13/08/2026
We saw this post the other day: "Yung mga kapitbahay namin, hindi naman nagpagawa sa architect pero magaganda naman ang bahay."
Quick story..
More than 10 years ago, there was this family who built their 400 sqm home. The design was done only by the owner and the contractor.
The result was genuinely beautiful, well-built, solid, and still standing strong years later.
Ten years after, as the owners entered retirement and began spending significantly more time at home, they started noticing something they hadn't really thought about before..the house didn't have enough natural ventilation.
Because of how the rooms were positioned, natural air didn't flow through the back side of the house (a place where they normally spend most of their time in). Eventually, they had to install air-conditioning units in all sections of the house but it was not sustainable given the cost of electricity.
That's when the importance of architectural design became much clearer. Some design decisions don't reveal themselves immediately, they reveal themselves through years of actually living in the space.
Now, looking at the house through an architect's lens, we don't see this as a mistake. We see it as something that's easy to overlook when the focus is primarily on making sure a house is beautiful, functional, and structurally sound.
Architects are trained to design for airflow, how a space is actually used throughout the day, how light moves, how a house performs 10-20 years down the line.
It made me think: What if design thinking, the architect's kind, not just the engineer's or the contractor's ,had been part of the process from day one? Maybe it would have felt like an added cost back then. But it might have saved them from a bigger renovation cost today.
That's what we've come to understand about architecture...it should not be a separate, optional layer on top of the construction cost. It should be a requirement for anyone who wants to build/renovate a property.
You don't build a house for how it looks today.
You build it for how you'll live in it for the next 10, 20, even 30 years.
Good design might cost more upfront, but it can save you from paying more later.
🇵🇭
