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space matters: mid-century chic

For some people, it is already a challenge to juggle their work and their family life. What more if your professional life is a network of different roles and activities? This is true for Dr. Gerard Lico who is an architect and art historian.

Gerard teaches at the College of Architecture in the University of the Philippines (UP) at Diliman and practices architecture as the Campus Architect of the same institution. He is the author of Edifice Complex: Power, Myth, and Marcos State Architecture (2003), the video series Audio-Visual Textbook of Philippine Architecture (2007), Arkitekturang Filipino: A History of Architecture and Urbanism in the Philippines (2008) and a series of interactive cd-roms such as  “Arkitekturang Filipino: Spaces and Places in History” (2003), “Through the Lens of an American Soldier” (2004), and “Building Modernity: A Century of Philippine Architecture and Allied Arts” (2008).

For his research work in architectural history and cultural studies, he was conferred the UP Gawad Chanselor Para sa Pinakamahusay na Mananaliksik (Arts and Humanities) in the years 2002, 2004 and 2005, installing him to its Hall of Fame. He was one of the recipients of the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) in 2004. In 2010, was awarded the title University Artist by the University of the Philippines and Gawad Chanselor’s Natatanging Guro, attesting to his excellence as an artist-academic.  Apart from his academic and professional practice, he currently holds office as the Vice Head of the National Committee on Architecture and Allied of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the Research Program Director of UP College of Architecture, the Curator of the Museum of Filipino Architecture in UP, and the Executive Director of the Professional Development Commission of the UAP. Simply put it, Gerard is a rare kind of contemporary Renaissance man.

How does a person like him keep his sanity? Apart from his natural talent for multi-tasking and pursuing several endeavors, I think having a relaxed environment in his home helps him take a break from his packed professional life and enjoy some quality time with his wife and two kids. Today, Gerard gives us a sneak peek of his 1950s-inspired home inside the UP campus. {Thank you very much Sir Lico!}

[The house was built in the 1950s as housing for the faculty of the University. Prior to my occupancy, the house was due for the wrecking ball given its dilapidated state. It was also a health hazard because of its asbestos roofing and tiles.]

[The house went through an overhaul to make it habitable. I retained the 1950s bungalow exterior but changed the internal configuration of the rooms to fit my 21st century lifestyle. As much as possible, the external skin is made of the original wooden material and stone works to stay true to the house’s architecture.

The idea was to recapture the mid-century nostalgia of the 1950s bungalow, somehow, staying true to the house’s history. For the interiors, our furnishings include reproductions of some of the period's popular upholstered chairs, such as Le Corbusier’s LC2 chairs and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Chair, together with a collections of no-nonsense ornamentation.]

[These are supplemented by framed archival clippings and photographs from the 1950s to reiterate a sense of longing for this glorious period which I became fascinated when I was child through my daily exposure to afternoon screenings of vintage Filipino movies on TV in the late 1970s. These photos and clippings are part of my personal collection which I accumulated since I was in grade school.]

Above & below: Gerard’s cozy entertainment room featuring his wide collection of CDs and DVDs.

[I have a personal affinity to the 1950s Filipino-Retro. Psychologically, Filipinos are uncomfortable to live in a modern minimalist environment that’s void of any form of history. This is because Filipinos are naturally sentimental who love to celebrate abundance. We collect objects and artifacts that attest watershed events in our lives and display these in our homes. That is why minimalism will not work with the Filipino because of the horror vacui, or the fear of empty spaces, embedded in our culture. I know this for a fact because my first house was a sterile minimalist which eventually became filled with objects I collected.]

conscious living: how green is green? (part one)

One of the difficulties encountered by designers in green design is specifying green building materials. How does one classify a material “green” in the first place? How does one measure the “greenness” of the material? How does one choose one green material over the other?

Luckily, a measuring system was developed to determine the “greenness” of materials – THE CARBON FOOTPRINT.

The carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions of a particular product. For simplicity’s sake, the greenhouse gas most referred to is the carbon dioxide (hence the term – carbon footprint).

To find out the carbon footprint of a particular material, one has to add all the CO² byproducts emitted during the extracting, harvesting, processing, transportation and installation of the building material. Fortunately, you don’t have to compute for yourselves, as most common building materials have already been derived. These figures can easily be found in the internet.

Next to wood, bamboo is the greener alternative.

One rule of thumb to gauge the amount of carbon footprint of a material is to discern the amount of energy used to process and transport it. The more energy was expended to create it, the higher is its carbon footprint number. That’s why wood is seen more as a greener material than steel. The amount of energy to smelt, shape and form steel is tremendously higher than harvesting wood. (Then of course, we’re talking about cutting trees. But that’s a topic for a different time.)

Also, the more distance the product has to travel from the factory to the site, the higher is its carbon footprint number. Say you found imported floor tiles from Europe that markets itself as green. It does not necessarily make it greener than local floor tiles, because it had to travel so far (and consume more amounts of fuel) to reach your space. Thus, one of the advocacies of green design is using locally produced materials. Most local materials have inherently lower carbon footprint due to their proximity to building sites.

The carbon footprint can also be used to assess one’s lifestyle.

Cascio’s cheeseburger footprint–do you eat green?

This carbon footprint calculator here can compute how much you’re consuming against the world’s average. Check it out and see if you’re really living a green life.

design trail: sariaya, quezon

The ancestral houses in Sariaya, Quezon have always fascinated Joyner Nuera, a UP Fine Arts graduate. For her thesis, she took photographs of these interesting homes in the place where she grew up and decided to share them with Design Folder.

Joyner says that what make these houses more interesting is how different they look from the rest of the houses in the area. Their designs were by the best architects of that time like Juan Nakpil and Andres Luna de San Pedro and are “showcases of the opulent lifestyle of old moneyed Sariayahins during the heyday of the coconut industry in the pre-War years.”

We’re glad to have discovered another town in the Philippines where architectural masterpieces are preserved. We hope we can visit Sariaya soon!

*additional info from sariaya.net, photographs by Joyner Nuera

space matters: a casa in metro manila

It all started with the acquisition of a comoda. The owner of this uniquely Filipino home started collecting antiques after falling in love with a single beautiful piece. We love how he turned his antique collection into a passion for recreating a 19th century Vigan-style bahay na bato right in the middle of the country’s busiest city.

Guided and inspired by Felice Sta. Maria’s Household Antiques and Heirlooms and Philippine Ancestral Houses by Fernando Zialcita and Martin Tinio, Jr., he collected materials and furniture from old houses in Ilocos and Binondo and from junk shops and garage sales to build his family’s dream house.

His wife left all design decisions to him but requested that he keep flamboyant and ornate carvings and details to a minimum. And it looks like he granted her wish. There are a number of intricate elements in the space but they don’t feel overpowering. The home is airy and light – true to the characteristics of an authentic bahay na bato.

There were just too many interesting details, like this medieval-looking Christmas décor in the picture below (inspired by Elton John’s collection of Philippine antique santos)  that fit the old world feel of the house, that we couldn’t fit them all in one post.

Watch out for the second part where we’ll show you the different furniture pieces and accessories that make this home unique. We’ll also share with you in the coming weeks this experienced homeowner’s guidelines on collecting and maintaining antiques.

i saw design: the mind museum

Last month, we attended a one-of-a-kind event at the NBC Tent. Kenji Williams, an award-winning director and classically trained violinist, with Ballet Philippines, wowed the 1500 plus audience with sights and sounds of Bella Gaia. Bella Gaia is an audio-visual trip showing the “beauty of the Earth as seen through the eyes of astronauts.”

The event was organized as a preview of The Mind Museum to the public.

The Mind Museum, “the first world-class science museum in the Philippines”, is set to open at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. The building is designed by a team of architects from Lor Calma & Partners, led by Ed Calma.

The audience at the NBC Tent, composed of designers, scientists, students, educators, sponsors and the press were shown 3D renderings of the different galleries that will be housed in the two-level structure.

Some of the main galleries are:

The Universe Gallery

The Earth Gallery

The Atom Gallery

The Life Gallery

Learn more about The Mind Museum here. The Design Folder team will be first in line when it opens in 2011.

*Photos and renderings courtesy of The Mind Museum

i saw design: ang pinakamagandang bahay sa balat ng lupa

Green Guide told us about this exhibit in UP Theater culminating the design competition entitled “Ang Pinakamagandang Bahay sa Balat ng Lupa” (The Most Beautiful House on the Face of the Earth). It showcases the winning designs for both the Student and Professional categories, as well as other remarkable entries. A joint project of the UP College of Architecture and Lafarge Semento Pilipinas, the competition aimed to redefine the concept of “the beautiful house”. With a focus on sustainable architecture, entries provided complete architectural designs for a medium-income house to be built on a 200-square meter lot inside the UP Diliman Campus.

Apart from the green strategies that the winning entries consciously incorporated into their respective designs, I also noticed that they all came up with interesting forms for the architecture of the house. I think it was from the book Green Architecture (sorry I forgot the author. Maybe you can help me, Green Guide?) where I read that green designs should not only propose sustainable design techniques and strategies, but should also provide a new face, a new aesthetics to accompany the philosophy. The new visual form makes it easier to promote to everyone the concept of sustainability by becoming a symbol for the message, as well as a source of inspiration.

(The winners for the Professional Category, from left to right: Borloloy House by John Patrick Buensalido, et. al.; EcoKubo by Nestor Arabejo, et. al.; and [X] House by Jose Eduardo Calma, et. al.)

I agree with the judges’ pick for the first place. What I love about its design is its unique form–unpredictable, sculptural, and organic.

(The winners for the Students Category, from left to right: Tulad ng Dati House by Laurence Angelo Angeles, et. al.; Pinakamagandang Bahay by Mark Angelo Virtucio, et. al.; and Cube-O House by Deneice Yuson and Zada Ong.)

Among the winning designs for the Student Category, I especially like the Cube-O House. I can imagine the trellis filled with flowering white thunbergia!

The PMBBL exhibit runs until Oct. 23, Friday, at the Forefront Gallery of the UP University Theater.

*images of the winning entries are from the PMBBL monograph