20 Miguel Lorenzo I.

Peralta

Due: March 14, 2018

“Architecture and Cultural Identity: The Self”

“Finding ‘Filipino’ in a Café”

According to a recently-given design brief for my design class, Arch 20, I have just

corresponded with royalty regarding designing a café on top of a hill in a tropical island with

a dying coffee industry.

Upon receiving this new plate, I was at first scared of working on it during sleepless

nights and trying to finish it on time, but in thinking about it after a while, the prompt almost

gave me excitement. There was a lot of freedom in creating the design, so I know I cannot

waste this opportunity to create something I would want to see and use for myself.

I wanted to make a design that would stand out. However, as I continued thinking

about possible designs, I remembered something from the documentary series “The Secret

Life of Buildings” presented to us during class: architecture is not about being bold, trying to

make a statement and showing off an architect’s skill and brand. Architecture is about

expressing culture and creating a social place for play, for the people.

Because architecture is about creating spaces for the people, architecture must also in

some way, shape or form, represent the people. This relates to how “architecture is always

created, perceived and experienced in relation to the self,” as discussed in class. As architects

create forms and structures, they also create representations of ourselves and our culture,

shaping what people of that culture and social background need in a space, as well as how

they will experience that space.

 How, then, do buildings express humanity and a sense of the Self? Much like our own

experience, buildings can express the Self through body, gender, emotions and spirit. These

can be used to not only express oneself, but a culture and a society.

Knowing all this, how can the design of a three-story café on a hill of a tropical island

express Filipino culture?

One of my design concepts for this café is to make it boxed-shape, with only two

clearly-divided rooms: the bathroom and the dining area with a kitchenette and counter. A

few steps in the middle would serve as the entrance, with the kitchenette and counter in the

center being the first thing a person would see as he / she enters. The bathroom would be

beside the entrance, especially because it is part of Filipino culture that the bathroom be near

entrances and exits. The lack of divisions in the space makes the space more open, which can

relate to how social spaces are created, especially by Filipinos.

One of the most important choices in creating a design that expresses Filipino culture

is to make it a socio-petal space, where the design triggers the gathering of people. In Filipino

culture, one of the most common social events in everyday life would be in dining together

with others. This is why one of my design concepts for the café is to have dining spaces all

around the structure surrounding the counter and kitchenette, which is in the middle. These

dining spaces can encourage more social interaction between people. This can also be related

to how Filipinos tend to be uncomfortable with very empty spaces (Perez, p.15). Instead of

just having a viewing platform around the dining area, the viewing platform can become part

of the dining area, which, in turn, makes the viewing platform a social space as well.

These dining spaces would then have an open view of the outside from that top of the

hill. This open view would relate to how open Filipinos can be, especially during festivities

and social events when dining with others. This also represents Filipinos’ love for a wide and
open view of the surroundings to feel one with nature and to make use of the vantage point of

the area. From personal experience, I believe most Filipinos would agree that it would be a

shame not to see the sea, the beach and the forests while dining in a place very high up on a

tropical island.

The openness of the dining area would not only create a socio-petal space for its users

but also provide natural ventilation in the process.

All of these relate to how a space can be related to the Self in terms of form, or body.

This body can be used as a means to create and form the spirit of place, which, in the case of

a café, is to be a social space amidst the given view of nature. This openness in the social

space can also evoke possible emotions in a user, such as the festivity of a Filipino during

social interactions in this social space. The surrounding view of nature gives the place a sense

of home for a Filipino, especially since the Philippines is also a tropical country that still aims

to use nature in architecture to feel like the calm provinces, despite the urbanization in many

areas of the country.

One thing I realized as I tried to come up with design concepts for the café was how

Filipino they already initially seemed. While I was thinking of designs, I was not consciously

trying to make it feel Filipino. I was also thinking about how I would have wanted the café to

be in the first place. This just shows how no matter what designs an architect may come up

with, consciously or subconsciously, his or her own culture would be expressed in the design.

This is especially true when the architect is really designing for his or her self, and in turn,

expressing the Self through their preferences in design. These preferences in design would

appear no matter how much he or she controls his or her biases, because these preferences are

influenced by the culture that the architect grew up in. These socio-cultural influences from
the architect’s culture would influence his or her worldview and design in house form

(Rapoport p. 51), and in turn, would reflect and express the Self in those designs.

This is the beauty of architecture. While people can use architecture to express a

culture through its design and form, architecture also expresses the architect’s own culture in

the designs and forms they create, no matter if it is a conscious decision or not. We can still

find humanity in a building, even in a café, if the architect uses his or her own experience and

socio-cultural background to create it.

However, that does not mean an architect must show off by expressing a brand or skill

through unusual and manipulative ways, as architecture is still about creating a social space

for the people. The focus of architecture is still how it will be used by people as a

comfortable and useful social space.

The expression of the Self is not in bragging one’s skill as an architect but

disorienting or manipulating its users in the process. The expression of the Self is seen

through people, their culture, and socio-cultural background. It is in what architects create

that we can see their culture, (and in turn, their people’s culture) and what affected them to

make the design as such.

We can see the humanity of the architects through the form they create. We can see

the humanity the architects placed and expressed in that form. That is how a building and its

architect can express the Self, to appear human, and perhaps, even Filipino.
REFERENCES:

Perez, R.D. III. Philippine Architecture. Internet journal article found in National Library of

the Philippines.

Rapoport, Amos. (1969). “Socio-cultural Factors and House Form.” House Form & Culture.

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Edwards, P. (Creator), & L. Wardle (Director). (2011). The Secret Life of Buildings.