most native huts have been replacing by American-type bungalows or two-story houses with the sala, kitchen and toilet below, and the sleeping quarters on the second floor. These houses are usually made of hollow blocks and cement. Wood is used for the second floor of two-story houses. Roofs are galvanized iron; the windows are slide or the vertical-flap types.

Nowadays, there are still hut made houses but it is already common that others now have bungalows to withstand the impact of strong typhoons that usually strikes.