The COVID-19 pandemic has opened our perspectives to different realizations on many matters that we did not previously give forethought to. Did you ever imagine that you’d need a space for your home for sanitizing? Do you have regrets on not furnishing yourself a home gym? Same like us, award winning architect Juan Carlo Calma had all the quarantine time in the world to create a Philippine house design that will cost you 2 floors of housing for the benefit of a healthy home as he details in a Philippine Tattler interview. He calls this masterpiece The Loop House.
Sanitation Station
As a direct answer to the problem posed by COVID-19 at hand, Calma proposes that future design should incorporate a room that is designated for sanitation. The interstice should be a space where people can wash up, change clothes, and safely put aside their dirty laundry. This could ideally be connected to a laundry room, too. The same room will also benefit pet owners because they can wash their pets here after playing outside.
Rooftop Garden
Calma’s design is a 2 storey house but since the rooftop functions as a garden and doubles as an activity area, it’s practically 3 tiers of wellness. Calma designates glass windows on the rooftop so that both sun- and moonlight can naturally illuminate the home. The gardens are engineered in such a way that water flows so that it can be recycled; this Philippine house design has the country’s climate in mind so that you can take advantage or tropical weather cycles and simultaneously cut cost on necessities like lighting and non-drinking water.
Rain Water Funneling
Aside from being able to cycle rain water for plant watering, the house design also funnels rainwater so that it adds to ambience by replicating waterfalls to one side of the house and end up in a catch basin where it can be used for other purposes like water the indoor vertical hydroponic garden.
The Loop Lane
This might be the most defining aspect of The Loop House: a bicycle lane that loops around the house and gives access to the biker to all floors of the house. Imagine being able to get out of your bedroom on the second floor, mount your bike, and cycle to the 3rd floor or straight to the streets fuss free.
Calma says that it’s a Philippine house design that aims to create “healing spaces”. He thought up the whole home with the marriage of both his and his wife’s hobbies: cycling and gardening. At the cost of forethought, The Loop House should be the new dream home even beyond the era of the present pandemic.
