housing muse

excuse me while i endlessly talk about housing.

yesterday there was a very violent demolition in Metro Manila. it was the first thing i saw on TV when i checked for local news this morning, dismissing it as something that concerns, yes, GUATEMALA of latin america.

while alejandro aravena (via elemental) busied himself with designing houses for the poor in Monterrey, Mexico, our experts here are busy copying shirt designs from other more famous blogging architects (thinking wearing architecture shirts is equal to bragging rights), and copying "modern" housing design for rich, OFW clients.

Photo by Ramiro Ramirez. Accessed from here.

(incidentally, my favorite latin american architect shares the same first name with my latest favorite latin american urban landscape photographer. he has a project that document empty, abandoned urban spaces, abandoned architecture. someday, Iloilo, someday)

Today, i came across Cartagena's Landscape as Bureaucracy project, a sort of documentary, in his own words, "exploration of the underlying structures surrounding the dream of owning a house in xxi century Mexico." the blogpost is entitled Living in Subrbia. and suddenly i don't feel very alone in my (inner) battle against suburban living.

(I first read about him in a Domus Magazine feature about his Carpoolers project, while reading through resources on urban bike commuting. I was also forwarded by this amazing project of Diane Meyer about carless people in LA. it's published online.) 

It has always been easy talking about these issues because i am conveniently afforded with a partner who, worked in the same field, and who also advocates for social and urban justice. I don't mean easy = always agreeing, but it was always nice to argue with people who look at things at your level, or at the very least, argue objectively. This past months, the conversations at home revolved around urban commuting. My husband is supervising a 7-million peso worth of residential building in the suburbs. There is no public transport to that place and we don't have a car. "Tomorrow, I will get a bike," he said.

It's easy talking about this to my immediate family, but it remains a little off to my parents. The fact that I am paying rent for a house that shelters eight people is considered a wasteful habit because i could have used the money to pay off the mortgage for a house in the subdivision. I've said it before that getting a house is not as easy as ABC because i do not have a large sum of money to pay off the downpayment. What disappoints me (a little, just a little) is that it seems both my parents still romanticize the idea of suburban/subdivision living. I can't really blame them. Their productive years were the golden age of "subdivision", gated communities, homeowners association, and I think i know now how it feels to actually see something materialize. I remember feeling poor because my chidlhood address did not contain details like phase number, block number, lot number. In fact, remembering it now, our house address lacked any identifying numbers, to begin with. It was just identified by our surname. I don't blame them, my father especially. (somehow disappointments have its favoritism and this time it favors my father.)  He knows social justice but if he can afford a house inside a gated community, he will go for it. He's done it, actually. Sad to say, the city where that property is located has turned into one of the most dense, most unlivable cities in the country. You get out of the subdivision gates, you die, because outside, it's practically a free way. The frustrating part is, my father (and my mother, and many other people) does not see it that way. Mobility for him is always an issue of car ownership. It doesn't matter if you live in a place that does not promote walkability -- who said you have to walk to your destination? Buy a car, problem solved. But if walking can never be one's option to get from point A to B, i don't see the point in staying. And also because suburban living has long failed in materializing the dream--or at least that's what the people in develop countries think. Many Filipinos still root for it--single detached freestanding houses with lawns and carports for the SUVs, or a family car, if you may. While the develop countries are now rethinking of ways to redevelop suburbia into a more transit-oriented community, we are still wallowing the the perceived novelty of living within the safe walls of subdivisions. (is it ever possible for Filipinos to at least get hold of new ideas on time, and not a century later?)

before i get misconstrued, walking from Point A--one's suburban house to point B--the pool or the strip mall in the village complex does not constitute walkability to me.

In a way, I could say that our distorted thoughts were a major driving force that has kept us (my husband and I) from really going for IT; from getting that pigeon hole in the suburbs. Partly also because, i am resistant to having a go at it, and i feel that I do not deserve the harassment that is inevitable in the process of acquiring a house. in the suburbs. In a way, it is our fault because we are so willing to be part of our own experiment, to learn by living. We want to learn about the city, we live in the city. We're secret masochists. Or maybe because we're after branding ourselves urbanites--the lure of "sophistication", the snobbery of the brand. urbanite. Maybe we are. Maybe I am.

I honestly don't mind living in city tenements if they are designed to be something very livable and do not repeat the failure of the Projects. As introvert and as private as i may be, I really don't mind. In fact, while i was sought for opinion by my husband when he worked in his first ever (and hopefully not the only) social housing/development design  competition entry, all of what i gave were opinions based on what and how i imagined myself living in one of those socialized housing. Many designers only imagine themselves living in suburban smart mansions with big lawns. This is where the failure of the design profession begins. I don't think i have to explain my point. Every one can always argue that it is never the obligation of designers to provide social justice. But tell me, how many designers can actually afford to live in suburban smart mansions with manicured lawns?

Here's the scan of "Suburban Flop"  and a screen grab from Anonymous Philippines, just in time for the action in Occupy Spain because i don;t know anything better to end this post if not with this.

i didn't know teenage fanclub could scare a toddler.

so i am using Near You as my current ring tone just because.
then one night, while his dad and I watched Wild Bill and Le Toddler worked on some writing exercises by the dining table, something happened.
(it is good to note that Le Toddler was, or we were, within arm's reach.)
our house was quiet except for the british accented conversations from the movie we were watching. then suddenly my phone rings. i didn't actually hear it. i didn't know it was ringing.
Le Toddler stopped dead in the middle of his the quick brownfoxjumps over the laz dog, frozen. He frantically searched for the source of the weird sound.
then 10 seconds into the intro he jumped out of his chair and ran to where i was splayed, on the mattress on the floor, scratching my belly. Le Toddler's eyes bulged with fear, they nearly jumped out of their sockets. it was clearly a face of an very very horrified child awaiting for an impending boogeyman attack.

then 12 seconds into the song, the banging of the drums became much clearer, that's when i knew.

Near You just scared the shit out of our toddler. (it's actually a lovely, very positive song.)

best comedy night of my life.

house musings

Also, this one.

Studio Tacloban.
Photo by Ronnie Ramirez from the Domus site, here.

this one is not actually a house. it's a studio built by Scandinavian architecture and planning students/interns.

To quote the news report from the site Project Tacloban:

"Architecture students Ivar Tutturen, Trond Hegvold and Alexander E. Furunes have initiated and built a study centre in Tacloban, the Philippines, in collaboration with NGO Streetlight and the local community. Completed in summer 2011, the study centre serves children in the seawall slum community of the city of Tacloban, and was built by the architects and local families."

I was very much impressed by these people. The fact that they are interns are able to set up a studio and work in places you'd not even find in the map is just simply amazing. I'm a little jealous.

My art teacher and friend will be done with his studio before the year ends. Since the studio was formally drawn on paper at the time my husband and I (if it's still not obvious, we are art classmates, just as we were urban planning classmates years ago, proof enough that we are THAT inseparable) we're at the peak of our apprenticeship under Art Teacher. Art Teacher invites husband to brainstorm and has been given free access to poke his head at the site once in a while, just to check on the  construction details. So this Studio Practice is "our" work in progress, on a physical, educational, theoretical level. We're expecting societally (it's a word yes, click on it to see the link to meriam-webster) we'll make relevant progress. i'd like to believe that's the ultimate goal of our project.

Anyhow. what i meant to say here is that when i first saw the Workshop Project (Studio Tacloban), i thought "this could very well be a house for working class families like ours." It's impossible.
I know. It's too cheap and made of many lights materials ,too radical to even be considered by close-minded developers as a house fit for a subdivision.



FIN.

house

August 2012 marked our 6th year in the rented apartment.

Living in rental houses is not a very common set-up in a typical Filipino family. more often than not, parents who work in the City would leave their children to wherever they permanently reside and rent a bedspace (or a cheaper, smaller apartment that might not be very accommodating to little children) to save on bills. I am used to the rental set-up. I've been living in rented houses/spaces since i started high school (7th grade). My husband and I wanted to stay in the community for the convenience of everything -- it's near the farmer's/public market, near a grocery store, near a laundry shop, near a mall, near a highway going to the airport, near the studio of my art teacher, near the yoga center. It's also one ride away from my gynecologist, my kid's school, my work, my alma mater. Plus, there's a volkswagen restorer in the neighborhood (specialty: the beetle). It's also less than 500 meters to another university that has a medium-sized football field where i used to do my runs.
the location is almost perfect.
but then the house is almost run-down. it's unsafe and we've been victimized by termites several times. plus it's too small to contain my mother's goods. it will get even smaller as the kids grow bigger, and as our book collection continuously expands.                                                        

we've found a handful of subdivisions (which roughly translates to: private housing in suburban areas, no , not projects) with affordable lots but we've been endlessly successful in making a purchase because of countless reasons, primary to which is the lack of (what else) a large sum of money for downpayment (although every one, including my father, if confronted by this problem, would always say that we have enough property to offset that need--but i dunno how true is that in my part).

Secondly, subdivisions here have weird rules, outdated and stuck in the 70's perspective--at the time when the Philippines was sending majority of its engineers to the middle east which resulted in so many concrete, mansionic housing constructions in all parts of the country.

houses that developers prefer to build for a typical Filipino middle class. from here.

Given that there is almost a global following on green building (if not global "policy"), it is a wonder why developers still choose to have this kinds of houses in their properties. this is one energy hoarder of a house, and clearly is not adherent to the Filipino culture. So, one would think that if you by ONLY lots in subdivisions you would, at least be freer to decide on the kind of house you'd build.

WRONG.

We've been disappointed too many times once we're handed the subdivision rules and regulations. the picture of a house above remains to be the "ideal, recommended, suggested, preferred" house that subdivision developers want on their property. it makes my face hurt. it makes me want to cry. (The fact that i've been working on projects related to sustainable urban development does not help at all, it makes it the more frustrating to know that all the "advocacy" on green building  and sustainable living we've been screaming resulted to nothing but an epic failure, exemplified by the picture above.)

but there might be hope. i found a feature in archdaily that COULD make our wants and needs possible, albeit with a little compromise here and there. Presenting, another picture of a building:

isn't that lookin really nice? ain't too radical for middle class taste and the tasteless developers?
this was designed by UMWELT; site is somewhere in Chile, and can be read through archdaily, here.

This isn't just a house. it's a meditation area (dojo) and some other things. I would have wanted an umbrella house, or something similar to what Mori makes (especially the House on Gulf of Mexico, a refurbishment of a space designed by Paul Rudolph in 1957) but those are the things that we cannot afford. Also, we have yet to find very skilled builders to bring these kinds of things to life, and that again, the skills and expertise, require tons of money.

But this one, this one might be it.

Incidentally, when i mentioned this to Keith, he told me he has thought of similar design weeks earlier, actually sketched it somewhere. that might be a good sign--that we're similar birds in this aspect--err, "birds of the same feather"--and the dojo building above looks simple enough to be built by my artists friends, myself and Keith. Maybe the kid could help paint the screen or the louver so he'd know how to build a house by the time we enforce on him the COMPULSORY moving out.

(besides, don't they look like they complement, built side by side. certainly, if ever we do end up in the "modern house" kind of suburban neighborhood, we won't come with names like: "that weird family living in the dojo house.")

FIN.

puto posts

Several things happened last July. 

The major happening was, my grandmother in-law died. We spent the four weekends of that month in the island. Then the death gave way to the reunion. My mother in-law, who's residing in the other part of the world also came home, along with her sisters (who also live in that part of the world). The reunion in the wake was technically the second time I met her, my mother in-law. The first time was when her son invited me to the island for a family event (we were not even going out that time yet). Then she left the country and a lot of things happened. We met again a decade after, this time I'm with a son and married to her son, and she, on the other hand, missing a body part, and sadly, is already without a mother. 

The other happening was i brought a friend to my parents' farm to (re) acquaint him with the typical Filipino farm life. He's born a Filipino but lived in many elsewheres and he's returned to the Philippines to spend some good three months working with me (yes, i have a day job) and working out his appetite for Filipino food. He was also into film photography and i think it was one of the many reasons why we clicked, in addition to the fact that he knows and reads Granta (I have yet to meet somebody who likes Granta--and found one i did, but a citizen of another continent!). My mother fed him vegetable soup (star of the soup was the breadfruit) and little fried fishes (with heads, of course) and again he said that he's really close to deciding to permanently live in the Philippines. Alas, he had to leave a week after the visit to finish the remaining semester in the university, back in the place of four seasons and a good urban biking program. 

then i ran out of film.

FIN

Toddler photography with a flash!

Gogol was recently gifted a black Yashica t4, bought for 10 dollars at a camera store several seas away, from across the continent. this camera has a plastic body and comes with a flash (!!), a very novel technology from the flashless slr cameras at home.

Gogol has been wanting to shoot. i could tell judging by the frequency of his nags to shoot his installations or his drawings (but never himself; never a portrait of him). He would most often prefer they were shot digitally, and was initially disappointed seeing that my minolta did not have an lcd screen where it should be. he soon learned the realities of film photography and is now just happy to shoot, regardless of when he'd actually see the product of his work on print (or scan, i should say).

the first shots of his yashica was with a Fuji Superia 200 film that was also bought from across the universe. it came in 24 shots; quite expensive at 5 dollars (exclusive of tax).

when the film scans came back from the processing center, again, the flash photography was something of a wonder. Keith and I thought it was amazing. I'm thinking i would try the camera (and the flash mode) in one of my walks.

lovely, lovely camera.
Yashica T4 justifies the want to expand on the Yashica slr collection.


FIN.