Tolentino, Jerome

3AR-6

Informality and Community-Driven Design

Ar. Audrey Santos

Housing in the Philippines have not been given enough attention and because of that,
many informal settlements have formed in the country; especially in Metro Manila. Decent housing
is a basic necessity that a person should have and at this time, having at least a roof over your
head is not enough.

Ar. Santos’ talk gave me a whole new different perspective on how we should approach
housing in the Philippines. Because not only should we consider their needs, but their wants as
well. As I’ve read before, when designing public spaces, we architects should involve the
community that we are designing for, because after all, the space is for them. In the talk, Ar.
Santos points out three key points, importance in Education and Family, Social Life Structure,
and being Recognized as Partners and not as charity. I agree with all three of them especially on
being Recognized as Partners. Ar. Santos points out that what the government has set as
standards for housing does fully cater to what the people needs. They’re there as a bare minimum
and they don’t provide comfort for the communities they are designed for. Just as she said, we
should design for these communities in a new perspective and not just adhere to what has been
set for us. Different communities require different needs and I think that flexibility should be a
main principle in our standards when it comes to community design.

Disaster Resiliency in the post-pandemic world

Ar. Vinson Serrano

The term Resiliency is a very common term for us Filipinos. Whenever a problem struck,
resiliency comes into mind, where we see Filipinos working around the problem to do what they
need to do. Now, as the pandemic hit, multiple problems arose, not only from the pandemic itself,
but also from underlying problems that we failed to tackle. One of these is our preparedness when
it comes to a global pandemic such as Covid-19. Ar. Serrano stated that the COVID-19 pandemic
is something that we weren’t prepared for. Many people lost their lives, and others their livelihood.
He also emphasized that “destructions are inevitable;” there’s no possible way that we can always
be ready for anything, therefore, we must respond to it in a way that we can assure the safety of
our clients, as architects.

Ar. Serrano talks about how the new normal prohibited us of how we normally do things.
It made us realize how we took the simple things such as a simple walk outside for granted. It
also showed the flaws in our architecture as well as what we lacked. At the start of the pandemic,
we were forced to adapt to what was given to us. Changes to our lifestyle such as maintaining
social distancing and avoiding going outside were needed to control the spread of the virus. As
future architects, new considerations should be made for designs for not only for the comfort of
its users but to also lessen the prohibitions for problems that may come in the future. Our designs
should now be flexible as well.