Congratulations! and the push for Local Design

Congrats to the 4 Board Topnochers from UST! Sana tuloy-tuloy na yung
streak natin of number 1s. I really do hope that this signals a
renaissance for Architecture in UST, and in the Philippines in general.
Although most people would dismiss the board exam as an exercise in
pure memory work and bara-bara drafting skills, it still counts for
bragging rights among the school design studios, mas lalo sa
workforce... where its been said that people from UST are the
artists/designers, while people from UP are the researchers,
managers... despite the higher passing percentage for UP (mainly
because only a handful take the course there) UST is still considered a
design powerhouse, dishing out the likes of Lindy Locsin and Bobby
Manosa, along with the current crop of professionals.



I hope that foreign-trained/schooled grads and experienced alumni go
back and whip the studios back in shape and get us back on the cutting
edge, and finally reclaim Filipino Architecture and Design for
Filipinos by Filipinos... and not by some snotty, over-charging,
racist, red-neck foreign consultant.



Its about time we also acknowledge our mistakes too as designers...
particularly with this crop of current practitioners... the cheezy
post-modernism/classicism, the harsh brutalism, the commercialist
"jollibee"-wings and colors... and the big-box mall, along with the
suburbanization and high-end re-urbanization of our CBDs are all
brought about by our blind following of foreign trends and styles.



Let us learn to be humanist designers, solving problems, working with
our climate, CONTEXT, culture, technology, budget and people. Let us
learn to sift what we see in the mags and abroad. Its time we reclaim
the professionalism and design excellence spearheaded by the first
waves of Pinoy Modernists.



More than anything... let's prove this to the clients... to our
customers and to the general public. This is about enhancing their
comfort levels, whether or not they feel good about going into and
using your building, and whether or not its worth investing on you to
design it. We've let the clients down by shoving shitty adaptations
down their throats. Its been years of shit and suffering for the
industry as a whole, and everyone's complaining about it... but at the
end of the day, more than the quality of the service we render as
professionals, its about the quality, excellence and adaptability of
our finished product... our designs, that will enable local builders
and developers to trust us again.