Design Against The Elements (DAtE)

The Philippines may appear to be taking on a big and ambitious project when it launched the Design Against the Elements (DAtE) global architectural competition – after all, the competition will be gathering from around the world architectural solutions that can change the landscape of climate change adaptation as we know it and hugely impact countries most affected by climate change. Moreover, the Philippines will be constructing the first low-cost, climate change-resilient and disaster-resistant housing community in the world.

While the DAtE project may sound daunting, the Philippines has a track record of successfully organizing similar competitions. DAtE’s forerunners are actually two global architectural design competitions for low-cost and innovative design, one dating back as long as over 30 years ago. Both competitions were conceived and implemented in the Philippines, where the winning designs were constructed.

The first competition was held back in 1976, the Manila-Tondo Foreshore International Architectural Competition, The competition was held parallel to the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements held in Vancouver, Canada that same year.

The competition’s challenge was to design low-cost housing for around 17,000 families from the informal sector or the squatters, as called in the Philippines. The families were to be moved from the Tondo foreshore to another area, Dagat-dagatan. The designer had to go beyond the usual relocation or resettlement paradigm and consider other issues such as the families’ income, living conditions and community in the new area.

More than 3,000 architects registered all over the world, and 500 submitted formal entries. The winning design was from Ian Athfield from New Zealand, who would later garner other awards for his architectural projects, among them an award for a low-cost housing design competition in Fiji.

Athfield made work and access to jobs central to his design theme for the Manila-Tondo Foreshore Competition as he believed that work and continued income was important to each family’s resettlement. His proposed design plan included workplaces and areas which can be leased to other businesses that can then provide jobs for the community.

A more recent competition held from 2007-2008, the Millennium Schools Competition, was inspired by the Manila-Tondo Foreshore Competition. This time around, the global challenge was to design a school that was both sustainable and resistant to disasters like typhoons and earthquakes. The pioneering organization behind Millennium Schools, MyShelter Foundation, is the same pioneering force behind DAtE.

Illac Diaz, executive director of MyShelter Foundation, emphasized the importance of building sustainable and disaster-resistant schools also because schools have a secondary purpose of being used as evacuation centers by displaced families during typhoons and other disasters.

The winning entry was a bamboo school designed by architect Eleena Jamil from Malaysia. True to the requirements of sustainability and disaster resistance, Jamil chose a material that is both rapidly renewable in the Philippines and other countries in Asia, and is durable, proving to be strong against winds from typhoons. The bamboo school was constructed in Camarines Sur, a province south of Luzon.

Now, shaken by Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) which afflicted around two million people and incurred 240 million US dollars worth of damages, and becoming more aware of the ever-growing threat of climate change, the Philippines has risen up to a new challenge. Drawing wisdom from the Tondo Forehore and the Millennium Schools competitions, DAtE calls on architects worldwide to design a housing community that is low-cost, sustainable, disaster-resistant and on the overall, climate change-resilient.