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With the ECQ extended until May 15, we thought of using this time to re-examine and reflect on the current state of our built environment, learn where we went wrong, extract what we did right, and re-imagine it with a fresh and optimistic perspective. We would like to introduce a new campaign โ #EnhancedExplorations.
With some proposals being hypothetical, and some being real projects on our drawing board, all of these would be about questioning our current reality, exploring different possibilities with the spirit of experimentation, with the ultimate goal of using architecture as a conduit and platform to make our lives better, to preserve our planet, and to build balanced cities that strive for the greater good.
With this campaign, we hope to stimulate you and the community at large, to re-think about the role of architecture in the larger scheme of things. We hope to inspire you to think beyond the current limitations and capacities of architecture as a practice and a body of knowledge, and perhaps even contribute to this effort, by applying this mode of thinking in your practice as well. With these explorations, we hope to provide versions of a future that we can look forward to, and work towards โ something that we all need as we go through this pandemic together.
To kick off the campaign, we would like to share with you a conceptual visioning exercise for a Philippine City of the Future.
In 2019, Buensalido+Architects (in collaboration with JLPD) was invited by Propel Manila, to be part of BCDAโs Corporate Planning Summit. While Propel talked about the importance of culture in companies and brands and how it can be applied to cities, we were asked to imagine an urban city of the future, integrating best-practices of city-designing that would encompass multiple generations. They sought to see how bleeding-edge creativity can be applied to how architecture can serve profit, people, planet in sustainable ways โ with focus on the Philippine setting.
Our proposal focuses on the following key ideas :
EQUILIBRIUM CITIES (not just smart)
The idea is to design, build, and operate a city like Noahโs ark - where all the key components of sustainable urban living is present, and where all most resources are sourced, produced, consumed, recycled on site. Horizontal spread is limited but vertical zoning is exploited โ physically separating people from vehicles and services with an elevated ground plane, and even bringing up to the buildings other functions that used to only be on ground โ energy production, food production, and others.
PROGRESSIVE PRIMITIVISM
A shift in world systems that allows peopleโs lives to continue to improve progressively (enhancing basic, psychological, and self-fulfillment needs), but drastically reduces the resource consumption of the process to do so, way below than what the earth can reproduce, and just enough to meet the need. During the primitive era, we hunted everyday, only hunting what we needed for a day. Our rate of consumption of resources was so much less than the worldโs ability to replenish its resources.
MAGNIFIED SHARED ECONOMY
Nowadays, we live in a shared economy โ Uber, Angkas, Air B&B (insert others); we co-live, we-co-work, What else can we share???
What if each city had a central commissary that could supply all itโs needs? What if the city developers were required to pre-design, manufacture, and supply majority of the building components to building developers? These building components โ could be rooms, walls, fenestrations, balconies, will all be modular; and the building developers will be required to build their buildings using these modular parts! They should be able to customize it in their own creative way to attain a unique identity per building, exactly like how LEGO works.
DIY
DIY is a very old adage, but still very much relevant. What if buildings are required to produce, say 70% of itโs own food requirements โ livestock, vegetables, fruits would be required to be integrated into the building design, either placed horizontally, or even vertically within the building itself? What if the remaining 30% is supplied by the central city commissary? What if it supplied 100% of all the restaurants in the city?
HYPER-LOCAL
We are expressive, and so should our architecture be. We are optimistic as seen in our festive and celebratory nature, and so should our architecture be. We need to personalize our experiences of things, and because of the customizable modularity of the buildings of the future, perhaps, it could be the future of Contemporary Philippine Architecture as well.
Think of Wakanda โ an imagined city that exists in the cross section of technology, nature, and culture, a place that puts the priority of its people above all else. Perhaps this is the ideal Philippine City of the future.
#ContemporaryPhilippineArchitecture #RandomResponses #Filipinnovative #Architecture #ArchitecturePh #PhilippineArchitecture 6YaDLTxpzaM |