One of the Philippines most renewable construction materials, bamboo, is helping to build a symbolic bridge between two universities on different continents, as a group of Architecture students from the United States prepares to join Filipino counterparts for a bamboo workshop hosted by Foundation University.
Starting June 21, 10 architecture students from the University of Washington in the US will be working and learning alongside FU’s senior Architecture students as they explore local building techniques using bamboo.
They will then move on to complete a hands-on design-build project in Valencia.
US-based architect Ray Villanueva, co-director of the Philippine Bamboo Workshop, said the program is a unique and valuable opportunity for his UW students.
“The students are really interested in getting to work with bamboo materials,” Villanueva said. “There is no other program like this in the US so this is a great opportunity to get familiar with it.”
The students will begin by learning different methods of bamboo construction during a workshop in Dauin at Bambusa Collabo with the owner, Herbie Teodoro.
Next, they will conduct a design charrette, an intense planning and design session where students and instructors will work out the details for prototype bamboo market stalls for Valencia’s main market place.
Once planning is complete, the UW and FU students will work together to create a working unit.
The original idea to upgrade Valencia’s marketplace came from FU’s College of Hospitality Management, and now the bamboo workshop has provided the catalyst to move the project forward.
Villanueva said his students are excited to get started.
“They’re really looking forward to this one-on-one building of this structure for a community,” Villanueva said. They are also looking forward to learning about the culture, so the cultural immersion and interaction with the Estudio Damgo students is a major part of it to, he added.
Villanueva, who was raised in the US but who’s family comes from Mindanao, said he chose FU to host the workshop because of his past ties with the University while working to create Estudio Damgo, the first student-led design build program in the Philippines.
Estudio Damgo gives Foundation’s senior Architecture students the opportunity to conceptualize and build a project, specifically targeted at improving the local community, with an emphasis on responsible and renewable design techniques.
Villanueva helped spearhead the program at FU from 2011 to 2013. He said he is happy to see the ongoing results.
“It’s great after witnessing the transformation that the students go through,” Villanueva said of Estudio Damgo. “The structures are great but I think the impact that it has on the students is even greater,” he added.
Although the bamboo workshop is targeted at teaching the UW students about local design and building practices, it is also a chance for the FU students to experience new ideas as well, Villanueva said.
“It’s going to be great,” he said. “The FU students haven’t really been through the quick process-driven iterations that we go through in the US with our education, so we hope they will learn from the process that the UW students are going to go through.”
Villanueva also said he hopes this would just be the start of future cooperation between both universities.
“We want this program to continue on, and for the kids to go home, and talk about their experience. I know they are going to have a great time,” he said. (Phil Prins)
