Bahay kubo: where it came from, its parts, and how it was built

The bahay kubo is the stilt house of the Philippine lowlands: one room on a floor lifted clear of the ground on posts, with walls of woven bamboo and a tall roof of thatch. It goes by kubo, by payag in the Visayan languages, and in English by nipa hut, a name from the American period that fits only the simplest ones, since not every bahay kubo is a hut or roofed in nipa. This guide covers where the form came from, the name of each part, the materials and why they work in this climate, how the plan is arranged and the order it is built in.

There are three companion pages. The bahay kubo drawing guide has the plan, elevations and a step-by-step way to draw one. The bahay kubo design guide covers layouts, roofs and walls for one you would build. The modern bahay kubo guide shows the same ideas in concrete, steel and timber.

Where the name and the form come from

Báhay means house and kúbo a one-room hut in the fields, so the name reads roughly as “country house”. Both words go back to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, and the house belongs to the same family: raised houses on posts are built across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, part of what is called Austronesian architecture.

Before the Spanish period these houses were light and temporary, made from plants that grew nearby, which made them easy to rebuild after a storm or an earthquake. Each group built its own version. Under Spanish rule, lowland communities gathered around church and town centres and a shared lowland style settled, the one now called bahay kubo. Its ideas went into the larger houses of the period too: the bahay na bato is a bahay kubo plan lifted onto a stone or brick lower storey, keeping the raised living floor and the open, ventilated rooms.

Many upland and southern peoples build houses of their own, such as the Ifugao bale and the Maranao torogan, which are sometimes loosely called bahay kubo. They are separate traditions, and this guide is about the lowland house.

The parts, and what each one does

Part	Tagalog name	What it does
Posts	haligi	Lift the house and carry it, running from the ground to the top of the walls. A binaon post is buried in the ground; a pinatong post stands on a flat stone.
Floor beams	yawi, patukuran, soleras	Beams tie the posts together, secondary beams sit on them, and joists set roughly 30 to 38 cm apart carry the floor.
Floor	sahig	Bamboo slats with gaps between them, so air comes up from below. Woven mats (banig) go over them to sit and sleep on.
Walls	dingding	Woven panels tied to beams between the posts, easy to replace when damaged.
Windows	dungawan	Large openings, most often awning windows held open on a rod.
Roof frame	balangkas	Bamboo or timber, fitted or lashed.
Roof	bubong	Steep thatch rising to an apex (angkub), with eaves (sibi) reaching well past the walls.
Space below	silong	Shade and storage for tools, crops and animals, often fenced with a loose lattice.
Main room	bulwagan	The one room for living, eating and sleeping.
Wet area	batalan	A slatted platform off the main floor for washing, with water jars and its own steps down.
Hearth	abuhan	A raised bed of packed soil inside the room, where the cooking fire sits.
Ladder	hagdan	From the ground to the door or to a small porch with a bamboo rail (sagang).

The materials, and why they suit the climate

Everything in a traditional bahay kubo grew close by. Whole bamboo or hardwood logs make the posts. Bamboo makes the beams and the floor. The roof is thatch of nipa palm, cogon grass or anahaw leaves, smoked to resist water, or kalaka: halved bamboo laid alternately like roof tiles, each piece running the full slope so the rain runs down its channel. The walls are woven bamboo strips, called amakan or sawali, or thatch panels like the roof. Where a family wanted privacy without losing the view, a loose bamboo lattice called sala-sala did the job. Rattan ties it all together. The bamboo bahay kubo guide goes through each material, how long it lasts and the upkeep it needs.

Each choice answers the weather:

• The raised floor keeps the room above a flood and away from rats and other pests, and lets air move under the house.
• The steep roof sheds monsoon rain fast. Its height leaves a tall space above the room for hot air to rise into.
• No ceiling. A bahay kubo is often built without one (atip), so that heat rises straight into the roof and out through gaps and vents. A house built today usually adds one, and the kisame guide draws the choices.
• The deep eaves shade the walls and keep rain off them, and give a dry strip to walk round the house in a downpour.
• Walls that breathe. Woven panels let air through in the hot months.
• The slat floor lets cooler air rise from the shaded silong into the room.
• Large windows let in air and light. Awning windows propped on a rod also shade the opening and keep light rain out. Sliding windows of wood or capiz shell came later, and cheap jalousies more recently.

How the plan works

The living floor is one open room, the bulwagan, used for sitting, eating, sleeping and work. Mats are rolled out at night and away by day, so the same floor does every job. Large windows on several walls catch a breeze from any side.

Cooking and washing sit at the edge. The hearth (abuhan) is a raised bed of packed earth with clay or stone trivets, shelves for wood and racks above for smoking fish and drying herbs. The batalan projects from the main walls as the wet area. Its floor boards are laid looser so water drains, and it holds the water jars (banga) for washing dishes, hands and feet. It usually has its own door and steps. In later houses the hearth and batalan were combined, and a toilet and bath were added there. Before the Spanish period those were usually kept out of the house altogether.

A ladder rises to the door or to a small porch with a waist-high rail. Rice was often kept apart from the house in a granary, the kamalig. The plan drawing shows the room, hearth, batalan, porch and ladder together.

How it was built

A bahay kubo goes up in modules. The posts are set first. Beams are tied across them, then the joists, then the slat floor. The wall panels are often made on the ground and lifted into place, fixed to beams that run between the posts around the edge. That modular build is why so many bahay kubo are cube-shaped. The roof frame goes on last and is thatched. Traditionally the whole frame was fitted or lashed with rattan, with no nails, and a damaged panel or a worn section of thatch could be replaced without touching the rest.

Building one was often shared work. The picture of neighbours lifting a whole house onto their shoulders to move it is the image most Filipinos attach to bayanihan.

What a house built today can take from it

The bahay kubo’s materials mostly do not suit a permanent house on a subdivision lot: thatch burns and needs replacing, and bamboo needs treating against insects. Its moves carry over intact:

1. Lift the living floor above the flood level of the site. The elevated house guide covers how.
2. Keep the roof steep, with eaves deep enough to shade the walls, and leave the space under it open or vented. The roof design guide explains the choices.
3. Put openings on opposite walls so air crosses the room, which the climate guide covers in detail.
4. Keep one large shared room, and put the wet rooms together on one side.

The modern bahay kubo guide shows those four moves in current materials. Our custom house design service designs houses on these lines for a particular lot.

Does a bahay kubo need a building permit?

The National Building Code (PD 1096) applies to every public and private building except traditional indigenous family dwellings, under Section 103(a). Whether a particular kubo counts as one is for the building official to decide. A house built today in concrete, steel or timber on bahay kubo lines is a building like any other and needs a permit before work starts. The building permit requirements guide lists what the office asks for, and the small bahay kubo guide covers the other questions to settle before building one.