The bahay kubo retains the indigenous house’s pile construction and hip roof, and it has push-out or sliding windows for ventilation in the hot, humid climate. The altar for the family’s santos and the benches, tables, and other furnishings required by hispanized manners are hispanic influences. Early chroniclers attest that the silid or kuwarto (room), where women could change clothes privately, existed before hispanization.

The bahay kubo has a balkon or beranda (front porch) that opens to a multipurpose bulwagan, the main room, and a silid, a small storage room. The bulwagan leads to a separate-roofed kitchen and an open-air batalan, which serves as a washing area or bathroom. The front porch or batalan can be accessed via a removable bamboo ladder.

Balkon is 15 cm lower than bulwagan floor. As the house’s reception room, its windows are wider and decorated with bamboo latticework.

The bulwagan is a nighttime sleeping area. Daytime uses include dining, working, and entertainment. Spanish contact introduced a built-in papag or papagan (long bench of split bamboo) and other furnishings.

A silid is a changing area for women and a place to store pillows, rolled mats, and tampipi (chests and woven trunks).

The kusina is built on the ground level and connected to the main house by a shed or lean-to roof to prevent fires and keep the interior clean. It may also be built as a separate mini-house. A corridor or bridgelike passageway could connect the latter to the main house and serve as a dining room. Usually, the kitchen is part of the main house, on the same floor or a step lower, with its own roof. Unlike the bulwagan, the walls and floor are more open so smoke can easily escape during cooking.

The batalan is an open porch connected to the kitchen that is raised for better sanitation because it’s usually wet. Its floors are made of whole bamboos cut from old stems. Some batalan are on the ground and fenced in. The batalan keeps drinking and washing water in large jars.

The silong is used to store farm and fishing implements, mortars and pestles, and other heavy items. This space provides ventilation for the house, particularly if the floor is slatted. Open-sided or with vertical or crisscrossed bamboo slats to contain pigs and poultry.

The kamalig is a separate rice storehouse built in the same style as the main house.

Bahay kubo forms and materials vary by climate and terrain. In typhoon-prone areas, like Bicol, houses are low and squat, elevated by about half a meter. Where heat and humidity are high, houses are taller (3-3.5 meters) and more spacious.

Temporary shelters built in kaingin (swidden farms) in the uplands or rice fields or fishponds in the lowlands are similar to bahay kubo. It’s a temporary home for farmers whose homes are far from their workplaces. One-room hut on stilts with thatch roof and thatch or bamboo siding. A roofed platform is another option. It’s used to store tools.

Bahay kubo is a bamboo and nipa hut, hence its English translation. These materials give the house a light, breezy feel. Despite its lightness and humble appearance, its construction requires skill, artisanship, and a unique building technology. Traditional folk wisdom dictates that bamboos be cut only in season—from the start of the misa de aguinaldo to the Feast of the Epiphany, or from 16 December to 6 January. During this time, bamboos are mature and produce no new leaves or branches; sap flow is sluggish; and tissues are low in starch and sugar, so they no longer attract bukbok (powder-post beetle). Cut bamboo stalks are soaked in river or lake water or buried in sand for six months to kill insects. Only three or four of the Philippines’ 30+ bamboo species can be used for house construction, the best being kawayang tinik (spiny bamboo).

Nipa is planted during the rainy season, between May and August. This plant grows to 3 meters tall with long, green leaves. Nipa leaves are doubled, sewn, and dried for thatching and walling.

Cogon grass, rice stalks, sugarcane leaves, split bamboo, anahaw, and palms are other roofing materials.

Wall sidings include sawali, bamboo, coconut leaves, abaca leaves, and anahaw. Rattan lashings.

Housebuilding is difficult. First, a site is blessed to ward off evil spirits. Before, during, and after construction, omens are observed. Proper orientation of house parts like the door and ladder, or even the house itself, is important for family prosperity and house strength and stability. Lucky houses face east. Ilonggo islanders believe Bakunawa, a mythical dragon, controls the winds. Before building, know which way the Bakunawa faces.

Next, install the posts and floor joists. Then the roof, walls, windows, and doors are built. All these stages are marked by rituals: coins are placed in the principal posts to ensure the family’s financial stability; blood from a slaughtered chicken or goat is smeared on the carpenter’s tools and the house’s posts to ward off misfortune; and as a house blessing rite to ensure a happy home, a new pot containing water is dropped to wet the whole floor.

Bahay kubo’s flexible planning and arrangement of house units allows for easy interaction and movement inside and outside. When people sleep, eat, and work together in one room, a strong sense of interdependence and community develops. Here, people live in harmony with nature, family, friends, and neighbors.

The iconic bahay kubo is being built less and less in rural areas. As family fortunes improve, huts are replaced by concrete and steel homes. Bahay kubo has been reimagined as resort cabanas and garden gazebos. Francisco Maosa and other architects were inspired by the bahay kubo.