26 Video Views·Sep 14, 2026
What is it really like to live in the tropics? This question is what Principal Architect of Aga Mos David Padadac tries to answer and House Formo in El Nido, Palawan is the embodiment of that answer.
Aga Mos architects, the creatives behind Tao Philippines launch their first bamboo villa in El Nido Palawan. With a foundation of cement and poles of locally grown bamboo carrying its curvilinear roof, House Formo provides a balanced approach to living openly with nature and also feeling the security that a home should give. While the rooms are snug near the ground for privacy and coolness, the living, dining and kitchen areas are located above with no walls or obstructions to the surroundings.
Padadac credits the more than two decades of experience of Tao Philippines with bamboo expert Gener Paduga on the form of the lightweight bamboo structure. House Formo features the "tuka" or bird's beak form that Paduga pioneered for Tao Philippines.
By being so open to nature, the structure helps affect your behavior, keeping your body in tune with the rhythm of the day. Padadac also emphasizes that tropical structures must be designed like living systems - one that adapts and breathes.
We must first look at nature.
Nature itself or the site itself will have its own brief.
It can't be imposed upon, and then of course you have to combine that with your client.
or who you are collaborating with, and of course also understanding their needs.
I'm David, Principal Architect at Pagamas.
We're here now at House Formo, one of our projects.
It has just been completed.
Pagamas has really gotten started with this question of
What is it like to live in the tropics?
And it's really this question that has fascinated me
In terms of how it would feel and look.
I think House Formo has truly embodied that.
This approach to living in the tropics—being open and accepting of your surroundings.
It's dealing with the challenges of living in the tropics.
You have intense heat, monsoon rains, salty air, and of course, all the wildlife.
For Pagamas, it's truly about living with it or working with it rather than going against it.
As you can see here in House Formo, we have this very open style of living.
where it connects all the spaces under this single roof.
And I think it's important that all materials we also use here are locally sourced.
That's another thing about living and working in the islands.
Is moving materials so full of challenges?
In that case, you can see bayog, one of the local bamboo species here that we've used.
That also means the people who have worked here are very familiar with that material.
So it's combining these two skills.
So you have your local fisherman's skill, which is the nylon technique, tying,
and the bayog, which is also what they use for their banka.
So it's very familiar material.
Pushing them a little bit more toward creating something like this,
something a bit more playful, yet highly engineered.
We had to get to truly know the land, its orientation, and the path of the sun.
With that intelligence, we've oriented it east-west, but of course the curve
has also helped to strengthen the spine of the tuka.
We didn't really want to just align it east-west.
because it has its own microclimate here.
So we also spent a lot of time recording that data quite early on.
And so it is positioned this way.
Tuka is derived from the word "beak," specifically bird beak.
It's actually from a collaboration with Tao and Henner, who have pioneered this structure.
It's kind of like an evolution of the tuka.
As you can see, its profile is still bird-beak shaped.
This is also the first curved tuka structure we have ever completed.
And it's the only one we've curved.
And it has already been tested during two typhoons.
This is obviously facing east, this side, and we've oriented it this way.
to make sure that it's not, you know, working against the wind
And it just flows through the space.
And then of course, what we've also improved from our previous Tuka design
is to increase the strength, which adds more diamond shapes here
where all the bamboo overlaps.
That's truly where the strength is coming from.
The rooms are also tucked beneath, snug against the hill.
This is also a very deliberate decision on our part.
to ensure those rooms stay cool by keeping them shaded from the sun.
And then of course, you have this panoramic view from the rooms.
Looking inward toward the garden.
The kitchen, we've placed it toward the west.
The owners have mentioned their desire to entertain as well.
It's a significant part of their lifestyle.
So we kept it really flexible and open.
It somewhat invites you to walk through the space.
Living in this kind of open style, open living, we're calling it.
I think it also influences your behavior.
And I think it's important to also work in harmony with the rhythm of the day.
So if it means that the sun is, the sunrise is there
And it's much cooler over there; move over to that side.
And then as it gets a bit hotter and the sun moves westward, you move.
So there's this movement around the space depending on how the day changes.
One of the concepts that we're experimenting with,
and I think more and more that as we build structures,
The way we see them, they're like living systems.
rather than architecture itself.
One of the great things about working with bamboo,
I think it's the lightness of it and how strong it is.
Working with bamboo is very playful.
Building structures, of course, is architecture.
but just like in the tropics, if you're especially off-grid,
You have to look at the structure as a living system.
If so, email us at
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