Joshua Montes

BS-Arch 5-2 Pet

Housing and Human Settlements

Architectural Journal / Research Paper:

A place that would feel like home is more than a typical definition of having a roof over our head.
A home should be able to provide the sufficient space for the number of users and provide the most
comfort and has basic access to utilities. A place where the users mental and social condition are at a
comfortable level where spaces should not exhibit stress to the users.

My home is in Quezon City particularly in project 1 and my family settled here since 1960’s. Short
history about our home, the lot we reside in was bought by my grandmother way back when she was still
a nurse in Philippine General Hospital. The compound was divided into 3 families which are the families
of my father’s sibling in which a small clan of our bloodline dwell in this part of Quezon City that transcend
to generations.

My home is in a compound which limits us to have our personal yard (all are shared with our
neighbors which are also our relatives), The illustration below is the first plan of our home when I was not
yet born. It is a 2-storey home that houses three of my eldest sisters the materials used was a mixture of
concrete and wood, but the second floor composed more of wood.
 Our home changed when by brother and I was born since we needed more rooms our home
expanded, and my father decided to add another floor for our room to be located on. And during these
times we relocated our living, dining, and kitchen on the second floor of the house when the typhoon
Ondoy affected us on the first floor since our house is near a creek. The third floor of our home has access
to my uncle’s roof deck in which we sometime gather for celebration and potlucks during the weekends
this also provide access for them an also for us if we forgot our keys.
 10 years later the wood material in our second floor started to get termite infestation and as
solution the entire plan of the house was changed and now our house is built up mostly with concrete
walls and tiled floorings. We also used wall claddings to decrease the heat gain inside the house since the
new design has few windows for air circulation. The new plan on the first floor is now changed into
rentable rooms with a bathroom and on the second floor the dining and living area had a bigger space
since the room made from wood was moved to the upper level. The third floor now compose of four
rooms with a bathroom in each room and lastly a new floor was added in which a new master bedroom
and office for my father is also located. The 4th floor is also we do our laundry and where we walk our dogs
around since it is spacious in this floor, we also added a small garden since the pandemic occurred. Since
the current situation brought by the virus, we had to apply safety measures in our home, so we added a
foot bath before entry and a station full of face mask and alcohol. We also started to rub an alcohol
mixture to bought goods before we put them to storage for additional safety.
 During the pandemic I had a lot of time to reflect on things the gives me joy. I am luck enough to
have my own room because I highly value my personal space and it is very calming for me to be isolated
with my pets. During these difficult times I learned a lot of new things just to kill time such as cooking
and baking which I enjoyed doing and also my family since they somehow like the food that I made for
them. My affection towards our pets grown even more since sometimes when my sibling is busy with
work, they keep me company and they are very entertaining.

I spend most of my time in my room and I started to redecorate it because before the pandemic
my room is where some of my close classmates do our schoolwork and the room layout is arranged to
cater more users because I share the space with my classmates. But since the pandemic happened, I
change the layout of my room in my personal preference I also added a chair by the window that is cozy
for reading and work I value how light can affect my mood and energy towards my activity. I bought
lights that I can change the color to fit what I am feeling for the day and I really appreciate that my
window in my room is oriented where the sun rises which energize me every morning. During these
times, the small energy boost brought by nature really helps with my mental health.

Architecture’s role in terms of lighting design, acoustics, color theory, window orientation really
reflects how effective they are towards the user’s comfort given that home is where most humans
spend their time on. But architecture should be applied not just inside the house but also reflect in the
community. The affects of the pandemic hit our economy really hard, and some business owners started
to create a rolling store to sell since people are not allowed to go out now architecture can be applied to
rolling stores to provide the most efficient way to sell that accords with guidelines to fight covid i.e.
social distancing, sanitation corners, etc. This type of selling goods is already seen through out the
country and it can still be designed to fit in the community’s architecture

The cases of economic and socialized in the country are disregarded by the government and are
poorly design to the basic needs of a human my recommendation to design this types of housing is to
introduced new technologies that will make them more sustainable and to plan the houses fit the basic
human needs, creating a community that considers the need of every users is important so that the
architecture of the communities of these housing projects will benefit the users and not burden them.