The Revelo-Garcia
Residence A Private Hillside Estate for a Family Legacy

The Three Design Drivers Beneath the Room List

A room list tells us what to build. Your conversations told us how you want to live. Three themes run through everything you described, and they govern every design decision we make:

Stated Assumptions

• The household includes the two of you and three children, plus a driver and up to two household helpers.
• Bamboo is a meaningful design reference, to be interpreted in a refined tropical-contemporary manner — never rustic.
• Extended power interruptions in Pagadian are a real planning concern, so energy resilience is a design priority, not an accessory.
• Target floor area, final finish tier, and total investment envelope are to be confirmed during design development.

Opportunities You May Not Have Fully Priced In

1. The hillside pays for part of your basement. On flat land, a 5-car basement means deep excavation, long ramps, and heavy waterproofing on all sides. On your site, the basement opens toward the low front — a walk-out level, not a buried one. Less excavation, natural light and ventilation into the garage and staff quarters, and a safer, drier basement.
2. The rear access is a service artery, not just a second gate. Deliveries, waste collection, staff arrival, generator refueling, and construction logistics run from the rear — keeping the front arrival permanently clean and guest-ready.
3. The roof is a working asset. Between solar generation, water-heating provisions, service zones, and a possible covered pavilion, the roof can earn its cost every year instead of sitting idle.
4. The elevation change creates the arrival drama you want. Entering at the lower level and rising through the house toward garden and views is precisely the “luxury that reveals itself gradually” the family described.

Risks We Are Already Managing

The same terrain that creates opportunity creates obligations. We flag them now because early honesty is cheaper than late surprises:

• Slope stability and retaining structures — subject to geotechnical investigation
• Stormwater running downhill toward the house — the rear-uphill side must intercept and redirect water before it reaches the structure
• Basement waterproofing at the cut face — the uphill retaining wall is the critical waterproofing zone
• Seismic performance of a split-level structure — a solvable, well-understood engineering problem, but one solved on paper, not on site
• Generator noise in an executive subdivision — acoustic design from day one

We do not propose to flatten your site and place a house on the platform. We propose a residence that steps with the terrain in three strata.

The Arrival Sequence

Guests arrive at the front gate on the subdivision main road. The gate opens not onto the whole house, but onto a landscaped forecourt — the home partially screened by planting and architectural elements. Vehicles descend gently into the basement garage or stop at a covered drop-off. Guests ascend — by stair or a future lift provision — and the double-volume living space opens before them with the garden and pool beyond. Discovery, then surprise, then comfort.

The family and staff, meanwhile, use the rear access: groceries straight to the pantry, staff to their quarters, deliveries to storage — none of it crossing the guest experience.

Public, Private, and Service Zoning

Diagrammatic only. Final zoning subject to site verification and design development.

Climate Strategy: The House Must Work Even When the Grid Does Not

• Orientation and openings placed to capture Amihan and Habagat winds across the ground floor
• Double-volume living space as a thermal chimney — high openings let hot air escape upward and out
• Deep overhangs and shaded terraces on the sun-exposed faces
• Bamboo-inspired vertical screens as functional shading, not decoration
• Landscape cooling — planted areas, the pool, and permeable surfaces instead of heat-radiating pavement
• High side walls designed with ventilation in mind, so security never suffocates airflow

Mechanical cooling — including the standing AC units you requested — then becomes a comfort layer on top of a house that is already livable, which matters enormously during extended power interruptions.

All areas and adjacencies below are planning intent, subject to survey validation, final programming, and your approval during design development.

Basement Level — The Working Base

Ground Floor — The Living Heart

Second Floor — The Private Sanctuary

Roof Level & Outdoors

Solar arrays, service zones, drainage, and the optional covered pavilion are evaluated as three distinct options in Section 7. Outdoors: a front forecourt with screening landscape and covered drop-off; a rear service court with generator enclosure, refuse, and secondary gate; side gardens softening the high perimeter walls; and perimeter walls designed with layered planting and architectural texture so security reads as elegance, not hostility.

Your synopsis raised the right question: flat roof — roofing only, or roof deck? This decision has real structural and cost consequences, and it should be made deliberately. We present three configurations.

The Pavilion Question — Roof or Garden?

A covered open-air pavilion could alternatively live beside the pool as a garden pavilion / outdoor sala — an extension of the living space for dining and gatherings, shaded, rain-protected, and immediately accessible to the kitchen. During design development we will study both positions and may recommend a modest version of each: the garden pavilion as the daily workhorse, the roof pavilion as the private retreat. The correct terminology, form, and budget follow from that study — we will not install a token gazebo and call it strategy.

Bamboo matters to your family. Our responsibility is to honor that identity while protecting you from the maintenance burden that raw bamboo can impose in Pagadian’s sun, rain, and termite environment. We propose a three-tier hierarchy.

Material Honesty: Where Real Bamboo Works, and Where It Doesn’t

The estate reads as bamboo-inspired tropical luxury everywhere — and asks for real bamboo maintenance almost nowhere. Final selections subject to supplier sampling, mockup approval, and your review of actual materials — never catalog photos alone.

A split-level structure with a basement cut into a slope, carrying rooftop loads, in a seismic and typhoon-exposed country. Here is how we approach it — clear about what is known and what must be validated.

Structure & Foundations

• Reinforced concrete moment frame anticipated, stepped with the terrain to minimize cut-and-fill — final system subject to structural analysis
• Foundation type — subject to geotechnical investigation, scheduled as one of the first project activities
• Basement retaining walls at the uphill cut, designed for earth pressure, surcharge, and water pressure — with drainage designed so the wall never fights standing water
• Seismic design per the National Structural Code of the Philippines; split-level stiffness irregularity is a known problem with known solutions — resolved in analysis, not improvisation
• Wind design for roof structures, pavilion, and solar arrays — uplift is a governing load case, subject to final wind-load calculation

Water: The Discipline That Decides Whether a Hillside House Succeeds

• Uphill interception — a drainage line at the rear boundary catches slope runoff before it reaches the building
• Basement waterproofing — membrane plus drainage composite at retained faces, waterstops at construction joints, perimeter subdrain to a sump with pump redundancy
• Roof drainage — primary drains plus independent overflow scuppers; a flat roof with a single drainage path is a leak with a schedule
• Flood testing of every roof and wet area before finishes proceed — documented, witnessed, non-negotiable

Electrical, Mechanical & Plumbing

• Electrical planning zoned from day one into critical, essential, and convenience loads (Section 10)
• Generator provisions: detached enclosure, vibration-isolated pad, acoustic lining, exhaust routed away from bedrooms and neighbors, refueling access from the rear service court
• Inverter and battery room in the basement: ventilated, protected, expandable
• Water resilience: dedicated storage tank, booster pumps, rainwater-harvesting provision for irrigation — capacities subject to final fixture count and load study
• Standing AC provisions: dedicated circuits, condensate routing, concealed outdoor-unit zones planned now, not chased into walls later

Items Requiring Validation Before Final Engineering

Power interruption in Pagadian is not a hypothetical. Solar, batteries, and the generator are not competing purchases — they are complementary layers:

Three Levels of Commitment

Safety provisions carried at every level: surge protection, grounding and lightning protection, battery-room ventilation and fire-safety detailing, generator exhaust and noise control, and clear maintenance access to every piece of equipment.

You asked for something most clients never think to request: a dedicated corridor of built-in storage. We treat this as a serious piece of architecture. Our recommended position is the second-floor circulation connecting the family hall to the bedroom wing — the route the family walks daily — with a secondary utility-storage run at the service stair. Final placement to be studied against the floor plan and confirmed with you.

Design Standards

Internal Zoning of the Spine

A home stays calm when everything has a place — and the place is beautiful, reachable, and closed. The corridor absorbs the entropy of family life so the living spaces never have to. It is one of the least glamorous line items in this proposal and one of the most life-changing.

This project’s specific execution risks — basement waterproofing, rooftop membranes, solar coordination, custom cabinetry, acoustic generator work — are exactly the failures that occur when the designer and builder are different companies pointing at each other. Here is how JMG runs the build:

We will not recite adjectives. Here is why the design-build model — and this firm specifically — matters for your project:

1. Because your basement lives or dies on coordination. The retaining wall, membrane, subdrain, sump, and garage slab are designed by an engineer and executed by a builder. When those are two companies, the warranty gap between them is exactly where water enters. At JMG, the engineer who detailed the wall answers for the wall that gets built. One point of accountability. No finger-pointing.
2. Because a solar-ready roof is a promise most builders break by accident. “Solar-ready” fails when the conduit wasn’t run, the penetration wasn’t flashed, or the structure wasn’t sized for uplift. We design the roof, structure, and electrical rough-in as one system — so panels land on a roof that was genuinely waiting for them.
3. Because custom cabinetry across an entire storage spine demands shop-drawing discipline — dimensions verified on site, moisture-appropriate materials, and a builder who checks the fabricator’s work against the architect’s intent. We are both, so nothing is lost in translation.
4. Because a generator in an executive subdivision is a neighbor-relations project as much as an electrical one. Acoustic enclosure, vibration isolation, and exhaust routing are designed once, correctly, by the same team pouring the pad.
5. Because founded and led by a licensed civil engineer, JMG is engineering-first by DNA — with more than one hundred completed projects behind our processes. Our proposals are written by the people who will stand on your site.
6. Because we build in Mindanao, for Mindanao conditions — the rains, the heat, the seismic reality, the supply chains, and the LGU processes of this region are our daily working environment, not a footnote.

The People Leading Your Project

Single-point accountability is only as strong as the people who carry it. Your project is led directly by the principals — not delegated past them.

Engr. Jasper M. Gementiza

Principal · Civil Engineer · Project Director

Licensed civil engineer and founder of JMG Design & Build. Directs the engineering, cost planning, and construction execution of the estate — and answers personally for both.

Ar. Robinson Chua

Project Architect

Author of the project synopsis and lead of the architectural concept — translating the site’s terrain and the family’s brief into the terraced estate design.

Value engineering, done honestly, protects design intent while removing cost that adds nothing to your life. It is not cheapening. Three illustrative decision sets:

Decision Set 1 — Rooftop Scope

Recommendation: B, with structure pre-engineered for a future C.

Decision Set 2 — Energy Equipment Timing

Recommendation: embed all infrastructure now (non-negotiable); install equipment at Level 2, expand later.

Decision Set 3 — Exterior Bamboo Expression

Recommendation: B for exposed exterior; genuine bamboo indoors where it is protected and touchable.

Further studies during design development: pool size and finish tier, basement finish levels, smart-home scope (wire now, device later), landscape phasing, and cabinet finish hierarchy (premium at eye level, economical inside carcasses).

Decisions That Must Be Made Early — and Why

As shared in our early conversation, design-build for a premium-range custom residence currently starts around ₱41,000–₱50,000 per sqm of floor area and rises with design complexity, structural conditions (a hillside basement is a complexity), and finish tier. The governing number is floor area, not lot area — and floor area is exactly what the concept design phase establishes. A meaningful cost conversation follows the concept, not the other way around.

Cost Categories

Payment Structure & Transparency

Progress-based payments tied to verified milestones — mobilization, structural stages, envelope, finishes, completion — so payment always follows demonstrated work. Every cost is labeled: included in base scope / optional / provision now–install later / subject to engineering / subject to supplier quotation / subject to final area and specifications. No hidden costs; no misleading certainty. Budget monitoring reports run throughout construction, so you always know position versus plan.

All figures subject to final floor area, approved specifications, geotechnical findings, and prevailing market conditions at contract date.

Durations below are typical planning ranges for a residence of this scope, to be firmed after the concept and permits define the real critical path.

Scheduling realities we plan around: excavation and basement waterproofing sequenced against the rainy season; cabinet shop drawings released early because fine cabinetry is a long-lead trade; solar and generator equipment ordered against confirmed electrical design; bamboo-system mockups approved before bulk procurement; and clearly flagged client-decision deadlines — because the most common cause of residential delay is not weather, it is late selections. We will protect you from that by telling you, well in advance, exactly what must be decided when.

A professional builder does not hide risks; a professional builder names them, assigns them, and schedules their resolution.

1. The geotechnical investigation gates everything. Until the soil report exists, the basement, retaining walls, and foundations remain assumptions. Starting discovery now means design proceeds on facts.
2. The rooftop decision is structural, and structure comes first. Choosing between Options A, B, and C after the roof slab is designed means either redesign or a roof that can never become what you wanted.
3. Energy infrastructure is nearly free to embed and expensive to retrofit. Conduits, pads, rooms, and roof penetrations cost little during construction and a small demolition project afterward.
4. Long-lead items dictate the calendar. Solar equipment, the generator set, and fine cabinetry are ordered months before they are needed. The earlier design locks, the earlier procurement protects your schedule.
5. Weather windows matter on a hillside. Excavation, retaining works, and waterproofing want dry-season execution; starting design now positions construction to catch the right window rather than fight the wrong one.
6. Construction costs trend upward. We will not dramatize this — but a design finalized sooner is priced sooner, and locked supplier commitments hold better than intentions.

Every month of early, well-ordered design work is purchased back several times over in avoided rework, avoided retrofit, and avoided waiting.

1. Confirm the engagement framework — design-build delivery under JMG, with the fee structure formalized.
2. Schedule site validation — relocation/topographic survey verification and geotechnical investigation.
3. Hold the architectural programming session — finalize the room list, storage-corridor contents, and staff-quarters requirements with the whole family heard.
4. Select the rooftop concept — Option A, B, or C (our recommendation: B, structured for future C).
5. Set the energy-resilience level — infrastructure fully embedded; equipment at Level 1, 2, or 3.
6. Define the bamboo expression tier — and approve the mockup pathway.
7. Confirm pavilion strategy — roof, garden, or both.
8. Receive the preliminary space plan — the first drawings of your terraced estate.
9. Review the concept design presentation — massing, zoning, arrival sequence, and material direction.
10. Receive the initial cost framework — built on the actual concept floor area, with every category labeled per Section 16.

That is how this project will feel from the first meeting to the day we hand you the keys.