ARCH 63: Gawad Kalinga Waterlily Site Evaluation

As part of the requirements for our housing subject, we were to evaluate a self-help housing program site. Our group chose the Gawad Kalinga Waterlily site, located in Brgy. Aquino, Agdao, Davao City, Philippines. If you're interested to view detailed information and see pictures of the site, please click the following link:

http://gkwaterlily.blogspot.com/

The Architect's APEC Registry: a report and an opinion

THE ARCHITECT APEC REGISTRY

“The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) registry is an international forum composed of twenty-one member countries economies that have undertaken to act collectively to promote economic and technical cooperation within the Asia-Pacific region.” The APEC Architect Project or the Architect APEC Registry is one of the programs endorsed by the APEC forum as a means to achieve their goal (of collectively promoting economic and technical cooperation in the Asia-Pacific). The Architect APEC Registry was formed from the initiative of the APEC Human Resources Development Working Group (HRDWG). The HRDWG is among the many sectoral groups that were designed to oversee the implementation of APEC programs.

The Architect APEC Registry was designed to equalize the recognition of architects all over the Asia-Pacific Region. To do this, a specific set of qualifications were established, which are to be met by the said professionals. These qualifications shall homogenize the professional quality of Architects throughout the region, hence making it logical for these same architects to work as freely with the entire Asia-Pacific as their market---without having to worry about rules on citizenship and its relative effects on the practice.

“The APEC Architect Project builds on the World Trade Organization (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) principles for the progressive liberalization [italics mine] of trade in services through the reduction of regulatory restrictions, leading to reciprocal agreements between member economies.”

September 19, 2005, the APEC Architect Registry has been simultaneously released in all APEC-member countries. The launch of the APEC Architect Registry has been finalized through “four years of preparatory meetings held in Brisbane, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Taiwan, Hawaii, and Tokyo in which participating APEC countries agreed on the criteria by which a local architect may be evaluated as an APEC architect.” From the launching date, which is also the 4^th Anniversary of the first APEC Architect Registry Meeting, the APEC Architect Register has become operational and applications may be accepted.

In the Philippines, the APEC Registry is openly being supported by the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP), the duly-accredited organization for the profession which is also a member of the APEC Monitoring Committee. In the Philippine section, the committee is composed of the UAP, the Philippine Regulation Commission (PRC) and the Commission of Higher Education (CHED).

Edric Marco C. Florentino, fuap, UAP’s current national president refers to the registry as “…a response to the strategic priority of facilitating mobility of qualified persons through the mutual recognition of professional qualifications among countries… [that] breaks down a major barrier that prevents Filipinos from practicing architecture abroad.”

This “liberalization” of trade services also consequently means that upon implementation of this registry, together with the positive effects of opened opportunities of practicing abroad is also the negative aspect of having a wider range of competition among the architects of the participating countries.

Prof. Isidoro Malaque, III of the University of the Philippines in Mindanao, believes that although the above-mentioned negativity is possible, the APEC Architect Registry has more advantages. Prof. Malaque abides his stand by stating that the APEC Architect Registry has simply broadened the area for practice. He says that competition is a basic part of the profession and that any creative architect need not be intimidated by the qualifications set by the Registry. A good architect is good, regardless of nationality, culture, and race. Hence, if an architect has any faith in his talent, the width and the range of competition need not be an issue.

On the costs of the regulation, Prof. Malaque says that necessary fees would have to be paid for the regulation and the control of the profession and if these qualifications were of any value, these fees shall serve its worth. As a parting note, Prof. Malaque adds that in order to compete with a market of this range, the Filipino Architect should cease to complain and continue to strive for excellence, even in local projects.

The APEC Architect’s Registry is clearly a concrete step towards globalization and the deregulation of the Architecture Profession. The world is entering a phase wherein race no longer becomes a boundary. Largely, critics question globalization based on issues that it decreases uniqueness through lessening the impact of culture. I believe that culture is a deeply-rooted aspect of any identity and that it can never be completely uniform, despite globalization. I believe that globalization simply melts the barriers of race. It creates opportunities for the optimists.

Globalization pushes the world to push itself. In the case of the Architect APEC Registry, it is a challenge to every architect to produce works that has global quality. Knowing that the competition stretches throughout the Asia-Pacific Region, every architect would be compelled to deliver job qualities that can be at par with the rest of the world. Recognizing the argument of culture, which may argue that in the delivery of effective architectural designs, culture must be taken into consideration and what best way to tackle this than by employing an Architect from the same culture? True, that to answer cultural needs, an Architect must be familiar with the culture itself and simultaneously the Architect APEC Registry does not hinder this option. But culture cannot be used as an excuse to the opportunity of welcoming new ideas from different parts of the worlds, whose implementations would have otherwise been illegal if not for the regulations of the Architect APEC Registry.

For all the world and its vastness, every architect would have plenty of opportunities for himself. With the Architect APEC Registry, these opportunities will not be limited to our nationality or to the confines of our country. If an architect is as good as he should be his identity should not be a hindrance to the expansion of his creativity.

Reference:

http://www.apecarchitect.org.ph/newsbox.php

UP Mindanao naming mahal

Yep, we exist. :)
there's been this joke going around on campus... on whether or not we (*arki creatures from the UP Mindanao/ UP Min) exist. apparently, no one knows we do. well. most of what comprises this city doesn't.

"UP-Min" is always taken as UP-Mintal. It's not quite that. It's supposed to be standing for UP Mindanao. Mintal just happens to be the town where the sprawling acres of the university reside. It's a friggin' huge town way up in the boondocks. and im not exagerating. it's so organic that my younger cousin scampered her way out of university grounds. the cows must have scared her like hell. she wouldn't dare follow my footsteps.

though i admit that i wasn't exactly thrilled when i first came here (i kinda envisioned an urban kind of college life), i stood up for it. My aunts were scared for me. they insisted that i leave the school and enroll in another architecture program. My mother thought otherwise. "UP is UP", she said. whether or not it stood on a mountain or was squeezed inside a metropolis, it was supposed to be the same university. What mattered was that if and when i do graduate, i graduated from UP.

Personally, the UP thing thrilled me and i just haven't taken entrance exams to other universities. apprently, i felt stuck here or college would have to come a sem later. so i dealt with the cows and the jungles.

On my first night at the loft of my first apartment, i cried like a baby. i was scared like hell. I thought maybe i made a mistake. Weeks passed and my life started putting itself together. The next thing i know, im in my fourth regular year still inside the architecture program. next year, if i get the rest of this right, im a certified UP graduate. I reckon that might feel very good.

Thing is, in my four years, i got to see that UP wasn't as free as it seemed. Like any other cultures, it suffered the poison of discrimination. There's the arrogance that other universities may have had to suffer from us, the discrimination from mentors who expect the world out of us, and the discrimination from fellow UP brothers who haven't heard of us. No offense meant and seriously, no offense taken.

In my opinion it's natural for them to think we're inexistent. UP does tend to give birth to campusses in uknown, if not undiscovered, Philippine soil. As a university, we're young. And as students, we're passive. So i dont blame them at all. In fact, i love the anonymity.

The others-university thing, i don't give a damn about. let them think what they want to think. im just studying.

Ive done four years in this university, never having experienced it in another UP campus. Just plain UP Mindanao. Im a pure-bred, UP Min student. so far. To be honest, i wonder if we're any good. i wonder if we're anything compared to other arki students, outside the walls of this UP campus, UP students or not. I don't know what to think. I've immersed my self in this culture, where we cram and we have fun and we don't care. we live with movie marathons and popcorn and 24-hour plates and roving human sari-sari stores. Should I find my self outside this university, i wouldn't know if all of it that iv'e learned will be of any help to the kind of life i might live.

so the mentors who expect us to be geniuses, i dont blame them too. they're mentors. expecting too much is what they do, and of course making our lives more miserable. this is what they're good at. the work load they make us swim through... i seriously wonder if its even enough. if swimming through it would mean that we can perfectly survive the outside world as well. Honestly though, it can be too much. as in, cause-an-aneurysm-in-my-brain too-much. i miss what one would call a life, one that's about emotional matters and good time. then again, this is my life. Aneurysm-bursting workload is my life, for now. Plus, i get it: i get that our mentors are just worried for our own sake.

i love this life. though im living with cows and i share my living room with snakes and goat poop, i love this life. this life has been four years of mountainous peace, away from urbanism and techno stress. sure it's stressful. hello? the workload? believe me, it's stressful. I'm not exaggerating. "stressful" may even be the understatement of the year. but id pick jungles and goat poop over traffic blackened facial tissues all the time.

yes, we exist. and my point is? it doesn't matter if we don't exist to others. we exist enough to know that we're living lives that have a good chance at futures

[Date written: December 4, 2006
At present, the writer is now graduating the UP Mindanao Life and still hasn't tried studying in any other UP campus.]

Esther Homes: Development Oriented Residences for Un-fostered Children

The Esther Homes are unlike other orphanages in that it is designed for the optimized development of the un-fostered child. Research was conducted to determine the factors that should make the child's environment ideal for his/her biological, cognitive, socio-emotional, and economic growth.

These are the jpeg formats of my undergrad thesis presentation slides.