Concept, Th eory and Discourse in the Design of the SDA Building
broadest sense. It is non-traditional in the planning sense, as the building almost becomes a compact ver- tical campus. Functional activities are stacked in a small and narrow site. Connectivity to other fl oors is achieved through elevators and stairs. Due to the limi- tations of the site, the external corridors had to become the internal “streets.” It is also non-traditional in the architectural sense as the design needed to be forward- looking. Abandoning the predominant neo-classical style among the existing DLSU buildings, Calma sought to diff erentiate the new building as an elucidation of the CSB’s vision and commitment to “dynamic and in- novative learning.” Innovation, in Calma’s understand- ing, demanded an approach in design that challenges, questions and dismantles preconceived notions of ar- chitecture.
What are these traditional notions of architecture that Calma wanted to challenge then? For one, Calma has always been attempting to rethink the idea of archi- tecture as a box punctured with openings. In lieu of this, he proposes that architecture be broken down into planes, surfaces, edges and volumes. By doing so, a wall for example is no longer limited to an idea of a rectangu- lar shape with a window punched through it. Walls, and subsequently fl oors and ceilings, are fully moldable and manipulatable. Walls are not just defi ned by surfaces, but can be formed by the juxtaposition of edges and planes. Ceilings are not just merely horizontal surfaces that end where the wall begins. Th e fl oor can become the wall and in turn also become the ceiling. Windows are not necessarily centered on the wall plane. Rather, openings can also be constructed out of the liminal spaces left over from intersecting planes and volumes. In such a manner, architecture is not a symmetrical and formal composition, but an asymmetric explosion and layering of surfaces, voids and planes. In the Pablito Calma house for example, edges defi ne the zones, while the union of planes demarcate the walls and ceilings. Calma’s designs are unpredictable to a certain degree. For the SDA building, Calma’s design for Restaurant 12 (R12) admittedly was the starting point. Th e interior
From Intent to Translation: Th e Design Process
Architecture begins with an idea. Some ideas are simple while others are complex. Ideas also come from diverse sources. Architecture might derive ideas from every- day experiences or from esoteric origins. Whatever the case, one needs to act on that idea for architecture to come to reality. Often, only people with vision and cour- age act on that idea. Th e College of St. Benilde - School of Design and Arts (CSB-SDA) building is a perfect ex- ample of how conviction, temerity and bravery are nec- essary in the actualization of an idea. It would take a designer with a strong passion for creativity and a pa- tron with an unwavering commitment to innovation to fully realize the dream of a school of design that leads the way in design education and at same time becomes a hallmark of progressive design in the Philippines. For Ed Calma, designer of the SDA building, the pro- gram of the building informs the design of the school. Th ough the brief given by the college was not as clear at the start in terms of the amount and type of space, the intention of the building to be a landmark was al- ready apparent from the beginning. Calma fi rst ad- dressed the primary function of the building as a school that houses the diff erent departments of SDA by ac- commodating all the programs under one roof. Second- ly, the program also required spaces and opportunities for interactions and collaborations between the various departments. Calma responded to this requirement by supplying an array of spaces that function as nodes or spaces of encounters. Spaces and building elements had to be multi-functional. Walls serve as physical boundaries as well as display areas. Corridors are not only passageways but are also points of intersection of students coming from diff erent classes. Th e theater, for example, becomes the melding point of collaboration between diff erent disciplines. But more importantly, as a design school, the building should also serve as a teaching instrument for the students. Th e building should inspire creativity.
In Calma’s mind, for the building to inspire creativity,
was dominated by a series of morphing, twisting and folding ribbon loops that move progressively from the front to the back of the restaurant. Th e mezzanine area was created by the succession of continuous bands that link fl oor, wall and ceiling planes together into a coher- ent whole. Th e ribbons are fragmented while the overall forms are tortuous. Edges are crisp, while plane connec- tions are articulated. Th e ribbons that peel from street to lobby and façade at the SDA building are highly remi- niscent of the sequential bands in R12. Th ere is a direct relationship between the restaurant and the school if formal manipulation is considered.
But R12 and the SDA building diverge in terms of scale. Th e interior of the restaurant is largely restricted to the walls surrounding the leasable space. Th e experience of the person with the interior of the restaurant diff ers greatly from the experience with the school from the street level. Th e SDA building, on the contrary, is set within a larger urban fabric, with the property lines as the limiting factor. Th e vertical volume, however, be- comes the blank palette with which Calma could carve out the spaces. With 14 fl oors and a roof deck, at a height of about 69 meters, or around 226 feet, the building ar- rogantly stands among its low-rise neighbors. While the restaurant space is intimate, the school structure is de- cidedly overwhelming and daunting in size.
Folding: Fragments, Shards and Slivers
Interpreting the building program through form also in- cluded the articulation of functional requirements via surfaces, volumes and shapes. For the SDA building, the primary technique of expressing this conglomera- tion of activities is through the idea of “folding.” Fold- ing in the literal sense means the bending of surfaces to create layers and creases. In the last decade, archi- tectural theoreticians have taken interest in the writ- ings of Gilles Deleuze and his explorations of the idea of folding in architecture. Deleuze for example considers the folding in baroque architecture as the disengage- ment of the façade and the exterior from the interior. Recent architectural projects that explore the concept of folding are demonstrated by Diller and Scoffi dio’s in- teriors for the Brasserie Restaurants in New York where the fl oor plane becomes the wall plane that eventually morph into the ceiling surface; and Frank Gehry’s con- voluted forms and layered surfaces, such as those seen in the Disney Symphony Hall and Guggenheim Bilbao, which bend surfaces into distorted planes. Other mani- festations of folding appear in the works of Morphosis and Eric Owen Moss where the creases generate frag- mented surfaces and volumes. From jagged surfaces to disfi gured solids, folding aff ords new means of commu- nicating architectural form and experiences.
Concurrently, folding destabilizes common notions of walls, ceilings and fl oors as always being in an orthogo- nal relationship or having 90-degree corners. Folding also undermines the separation of the wall, ceiling and fl oor surfaces as distinct entities, and instead blurs the distinction between them. Moreover, bending and creasing surfaces render planes not only in terms of continuous fl at surfaces but also into fragments, shards and slivers, often containing acute and obtuse angles. In doing so, distortion, skewing, twisting and warping become the primary modes of generating architectural form and spaces.
Th e SDA building is a celebration and elaboration of folding. Beginning on the street level, fi nger-like protru- sions peel away from the road, producing a separation between the ingress and egress points into the site. Th e peeling continues further inside the lot, towards the en- tryway into the building. Again, strips of concrete are raised from the road, creating natural bollards with inte- grated lighting. Much like strips of carpet unraveling, the concrete fi ngers from the outside entryway progresses into the lobby and folds up into the ceiling plane. In one continuous gesture, people are motioned from the side- walk into the lobby through these crawling strips. But the pervasiveness of folding does not end there. Th e waving fi nger-like strips that move from the street, to the entryway, the lobby and to the ceiling now con- tinue to crawl up the building. At one point, the rib- bons appear in the interior of the chapel on the upper mezzanine fl oor. Th e ribbons create an intimate space, almost cavern-like in emotion, similar to the intimacy created in the R12 restaurant. From the lobby, the rib- bons protrude out of the glass wall onto the entryway but this time elevated far above the pedestrian level. In this context, the strips meld and fold over the mas- sive theater volume, enveloping the space within a skin of aluminum cladding. Jutting out of the building, the weight of the theater is held back by the skin that em- braces it. Th e aluminum skin again begins to peel away from the top of the theater as ribbons of metal cover the top of the building. As the ribbons vary in move- ment and folding, slits of glass between the strips cre- ate opportunities for the sun’s light to pierce through the opaque skin.
Inside the building, folding is particularly articulated on the walls and ceilings of the classrooms and corridors. Warping around the classroom spaces are origami-like planes, with irregular splinters of solid and transpar- ent surfaces. As the walls are skewed and slanted, odd spaces appear between the shards. Some of these shards become viewing windows into the classrooms or clerestory windows on top of the walls. At times, the walls disengage from the ceiling as solid parts meld into transparent glass panels. In other cases the walls become the ceiling. Th e ceiling planes, like the walls, are also skewed and twisted. Th e stark white ceilings at fi rst glance seem severe. But upon closer inspection, the changing folds and fragments of the ceiling planes create variations in patterns through the interchange of light and shadow. In an almost chiaroscuro eff ect, the deviations of shade among the fragmented planes cre- ate depth and interest in a predominantly white envi- ronment.
Th e feeling while walking along the corridors and class- rooms is both energetic and uneasy. Th e interiors are energetic because the volumes created within are unex- pected and unpredictable. As each fl oor features a dif- ferent confi guration from the next one, the experience on each level is not necessarily the same. It is also un- easy due to the somewhat erratic nature of the planes. Th e jagged edges and acute angles present a challenge whenever furniture is introduced into the rooms. Th e spaces are equally exciting and stimulating, while being tense and anxious at the same time.
Th e Urban Lantern: Transparency and Permeability
From afar, the building glows brilliantly amidst the dark night sky. It stands in stark contrast to its environment. Th e SDA building is akin to a Japanese lantern primarily because of its crisp horizontal lines and almost trans- parent skin. But the building can be construed as more of an “urban lantern” illuminating the Manila skyline. In a way, it serves as a beacon to the surrounding area, a landmark that serves as point of reference in orient- ing oneself in the city. Figuratively, providing “light” to the neighborhood might mean that the building can also potentially serve as a catalyst for urban renewal in the area. Th e introduction of a landmark building in the area, much like the eff ect of building Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, can contribute immensely to the urban regeneration of the area. As an iconic architecture, the building can in fact contribute to the infl ux of tourism in the university and commu- nity, as it becomes a tourist destination in itself. One cannot deny the inextricable relationship of architec- ture and tourism.
In another sense, the urban lantern reveals the inner workings of the building. Much like Renzo Piano and Norman Foster’s Pompidou Center in Paris, France, the internal activities of the building are not hidden. In fact, the interior activity of the building is celebrated by placing the public corridors outside. While it is the utility systems (such as plumbing, electrical and HVAC) that are revealed at the Pompidou Center, it is the dy- namic fl ow of people that is divulged at the SDA build- ing through its permeable skin. If the façade lacks any ornamentation, it is the movement of people that acts as patterns on an otherwise austere exterior.
Th is permeability also allows the viewer from the street to access the building. Subsequently, the person in the building is permitted to engage with the outside. Here, the demarcation between the inside and the outside is blurred. Furthermore, the transparent skin establishes a connection between the school and the rest of the city through the vista that is aff orded on the upper fl oors. It is not an introverted building, made possible by the external corridors and the various vantage points gen-
Seemingly hovering over the houses and low-level buildings in the neighborhood, the external skin is a dramatic play between opaque and transparent layers. In some areas, the skin is close to the skeletal frame of the building, while in other parts, the skin peels away to reveal openings and incisions on the exterior. Th e strips of opaque aluminum skin on the fl oating theater, for example, incrementally unwrap itself from the top of the main volume, which in turn creates intersti- tial spaces that become pocket windows. Still on the southern façade, the transparent glass louvers open up like scales, allowing natural ventilation and illumination to enter the building.
Yet one cannot help but think about the inherent contradictions in its permeability: the juxtaposition of opaque and transparent surfaces creates a visual “hide and seek” game where some parts of the building are consciously exposed, while other segments are in- tentionally concealed. Not everything is made known to the public. While it is also true that the permeable skin allows you to access it visually, it really prevents you from completely engaging in the building. Since it is only people who can aff ord to pay the school’s ma- triculation fee and therefore can use the space and the school’s services directly, the accidental passerby on the street level can only imagine what it feels like to be in such a space. Not everybody is allowed to engage with it directly. Th ough its skin is permeable in principle, it still serves as a visual and social fi lter simultaneously.
Labeling: Modernist or Deconstructivist?
It is quite diffi cult to place the SDA building within a stylistic category. On the one hand, the building seems to follow modernist attitudes in its conception and ar- ticulation. If we are to use Philip Johnson and Henry Russel Hitchcock’s canonical defi nition of “modern ar- chitecture” during the 1932 Museum of Modern Art ex- hibition on “Th e International Style,” the SDA building seems to fi t comfortably within the category. Unde- niably, the building features unornamented surfaces, emphasizes volume rather than mass, gives primacy on regularity rather than symmetry and focuses on the
articulation, which all point to the modernist ideal. Th e stark whiteness of its surfaces devoid of any ornamen- tation, in itself a hallmark of the modernist response to the Victorian ostentatious spectacle of decorations, is quite apparent in the overall formal approach in the SDA building. Calma’s color palette for the entire building, except for few areas, is quite limited to a white and gray schema. Th e regularity of the form is not dependent on the creation of a symmetrically balanced structure, but rather derives the rhythmic movement through the consistency of folding and fragmentation.
On the other hand, the building can be reasonably clas- sifi ed under a more deconstructivist attitude. Decon- struction in architecture, an approach following the ideas of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, has been promoted by such architectural luminaries as Peter Ei- senman, Bernard Tschumi, Zaha Hadid, Morphosis and Eric Owen Moss, which in the last decade have not only received much attention but also has been considerably concretized through actual built commissions. Decon- struction contests the idea of meaning as being homog- enous and instead attempts to uncover the underlying inconsistencies and contradictions of meanings within a text.
Formalistically, deconstructivist architecture challeng- es the highly orthogonal system of modernist archi- tectures by emphasizing fragmented and acute angles of forms. Th e Platonic forms of the cube and sphere are distorted and warped to generate new experiences of space and place. Th e SDA building, in this context, follows the deconstructivist mode. Th e folding of sur- faces creates non-orthogonal contours that challenge traditional notions of walls, ceilings, doors and windows. Whereas, we know of walls as vertical and ceilings as horizontal, the continual shifting and splintering of wall and ceiling planes into shards subvert these notions. Th e fl oor plate also shifts and morphs on each level, cre- ating unique room confi gurations on each fl oor.
But is it possible that the building can be both a mod- ernist expression and a deconstructivist experiment at the same time? Th is hybridity can only be understood if we abandon the idea of the building as having a par- ticular architectural style. Th e approach in designing the building, as Ed Calma explains, is generated from the program of the school. While the original intent of the late Brother Andrew Gonzales was to maintain the overall neo-classic temperament among the university buildings (a style that was begun by Tomas Mapua in his design of then main De La Salle College in the 1930s) Ed Calma approached the building not as an extension of an architectural style but a celebration of the building program. Th e functional activities, the relationship of the departments and the primary role of the building as a didactic instrument all informed the form genera- tion of the school. It then becomes not as an exercise in historical revivalism but more importantly a practice of