A Biodiverse and Interconnected Manila
A competition entry for Form Follows Life Competition by Non-architecture. We are challenged to capture a 1 by 1 kilometer real setting in a city of our choice and envision a life of biodiversity, incorporating life into our vision of short-term, midterm, and long-term (2030-2050-2080). This entry was selected as finalist (link in entry).
1 KM square in the heart of Manila
For centuries, people have shaped Manila for their gains. The form of life is a moving energy among beings. This future flows and shares, not restricts and owns; not merely adding flora and fauna, but living with them as one. Social movements of flowing and sharing comprise this 8-fold program:
Green Network is a flood-proof network of footbridges. Continuous paths connect people and animals, not cars. While private properties disconnected lives, Green Network links lives by penetrating buildings, growing plants, and enriching pedestrian experience.
Urban Farming (UF) is an existing concept that brings food production into cities. UF of the future maximizes food cycle by relying on composts, predatory and pollinating insects, and treated wastewater as safe irrigation.
Urban Trees are beyond novelties, fruit-bearing, medicinal, habitats, water reservoirs, and temperature regulators - contributions needed in Manila’s parks, roads, building terraces, and riverbanks.
Responsible Waste Management supports a renewed non-materialistic culture. This three-part project, infrastructure, mindset, and generation, aims to reduce carbon footprint and maximize waste that returns to the ecological chain.
River Revival resuscitates Manila’s waterways through sanitation, transport, parks, and river activities. Chores and play become part of daily river life. Native species are reintroduced, egrets nest while fishes thrive on mangroves.
House of Manila (HOM) starts as an adaptive reuse of Bilibid Prison as Manila Shelter. It welcomes people and animals while collaborating with institutions and communities. It changes how people share the city and becomes the city’s HOM.
Building for Birds, Bats, Bees calls for changing people’s mentality about them, integrating their habitat with public areas, eventually, buildings, and mutually living with them.
Roads to Life or DeMe and WiRe (Decommissioning-Merging, Widening-Realigning) reduces vehicular roads and reclaims them for life use such as riverbanks, mangroves, parks, and shared spaces.
2030. Movements are focused on campaigns and infrastructure grounded to the reality of the current state. Familiar practices are paired with radical physical changes on a small scale. This aims to set examples, point direction, and show proof that the program bears real though small fruits.
2050. The midway offers a critical point in the success of the program, and that is through development changes, such as new shelter, network to private integration, and revised building regulations; and supplementary movements, such as waste segregation, farm-to-table movement, and renewed sharing culture, to make each project sustainable or ready for the long term.
2080. The 50-year mark is a glimpse into physical changes that welcome diversity, co-existence of lives, and new societal values that reject the insatiable need to own, claim, or control the environment. The future of life is only possible with a new mindset of balance and interconnectedness among all forms of life.
The 8-fold programs in focus
The Team Behind Movements to Life
Joshua Ryan S. San Juan
JRSSJ Architect
Marlo B. dela Peña
JRSSJ Architect
Clariza Mae R. Fortuno
JRSSJ Architect
Mikko Nathaniel S. Solis
Lyceum of the Philippines University – Cavite Campus
This entry was selected as one of the finalists of Form Follows Life. Congratulations to everyone and the incredible team behind Movements to Life.
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