In March 2009, 16 Swedish and exchange students from the Housing Development and Management (HDM) Department of Lund University came to the Philippines to do fieldwork for their Urban Shelter Course “Architecture in Extreme Environments.” They were tasked to design housing and neighborhood plans for low to middle income areas in Metro Manila. The next succeeding posts are essays from four of the students about their experience in the Philippines.

“There are many things you can’t learn any other way than through experience”

by Åsa Johansson

When we first arrived in the Philippines I had no idea what to expect. We were there to study architecture, and to carry out a housing project. But I was not even completely clear on what project we were supposed to develop, I did not know what living conditions we were going to see, how people would be able to help us, or what stories we were going to hear. The only thing I knew for sure was that this trip was going to be something completely different from anything I had ever done.

“I learned to listen to and interpret people with completely different backgrounds from myself”

I was one of 16 Swedish students who went to Manila to study the development of the megacity as well as the housing and living conditions of its inhabitants. We were well prepared before arrival with weeks of lectures and exercises, but as the cliché tells us, there are many things you can’t learn any other way than through the experience. So when we arrived in Manila and got settled at the University Hotel in Quezon City the only thing to do was to keep our eyes open for whatever might happen.

I finally came to focus my project on the relationship between density and open space. In such a dense city as Manila, where the land values are so high that families of five or eight persons live on less than 20 square meters and every open space is a spot to occupy, I saw the need to gain open public spaces by building three-dimensionally. I have  learned that it is problematic to design public spaces in the Philippines. The hot climate makes shade necessary to make outdoor spaces comfortable, and illegal settlements and the fear for crime calls for security measures that often conflict with the idea of public areas. I might be naive, but this believed need for security everywhere was something that really struck me as sad. In my mind the variety of spaces open to everyone is what gives a city life, and generates social networks and democratic platforms. But I have come to understand that there are issues, and I no longer believe that it will help just to provide public spaces. What needs to be done is find new ways to design public spaces to make them work, and to start a process of reclaiming the spaces that may have been lost.
Read more »