The cool, crisp air embraces you in a warm welcome as you enter Sonera, a short distance from the Alabang Town Center. "At Sonera, the wind is very strong," says young and forward-looking architect Jojo Dayrit of JN Dayrit Architects. "It’s so unlike the rest of Metro Manila, where it is so hot. Here, for more than half of the year, you won’t need air-conditioning."
Jojo Dayrit must have followed the wind to this neck of the woods when he moved his whole family – his wife and four growing sons – from Makati to Alabang two years ago. "When you have lots of kids, you like to live in a community where your kids are safe, the air is clean and it’s breezy," Dayrit asserts. "It’s different when you have a family – it’s not about you anymore, it’s about the kids."
Sonera is about space – lots and lots of it. And so much more. "Here, you’re not allowed to build anything within the front five meters of your lot," Dayrit shares a building guideline. "Even if it’s your lot, you cannot build anything on those first five meters, not a fence or a wall. You can only landscape it. You can’t build a front fence, a front wall or walls on the sides for the first five meters."
Add to the five meters, one meter of "plant strip" and the road. Plus the fact that this quiet, low-density community will only have at most 234 families living there. And as your next-door neighbors are nowhere within shouting distance, you’ll probably not hear them fighting or find out what they ate for dinner.
"I was commissioned by one of the lot owners to do a house here," says Dayrit. "I’ve done a lot of houses elsewhere, but this is my first time for Sonera. My clients seem to like the idea that at Sonera, there aren’t too many people, not too many families."
Certainly, Dayrit’s clients like the idea that at Sonera, they can have the luxury of space they’ve been dreaming of. He relates, "When I interviewed my clients, a couple in their late 40s, they said they wanted a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired house. They’ve had that fascination for a very long time. It’s a tall order. If you’re familiar with Wright, he normally builds on very spacious lots so that the house is able to sprawl. Instead of building up, he builds to the side. So the house becomes sprawling, which is what he’s known for."
From what Dayrit has seen so far, the houses being built here are pretty distinct from each other, not one house looks like the next. "Some are quite modern, some contemporary; some leaning towards Asian design, which is popular these days," Dayrit rattles off. "This one is sitting on a 512-square-meter area. By city standards, that’s big. What my clients like about this place is that it’s open."
It’s just the Wright stuff.
Not only is it fenceless. Dayrit points out, "The nice thing about Sonera is you don’t see wires, posts, cables all over the place because all the utilities, like electricity and telephone lines, are underground."
You’re not going to see your neighbors’ cars, too. "At Sonera, they encourage you to have a door for your garage," says Dayrit. "So when you’re driving or jogging around, you see the houses but you don’t see too many cars."
All you’re going to see are trees and greens, and more trees and greens. "The concept of the place is a garden community," Dayrit elaborates. "It kinda destroys the concept if you see too many cars parked outside."
Dayrit gives us a sneak peek of his first Southvale Sonera house, "For the house I’m building, my clients want to bring the inside out and the outside in. They don’t want too many walls, they want high ceilings. They want a lot of privacy. They want something simple but with all the amenities they’ve been looking for."
One such amenity is the Village Green (so-called because it’s got lots of greenery), which will have a basketball court, a badminton court, and a clubhouse. This is so you can play (the basic sports) where you live.
On the ground floor of this two-storey house are the usual living and dining rooms, the kitchen and the den, all of which will have access to the garden.
There’s a semi-basement, "to house the cars out of sight," says Dayrit. "Where the garage doors just roll up via remote control, like in the States. This is also to give homeowners a free hand as far as planning the ground floor is concerned. Because if all the service areas are on the ground floor, what will be left of the ground floor?"
On the second floor are the bedrooms. The house that Dayrit is building has three bedrooms – a master’s bedroom, a bedroom for the couple’s only child, and a guest room. "This is such a low-density house as it’s got only three occupants. As the need arises in the future, the den on the ground floor can be converted to another guest room as it has its own walk-in closet and full toilet."
Since the service areas have been isolated, Dayrit was able to come up with larger spaces for the other areas. He describes, "Practically all the bedrooms here have windows on two sides so you are able to utilize the wind coming through the room. In the dining room, on three sides, you have all doors and windows so you can imagine the wind that can go through your dining room. In the den, there are two walls and windows. That’s why the house will have a lot of glass, sliding doors, in it. We try to open it up so the windows are there for the air to come in, but basically, it also brings in the outside because everywhere you look is a garden. For example, if you’re looking out from the dining room, you’re looking at a fountain, a koi pond or a garden. We designed the place in such a way that everywhere you look, you see something green."
Yes, there’s a family room on the second floor. And yes, there’s a balcony on the second floor overlooking the garden. "The nice thing about this is this is all located right beside the park (at least six or seven lots are connected to this area)," Dayrit can’t stress enough. "So after this wall at the back is already the jogging path and the Village Green club house. From upstairs, you get a very good view; it’s a premium to have this location."
What also attracted this couple to Sonera, according to Dayrit, was the security of the place. As to how secure the security is, here’s a clue: Ayala Land Premier is tapping a consultant to install high-tech security features. For instance, it is issuing what is called a V-pass, very similar to the E-pass, so that you can actually bar your car from exiting the village at a certain time. This will come in handy if you have teenage kids who love the night life and you want to impose a curfew on them.
If you want the living standards at Ayala Alabang but don’t want to live in a community this intimidatingly large (think 4,000 to 5,000 houses), Sonera may well be the place for you. "If you want to live in a similar area and with even higher standards, this is the place to be," Dayrit declares. "It’s more compact, more manageable, and you’ll probably know your neighbors more because you’re very few."
And the space is "real." Dayrit says with a sigh, "You see all these ads that promise wide, open spaces, but when you visit the place, you don’t see the promised space. Here, they’re really trying to give the homeowners a premium subdivision to live in. This does not just give you the feeling there’s space; it gives you the space, real space."
He adds with a glow in his eyes, "Definitely, I was inspired by the place when I first saw it. Everytime I build or design something, I always ask myself, ‘Would I like to live here?’ When I saw Sonera, I certainly liked what I saw."
Not only would Jojo Dayrit like to live here, he’d like to stay at Sonera forever. You would, too – if only to watch the sun rise, feel the breeze brush your cheeks, and savor your own slice of heaven.