We enter the year with the highly-anticipated public opening of the monumental National Museum of Natural History, whose adaptive reuse design has been masterfully led by Dominic Galicia Architects and interior designer firm Periquet Galicia, Inc. We review the architecture and design of Manila’s newest major museum as it reaches completion.

Leandro Poco, principal of Leandro A. Poco & Associates, comprehensively dissects why urban planning has failed in Metro Manila and sets out an action plan for the future in order to make the city a healthier, more efficient and more sustainable place to live in.

Pritzker Prize-winning starchitects, fashion designers, celebrities and Philippine designers have produced Revolution Precrafted designer prefab homes for the ‘World’s First Liveable Art Park’ at Batulao Artscapes, Batangas. We take a closer look at how the design mantras of architects are used to sell this unprecedented form of residential living.

PLUS
Judith Torres reviews Formwerkz’s Veranda House in Singapore and finds that large processional spaces, clear sightlines, and small bedrooms make it a home where the family can be a family.

Kuala Lumpur-based architectural designer Ihsan Hassan weaves Fabian Tan’s Voilà House into the evolution of the Malaysian bungalow typology and sheds light on an emerging discourse in the city.

Aaron Quinto documents and reports the sense of community from acts of resistance, subcultural activities, and basketball at the Western Bicutan Tenement, Taguig.

What makes a building delightful? Is it ‘only’ that it functions well? How many buildings do we even know of whose parts attend to the comfort, wellness, and many needs of human beings?

This issue, Form Follows Values, is our first attempt in BluPrint to tackle the subject. It is not an easy one to have because it entails opening up about our values and examining whether our work has lived up to them. It means being able to talk about the stuff that really matters in our clients’ lives (not whether they want a six-car garage, roof deck, and infnity pool) and whether the architecture will help sustain and nurture these values.

The government says: “Build, Build, Build.” We say: “Design, Design, Design.” 

Considering the totality of what gets built in this country, good architecture is nothing short of a miracle. But the building boom of the past few years has yielded some miracles. There’s the NEX Tower, with its four-story lobby and 11-meter-high green walls, designed by SOM. There’s the Cor Jesu chapel, a collaboration of Kenneth Cobonpue and Zubu Design Associates. Then, there’s Budji+Royal Architecture+Design who have been successfully dealing with tremendous pressure to deliver on skimpy budgets and abbreviated timelines. What they are creating in just over a year’s time in New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac, is miraculous indeed, thanks to general contractor MTD Philippines’ resolve to finish months ahead of the 2019 SEA Games athletes’ arrival in November.
       
Meanwhile, the haste of the government’s infrastructure spending bonanza is not a little alarming. But if Secretary Mark Villar is to be believed, the DPWH is getting its mantra right: “Right Project, Right Cost, Right On Time.” Could we please add ‘Right Design’ to that mantra? Yes, we need bridges, roads, airports, seaports, and railways. And we need with equal urgency the discipline, the artistry, and the miracle of design to save our country from the blight that comes from growth without design.

Like a bridge, sustainability fashions a solution; it examines and critiques in order to identify what is lacking in the environment. Great sustainable designs strive for a universal consensus, just like how truth illuminates all gaps, margins, and recesses of human life. Peruse the pages of BluPrint’s recent issue and we learn about how Dominic Galicia has transformed the Hyundai Logistics Center into a clear testament to the positive consequences of planning for built environments, how Earl Forlales’ award-winning CUBO addresses the perpetuating homelessness and poverty in the Philippines, and the Dutch architecture firm UNStudio answer to the ever-growing issues surrounding densely populated cities. We also discover Vo Trong Nghia Architects’ consistent effort to create and incorporate verdure in homes, and how the House in Leiria by Aires Mateus prominently stands as a consequence of the confrontation between figures and configuration, all the while articulating light and space. Sustainability is not just a simple impression that gradually fades later on. It is a commitment to construct things that will endure, and to give these things a lasting significance.

In our continuing pursuit of promoting the best in design, BluPrint Magazine caps 2018 with an issue that delves deep into the process of creativity. With an extensive feature on popular brands—from a luxury timepiece to democratic furniture pieces and everything in between—we take you on an exciting journey marked with interesting milestones that outlines how these brands are leading their respective games. We round up a fresh selection of structures that are becoming distinct landmarks while making the skyline more dynamic. 

Putting together this issue is similar to the features that are contained herein. More than sharing with you the stories and the arresting visuals that anchor each, this issue is a product of a collective creativity from our editors, writers, photographers, and every single person who has helped to make this issue possible. And while our collective creativity is fuelled by our passion and dedication, we hope that this issue becomes a Catalyst of Creativity for you.

Being sustainable is more than just a byword for being green or environmentally friendly. In this issue, we explore how great sustainable solutions makes for good business neither compromising on design quality nor the state of our planet.

Paulo Alcazaren dissects the fallout and potential solutions for Boracay as an approach to all island tourism development. Robert Anthony Siy, City Transport Development and Management Officer of Pasig City, puts forward recommendations for a safer and more sustainable transport policy in Metro Manila. We also learn how the Escolta Block Party is reviving Manila’s old downtown opening up new possibilities across the heritage district.

Foster + Partners exemplifies the optimal balance between the environment, history, and culture of Singapore at the South Beach Complex. We take a look at how Menarco Tower is revolutionizing workplace well-being as the first registered WELL-certified building in the Philippines. 90 Design Studio continues its remodeling of the UP Baguio campus with the timber Teatro Amianan. Energy efficient lighting design is the focus for our visit to the new Mactan Cebu Airport. Also, a first look at AECOM's winning design concept for the Bagong Senado.

We bring to you an exclusive triple special report of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale: the Philippine Pavilion, ‘The City Who Had Two Navels’, curated by Edson Cabalfin at the Arsenale; interviews with Philippine Pavilion participants, artist Yason Banal and photographer Jinggo Montenejo; and an overview of the national pavilions from our ASEAN counterparts from Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore; with special thanks to the NCCA, DFA, and the Office of Senator Loren Legarda.

“Architecture arrives when our thoughts about it acquire the real condition only materials can provide,” Rafael Moneo aptly surmises, as we take a closer look at the building blocks of architecture in Volume 2—materials. In this issue we have compiled the latest breakthroughs in architectural materials as well as projects using traditional materials in refreshingly new ways.

Cover image: Diamond Island Community Center, designed by VTN Architects, photographed by Hiroyuki Oki.

#BP_MaterialMatters #BluPrintKnowsDesign #BluPrint 


In BluPrint's latest issue, our rally cry is: Think Big, Design Small. Don't get us wrong; this is not an issue on tiny houses. Like the environmentalists' Think Global, Act Local, the motto Think Big, Design Small advocates embracing the concerns of the many and dreaming big—so big we want to make the world a better place. It means forsaking the non-essential, the pompous, and the profligate in order to minimize our demands on the environment. 

We cast the net wide and gather projects by firms from across Southeast Asia: Formwerkz and RT+Q from Singapore; Fabian Tan and Jun Ong from Malaysia, andramatin and Tan Tik Lam from Indonesia; and LINO Architecture from the Philippines. We dissect long-held standards of proportion; walk through Ortigas with Roy Villarosa, Julia Nebrija, and Jed Gomez; and seize the day with ONG&ONG; Manila's Michael Cu Fua.

BluPrint Volume 4 2017 is available digitally via the Flip100 app and Magzter. Grab your print copy from bookstores and newsstands nationwide.


It's all about stepping up our design game in BluPrint Volume 4 2017. The competitiveness issue zeroes in on where we are and plans to achieve our goals for ASEAN integration. Also under the spotlight are the two iconic design competitions of the year: the Supreme Court and the BCDA. We chime in on why we need more National Artists for architecture, upgrading architecture education in the University of San Carlos, and the tyranny of memory in design. It's in the nature of games to produce only one champion and those who do not place have a whole new season to train for. But if competition brought out the best in us every time, then win or lose, we win!

BluPrint is breaking down walls, all but inevitable at the dawn of cross-border practice. In this issue, we bring you inside stories of design and architecture projects around Asia. Design Systems crafts the total package—architecture, interiors, and branding strategy—of Hong Kong's enigmatic TUVE Hotel. Shanghai-based Neri&Hu; completes their first Philippine project, The Pig & Palm, inspired by the principal's hometown Cebu. Seshan Design references Mark Twain for an unconventional F&B pair in Kuala Lumpur, Huckleberry and Skullduggery.  The spice trade and disco nights of Singapore's riverside roots inspire The Warehouse Hotel by Asylum and Zarch Collaboratives. Our First Principles section goes borderless too as we pepper the entire issue with design aphorisms. BluPrint Volume 3 2017 also includes projects by Arkinamix, Buensalido+Architects, Park+Associates, CRL Designs, Electrolychee, and Tad Ermitaño. 

Art and architecture take center stage in BluPrint's latest issue. We bring you different iterations of the longstanding (and sometimes complicated) relationship expressed in our built environment. RT+Q counterintuits the residence of a three-generational family and their Southeast Asian art collection. Filipino artists enjoy more exhibition spaces along Pasong Tamo Extension with the new Silverlens Galleries by Anna Sy and Aphro by Jagnus Design Studio. Ramon Orlina sculpts a prismatic altarpiece and Benji Reyes crafts Tahanan Bistro. Is architecture art? Tobias Guggenheimer argues why it isn't. Allies or adversaries? Distinct or the same? We leave you to navigate. One thing's for sure: there's a lot to see along the way.

The clean slate: isn't this what most of us wish for in a year's beginning, or any beginning for that matter? But what happens when you're not given the opportunity to start from scratch? Enter Renovation, Retrofit, and Reuse--three handy R's helping architects and designers bust through the rubble. In BluPrint's first issue for 2017, Jim Caumeron guts a cookie cutter house to build a new core and Budji+Royal takes over a project to transform it into a tropical haven. Heim Interiors realizes a nitpicker's dream while Studio Ong shares some lessons on renovation. Some sprucing up also happens in Recto's Laperal Apartments, the old Tutuban Station, and the former Jaro city hall in Iloilo. With ingenuity and spunk, buildings can go from all kinds of awry to every kind of right.

BluPrint travels to Iloilo to check up on some of the most exciting heritage conservation projects happening in the Queen City of the South. For the cover story, we tell how an article by BluPrint five years ago moved Angelicum College’s school director to buck tradition and begin restoring Andrés Luna de San Pedro’s Beaux-Arts Lizares mansion in Jaro. In this issue, we also shine the spotlight on the excellent work being done by the Iloilo Cultural Heritage Foundation, a private organization, on heritage buildings along Calle Real hoping that this initiative would inspire heritage property owners in other cities to follow Iloilo's example. While we don’t hold back on praise and recognition, we also don’t mince words when we call out for the immediate rehabilitation of some of Iloilo’s remaining colonial churches now ravaged by age and neglect. Go to your favorite bookstore and grab BluPrint’s third special issue for this year!

Hazards are natural. Disasters are not. Hazards turn into disasters when death and destruction occur as a result of human factors such as land use and architecture. When the government fails to plan, developers short-change their clients with substandard design, and architects neglect basic principles of resiliency, life and property are lost. In this issue, BluPrint explores the relationship between design and disasters. On the cover is BAAD Studio’s intensity-9 proof house, built on the rolling hills of Antipolo. We also dissect Buensalido + Architects’ Project Smart Home in flood-prone Marikina, and why potential buyers are turned off despite its sensible flood-proof features. Reporting from the front, UN-Habitat urban planner David Garcia recounts how Guiuan, the first town ravaged by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, managed to get back on its feet one year after and pulled off a successful zero-casualty response to Typhoon Hagupit in 2014. Grab a copy of BluPrint’s latest issue, out in magazine stands! Digital copies can be downloaded via Magzter.

In this age of climate change and rising global temperatures, Filipino architects can't afford to be passive about passive cooling. It is such a basic principle of architecture that designing poorly-ventilated structures could only come from two things—gross ignorance and indifference. On the cover is BAAD Studio's Opposite House, a cool tropical home with no pretensions. The firm’s principals, Benjee Mendoza and An Bermejo, provide their clients what many of their contemporaries and elders neglect—the most basic, physiological need of relief from physical discomfort.

Also in this issue is BluPrint’s exclusive feature on the rehabilitation of an old war tunnel hidden under the modern and bustling Bonifacio Global City, and an in-depth interview with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, whose body of work demonstrates an exceptional level of craftsmanship guided by a profound respect and reverence for nature’s elements. 

Grab a copy of BluPrint’s latest issue out in bookstores and newsstands.

The world changes too fast. In today’s competitive business environment, architects don’t have to do anything wrong to become obsolete and fail. If you stay stagnant and refuse to learn, not only do you miss out on opportunities to make it big, you’re also paving the way to your own demise.

In the second installment of “The Business of Design” series, we gather best practices in running a thriving design business and ask industry leaders to share how they took their companies to the next level--from expanding to specialized services to collaborating with foreign consultants and practicing in a borderless world.

To all the young architects just cutting their teeth in the profession and those who want to grow their firms, this issue is for you! 

Grab a copy of BluPrint’s Special Issue 2 in bookstores and newsstands near you. For deliveries, contact Circulation & Logistics 0932-8777492 (for sun) or 0999-8847107 (for smart)

Despite online shopping, physical stores are here to stay. But the challenge is immense for designers to step up their game and think of innovative ways by which they can make stores extra special. In this issue, BluPrint asks retailers and designers: What makes for a memorable customer experience?


Also in this issue is L.V. Locsin's Philippine pavilion for the country's historic first participation to the Venice Biennale. Like Locsin, BluPrint believes in the role of heritage architecture in the formation of a nation’s identity. This is the good fight. This is #TheNewPH


Grab a copy of BluPrint’s latest issue out in bookstores and newsstands. For delivery and back issues, contact Circulations at 0932 877 7492 or 0999 884 7107.

With ASEAN integration already in effect, the local architecture industry needs entrepreneurs and business generators who will create jobs rather than grunts needing the jobs, in order to stay competitive. The first of two parts, “The Business of Design” issue gives architects all the damn good advice they’ll ever need to start and sustain their own firm, because being content to work for other firms just won’t cut it anymore—it’s time for Filipino architects to grab the reins.

Our Streets are killing us, Vision 2030, Shabestan house, Graphic Design, Education Commentary, Urban Planning, ?Heritage conversation, Urban Design, Design Heritage and more...

SINGAPORE'S ONG&ONG - ASEAN domination via XD and 360 Design.

BE GRAND RESORT IN BOHOL - Alcazaren conjures a beach experience without a beach.

TAMBULI RESORT IN CEBU - Arkinamix's tree-hugging retreat---literally...

Competing on the World Stage, Jose Yulo's Hacienda Community House and Mecha Uma win praise at the World Architecture Festival and World Interiors Festival 2015. 

BluPrint's third special issue collects 30+ unbuilt designs that could be a glimpse of the future. These unrealized projects represent the aspirations of their authors for a built environment that raises the bar for Philippine architectural design. In addition to these unbuilt designs are three future projects by Filipino architects recently shortlisted at the prestigious World Architecture Festival, whose feat further cements the idea that Filipino architecture is indeed world-class. 

Grab a copy and see these visions of an alternate reality for yourself.

BluPrint's latest issue gives you the first look at Jorge Yulo's Hacienda Community Center, one of the Philippines' four shortlisted projects for the 2015 World Architecture Festival. The rest of the issue takes on the concept of genius loci or "spirit of place." Interviews with placemakers Paulo Alcazaren and Augusto Villalon, and an essay by urban planning scholar Jed Gomez, help shed light on a concept that most architects and urban planners find difficult to define.

How are offices being designed these days? BluPrint tackles this question and shows how a company's culture dictates and shapes the design of the work place, featuring offices in fields like telecommunications, design and advertising. An in-depth survey of local architecture firms on the principles that guide their operations further shows the importance of designing work spaces that reflect the company culture and values.

BluPrint maps out the direction of Architecture Education in the Philippines as seen through the best undergraduate theses nominated by the country’s top architecture schools. Critical essays by respected names in the academe and profession examine the competitiveness of our design curricula in light of the impending ASEAN integration, and call for needed improvements responsive to the needs of the 21st century.

Eco vs. ego: it's a question that architects today must ask themselves, as the need for environment-sensitive architecture is growing by the day. In its latest issue, BluPrint tackles the idea of ecotourism, designing with the environment and community in mind, and prioritizing performance over form. 

Recognizing the country’s leading architect as they name the 20 best bets for the future of Philippine Architecture.

How do you embrace the future? We welcome the age of technology this month as we marry inherited wisdom with the state-of-the-art.  Read more about exhilarating, adaptive structures worth visiting, like the National Museum of Natural History and the Globe Telecom building.

The National Museum of Natural History - The most ambitious retrofit and adaptive reuse the country has ever seen.

Volume 4 2019

Volume 3 2019

Volume 2 2019

Volume 1 2019

Volume 4 2018

August 2018

May 2018

February 2018

October 2017

Volume 4 2017

June 2017

March 2017

February 2017

November 2016

October 2016

Volume 04, 2016

BluPrint is the definitive authority for Architecture and Design in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It heralds the best and most relevant design projects, products, technologies, and solutions to continuously inspire the design community across market segments.

Special Issue 2

Special Issue 1 2019

Special issue Issue 2, 2018

Special Issue 1 2018

BluPrint Special - The Power Issue

BluPrint Special: The Heirs Issue

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BluPrint - February 2018

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