Thus they fashioned the lean-to from a frame made of tree branches and twigs, using leaves and fronds for sidings. Meanwhile, the food gatherers, the fishers, or the hunters, who moved from one place to another in their search for food and game, needed a portable shelter. The Tabon Cave in Palawan yielded the earliest-known remains of human beings in the Philippines. In Angono, Rizal, evidence of ancient cave dwellers exists in carved figures on cave walls, the earliest known Philippine mural. It was nature which fashioned hollows on cliffs and mountainsides that offered protection from heat, rain, and wind. They simply found these shelters or found themselves in them. The Ethnic Tradition The earliest shelters of human beings were probably not built by them. Setting, climate, and available materials are among the factors that give shelter its form and character. As the climate dictates the need for shelter, the land provides the materials for it: wood from the forests, bamboo from groves, leaves from the fields, stone from rivers and quarries, and clay from the earth itself. Several times a year the land is rocked by earthquakes. A long dry season can bring drought, rains can cause floods, and high winds can ruin houses. With its southernmost islands about four degrees from the equator, and its northern and central islands in the path of typhoons, the Philippines is subject to the worst of tropical heat, humidity, and rain. On this fragmented territory and rugged terrain, on mountain, plain, riverbank, and seacoast, the people have made their home. For its relatively small area of 300,000 square kilometers, the country has an extensive coastline of 17,500 kilometers. With their headwaters in the mountains, rivers flow down to the plains and out to the sea. More than half of the land is mountainous and hilly. The 7,100 islands of the Philippines appear to be a mountain range that is half submerged. Houses and monuments from Batanes to Tawi-Tawi do not only represent different cultures and periods in Philippine history they also constitute the Filipino's creative response to the problems posed by the geography and climate of the archipelago. The history and culture of the Philippines are reflected in its architectural heritage, in the dwellings of its various peoples, in mosques and churches, and in buildings that have risen in response to the demands of progress and the aspirations of a people. Keywords: Philippine heritage houses, thermal performance audit, thermal comfort, human perception A study of tropical design principles set on the past and linking the rediscovery of solutions in solving the problem of the present time. It advances the idea that Philippine heritage houses through the study of Bahay Nakpil-Bautista, possess attributes of a good tropical design that can help innovate better housing design in the Philippines. Given the varying acceptability of human perception of comfort, the Bahay Nakpil-Bautista is capable of providing good indoor thermal environment with one hundred percent (100%) acceptability of its guests and users. Unveiling Arellano’s design approaches and its adaptation to environment and the tropics, an assessment of human perception and design competency through building and performance audit and how it corresponded with its external factors as thermal comfort is a challenge to achieve in the tropics. This research aims to evaluate the indoor and outdoor temperature condition of Bahay Nakpil-Bautista and its performance relating to human thermal comfort. In the midst of chaotic Quiapo, Manila, an ancestral and historical gem is located, the Bahay Nakpil-Bautista, designed by Arcadio Arellano in 1914, where prominent key figures in the Philippine history settled during the pre-world war II era. This traditional housing design were said to be efficient in providing indoor thermal comfort by natural means, focusing on the search of its capabilities and its implications to human perception of comfort. Philippine heritage houses are an outcome from centuries of design development intended for the tropics, a major contribution of Filipino natives and foreign colonizers on the country’s settlement.
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