Think Tank of Our Home

Locals passing by the Pasig river Esplanade. Photo by WTA, 2025.

Our cities, streets and places are dynamic sites. At its base is the environment: the ground of the earth, the slopes and terrains leading to waterways and greenery from plants and trees. We humans built our homes and cities on the earth, and decorated our habitations as we needed and pleased. To complete these assemblages is our social interactions: from institutions like the family, the school, the church, to social and cultural activities like feasts, sporting events and livelihoods. The combination of the natural environment, built settlements and social fabrics is what composes communities and cultures, making each unique and each with their own stories and aspirations. 

As we are entering the second quarter of the 21st century, our places face more distinct concerns in the coming decades, particularly on rapid urbanization, shifting demographics, further advancements in the information age with artificial intelligence, atomized social media, worsening Climate Change and an existential reflection on our cultural identities, all in an increasingly globalized world. These mean our spaces are facing change that is further accelerating. These lead us to think and to ask questions: how do we then move forward? What do we want to bring tomorrow? What future do we imagine? To answer these questions, we would need to look through more ways of looking and to step back and revisit and reappreciate our present homelands in their strengths and frailties. 

Tomorrow is a frontier — waters waiting to be chartered; through ideas, innovations and ways of thinking are waiting to be tried and explored. 

Social Cities.

While we constantly strive to design for our five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, we also need to design spaces that enhance our sense of belonging. It is a sense that we have developed over hundreds of thousands of years even before the first extant member of our species. This is the sense that has allowed us to develop our culture and civilization and spread to almost all regions of the world. by William Ti Jr., The Human Environment, 2021, via Philippine Inquirer

Perhaps one stark difference between cities and the countryside is community and social dynamics. In rural areas, people remain grounded in their areas, knowing one set of people in their communities throughout their lives. Mobilities are limited or less frequent and people are much more connected to their environment, as well as to their communities. These can be imagined as those small towns where everyone knows each other. The opposite is typically the case for cities: a dense area, composed mostly of migrants who are drowned in work (if there is any work in the first place). Such is the case for most Filipino and Asian contexts.  This produces lonely geographies where people, drawn from their work and occupations, struggle to find companionship and community; belongingness in cities. 

Social spaces. Photo by WTA, 2025.

Physically, loneliness in cities is perpetuated by the lack of open and green spaces, recreational places and leisurely amenities for citizens to use. Condominium towers with pale and bare halls and little spots for contact; Any efforts at community building would struggle to flourish with the lack or absence of sites. Some cases include: Barangay-led basketball games held on makeshift courts on temporarily closed streets, domination of malls as primary or regular recreational sites and stinking urban waterways for people to avoid, rather than an additional community amenity for people to rest on and utilize. Gruelling transport infrastructure also hinders people from meeting. To imagine, a grim cocktail of this lies in a work-from-home workers: remote work desired and pushed by bad traffic; the blurring of work and rest in one’s habitation and the lack of open spaces and community gatherings as opportunities to belong. 

Future cities must be social, where people can easily and seamlessly find ways to connect with others. We must find ways to reimagine, rebuild and rethink how to open up our spaces — and in parallel, open people to each other

Resilient Ecologies.

We may not all realize that we are always part of a bigger picture or a bigger context. Whether you live in cities, in the countryside or in mobility (e. g. sailors and marine personnel), we affect and are affected by ecosystems. Ecology is defined as the interaction of living and non-living things; in other iterations, Human ecology is a discipline also concerned with the interaction of Humans and their environment, both living and non-living. However, we are at a time where the very systems that operate on our spaces are tremendously changing contrary to long standing patterns, better known as the phenomenon of Climate Change. 

Climate Change makes environmental and non-human factors to be more difficult to predict: From weather events like typhoons in unusual months and prolonged periods of drought, to biological activity: rats are increasing in numbers in cities, according to a recent study, attributed also to climate change. Worsening disruptions and unpredictability in these environmental, physical and biological systems also make response and mitigation more difficult. 

Future ecologies must be resilient, where it can withstand and thrive amidst Climate Change, and where communities can be sustained within it. We must pour out hope and perseverance in it, given that factors are systems in scale; and it can never be an individual effort, but the effort of whole communities and whole states.

The Filipino Home.

Manila at night. Photo by WTA, 2025.

What makes our cities truly Filipino? Is there such a thing as Filipino Architecture? What is the Filipino home that we imagine for our future?

The Philippines is gifted with a multitude of natural wonders. We know of Chocolate Hills, Mayon Volcano, Tubattaha Reef; our beautiful mountains waiting to be hiked, islands to explore and beaches to party at. So much is unique from the Philippines’ geophysical characteristics. Who else would discover and enrich them than us?

Meanwhile, our cities are composed of several influences. Culturally, we have churches with unique aesthetics (yes, they’re more unique than we think), and in the south, mosques; administratively, barangays shape communities to the street level through intimate infrastructure through basketball courts and barangay halls with those monobloc chairs, tables and even karaoke spots. Vicinities near schools are bustling through the weekdays, with large foot traffic from students, attracting vendors of snacks and toys. Jeepneys and pedicabs (bicycle-moved sidecars) are always in motion. OPM, in all its glories, from the rock bands of the 1990s, to more recent Spotify-era indie songs or even to the cheesy budots, decorate the soundscapes of the city. Lastly, just like most cities today, global or international culture also influence us through products (like cars, phones, foods etc) and culturally. 

Despite sentiments that it’s hard to identify the Filipino Place, we have to fight hard to see the aesthetic and experience that sets us apart: apart from our southeast asian neighbors, from other tropical nations, from other Christian nations; and even from fellow Filipinos from different regions and backgrounds. Truly, there are many beautiful things in the Filipino homeland, but we are also in the time where we realize much of its problems. We are at a time where we can imagine how we can bring the Filipino essence in our future cities amidst rapid developments in technology and environmental challenges.

What do we Filipinos want to bring into our future cities and homelands? What do we want to innovate? And how do we arrive at an answer that is truly, also, Filipino? 

Engaging People.

To answer the call of the times, the needs of our homelands and communities is in of itself a collective call. The struggles on bettering our cities, on bracing for worsening climate events and on reflecting on the Filipino essence would be relevant in the coming decades and is the struggle for all: from the individual person to collectives of communities and up to our states and formal institutions. 

Engaging the Filipino citizenry would arouse the public on the issues that would affect us. Cities that are lonely push each individual into seclusion; youth that are not exposed to communities fail to feel a stake in any effort that would improve their places. The youth must be engaged as well. Sensibilities begin to form at one’s formative years, hence it addresses intergenerational gaps in identifying and solving problems in communities. The youth also has their distinct perspectives given the rawness of their experiences. Lastly, engaging policy, the state and stakeholders could invite further collaboration with other thinkers and implement them through laws and programs that are long lasting. Engaging citizens, the youth and policy would reflect in our way of thinking: collaborative, participative and impactful.

Our Story: WTA Labs

WTA Labs: Center for Urban Research is a platform for architectural, geographical and urban research, advancing ways of thinking in our cities and spaces, while sharing these knowledge and insights with communities and fellow thinkers. It is a think tank — a multidisciplinary team of planners, architects, geographers, ecologists, sociologists and more, who engage on questions and problems our the Filipino home: from the most basic unit of dwelling, which is the home, to the streets where communities meet, to organized cities at large and to larger ecosystems with intertwined phenomena. 

Ways of Thinking.

WTA’s initiatives on learning about our communities and telling stories goes way back in its almost two decades of practice. For years, WTA has fostered a homegrown research team, as well as research efforts to complement architectural and urban designs, as well as to capture the essence of Social Architecture and of thriving Human Environments. The research team has several orientations of practice. 

GIS (Geographic Information Systems), also known as Geoinformatics, is the science of integrating data, particularly spatial data, towards studying the different systems that occur in a given space. This is a primary tool of studying Geography, using data science to study topography, rivers and systems, oceans and marine habitats, populations, economic activity and transportation. In simpler terms, it is maps plus data science. Data gathered, studied and analyzed can be presented and compared with other phenomena. This can then inform the current and existing physical, built and social contexts a site faces. However, we go beyond map making.

A good part of making a better home is being able to reimagine: being able to imagine a different future, a better one. Geodesign is a concept that integrates GIS into the task of reimagining a better situation for a given site, city or region. Apart from data and presentation, Geodesign attempts to identify specific points and ways of reimagination, through modelling, simulation and statistical regression. In other words, Geodesign is using GIS and data to scientifically ground how we can reimagine our spaces.

Geodesign has several applications, particularly in cities with several “layers”. It can be used for tourism, utilizing location data, physical geography data, population distribution and settlement patterns, existing and imagined transportation. It can also be applied in industries and economic geography: where can we find raw materials? Which sites are strategic for different stages of a product, like factories, ports, roads and storage facilities? How does this industry move in parallel with other industries in the region and in the nation at large? Beyond these two examples of tourism and industry, Geodesign is a powerful tool of getting to know a place, and has a concrete, quantifiable basis of imagining a future that one would want.

An integration of years of strong integration of research practice in design, WTA Labs is a reaffirmation of our commitment towards getting to know more of the Filipino home.

Research as Telling Stories. 

Each person is a world; and to tell stories unfold how our worlds move and affect us and others. Each person is part of a greater community and a greater ecosystem where they would feel greater connection and stake at. The essence of the home or tahanan is one’s life, community and aspirations being rooted to and with the land. Telling stories allows us to know and (re)discover our surroundings and our communities, all towards knowing its beauty and griefs, and towards betting [staking] on making them better. 

Before becoming a Center for Urban Research, ALab Urban Initiatives was WTA’s early inception of research on our spaces; a platform where passion and thought were allowed to flourish. It included the Book Stop and Shelter Architecture and Design Magazine. 

The Book Stop, developed in 2016, is an effort towards reimagining libraries and the act of reading in the Philippine setting. It is a network (meaning having several sites, both stationary and mobile) of pop-up libraries, reimagining the usual form of libraries as individual large buildings. These pop-up libraries are smaller, modular and integrated in their respective contexts. It’s catchphrase: “give a book, get a book”, providing a community library where everyone can share a collection of books. The Book Stop thereby are sites of a collective love for reading and a meeting point for various enriching activities.

The legacy of storytelling also traces back to WTA’s Shelter Architecture and Design Magazine. Developed in the 2010s, this was an endeavor to explore the architectural and urbanist practices in the Philippines, collaborating with other practices. It also had a diverse set of communication organs, such as a published magazine and online social media platforms. Later on, as people consume more of video formats, WTA Labs, eponymous to the Center for Urban Research, is a research production studio, focused on the process of architecture and design. It focused on documenting and sharing how WTA’s design evolved — from sketches, inquiries to choices in typology, materials and the like through video formats. It intends to connect and spark further curiosities within the practice of architecture and urbanism in the Philippines. In its current evolution as a Center for Urban Research, WTA Labs now takes on the challenge of further scientific and social explorations, engaging with multiple disciplines to uncover multiple perspectives in our communities' issues.

Moving forward, our research is envisioned not just to blurt out numbers and phenomena. It must tell stories. The Book Stop can now also be sites where we can tell such different stories, and initiate conversations that spark curiosities in our research pursuits; and stories can be crafted and packaged through Shelter. Storytelling activities can be held, as well as book signing events, cultural shows and film viewing. These would showcase creative works done parallel to research works. For example, a research project on Esteros or urban waterways can also produce documentaries and children' s story books to be distributed in Book Stop sites. These creative works are envisioned to help Filipinos, especially the youth, grow more rooted to their communities through stories. These are seeds of WTA Labs as a platform where passion for our as thinkers can manifest and grow, and where we can share our narratives with one another.

The Think Tank of our Home.

WTA Labs: Center for Urban Research would be a think tank that bears in mind its position in our home. It is a platform for thinkers across disciplines: from architecture, urbanism, geography, ecology, sociology, engineering and more, towards reflection and reimagination of our communities. It is also a platform to bridge and immerse thinkers with communities, directly interacting with the realities on the ground. It reimagines research as telling stories —  directly grounding knowledge production with actual human experiences. WTA Labs would produce research outputs, creative works and community engagements, anchored on WTA's core principle of Social Architecture. Together, these initiatives advance its mission to create meaningful and transformative impacts on the natural, built, and social environments.

In the coming decades, our cities, streets and communities will undergo even more rapid change. As we move forward, we must also remember to take root — to connect and reconnect with our spaces: to our environment, to our cities and to our collective locales. Research is our way of reflecting and uncovering how architecture, design and our cities become catalysts of stories; curiosities are our fuel to move; collective struggles are our motivations; and to reimagine is the challenge of tomorrow. It is how we can keep writing our stories and to take agency in our futures.