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THE
first time I saw the
School of
Design
and Arts Building of the College of St. Benilde, I hit
the brakes so hard that I almost got into an accident. I
remember getting shocked by the massive cantilevered
shape looming over me as I was driving along Pablo
Ocampo Street in Manila one random night. It felt weird
to see such a uniquely shaped building right smack in
the middle of the Taft area, where only rectilinear and
boxy buildings are commonly seen. I seriously thought it
was a futuristic space shuttle that temporarily landed
in the middle of our mundane cityscape. The building was
only halfway finished at the time and only its steel
skeleton was decipherable, but I was sure that it was
going to be a building with an inspirational design.
I would
drive by often in that area to see the progress of the
construction. Everytime that I did, I would conjecture
as to how the final look would appear, or what materials
they would use to finish the building, or how much money
it would take to complete a building like that. That’s
why when I heard that the building was finally
operational, I grabbed the first opportunity to take the
grand tour of the new College of Benilde School of
Design and Arts.
The
experience of the building starts with the approach.
Architects always want their designs to have a shock
value since it will make a stronger impact on the
viewer. Although it sits on a 4,560 square meter lot, it only has a small frontage. But this did not deny it
from having such a shock value, which I felt right away
when I saw the finished façade for the first time. Its
sheer scale combined with high-quality materials
intimidated me as I drove up the ramp to get to the
parking area. The front façade is dominated by a huge
cantilevered volume that projects four storys above the
driveway, doubling as a canopy as it shields the users
under it from the elements. This mass is actually the
three-story, 558-seater theater, which will be used by
the school for different kinds of performances and
lectures. This mass is complemented by surfaces clad
with white aluminum panels, stainless steel framings and
enormous glass windows, all composed in an angled and
skewed fashion.
The rear
side of the structure has a unique character as well.
Typically, architects do not take time to think about
the aesthetic of the rear and the sides of their
structures because these won’t be seen as much as the
front, but Lor Calma Design Associates (or LCDA, the
firm responsible for the building’s avant-garde design)
still gave equal attention to the back side. The top 10
floors of the rear and sides of the building are fully
wrapped with sophisticated glass compositions that are
actually louvers that prevent rain from coming inside
the structure. They are angled in such a way that while
shielding the rain, it still allows the wind to
penetrate the interiors of the building. Most architects
attempt to do this in theory, but LCDA successfully
achieved this as I felt the breeze all the way in the
deep corridors of the school. The glass face is
envisioned to look like lanterns, especially when they
are illuminated at night.
 “The
building’s design was really meant to inspire the people
who study here to bring out their creativity,” said our
guide. The School of Design and Arts (SDA) was meant to
make the students think and realize that there are a
million possibilities with a creative mind. To be able
to do this, LCDA designed every nook and cranny of the
structure in a unique way. Unlike a typical school where
the classrooms are lined up one after the other beside a
long, linear corridor, each classroom in SDA has a
different shape. In fact, no two classrooms are alike
because the walls of each one is angled differently to
respond to sound better. The corridors all throughout
the school are wider than usual because they are also
meant to serve as exhibition spaces for the works of the
student body. The schools canteen looks like a dining
hall in a boutique hotel. It appears spacious than it
actually is because of its cathedral height ceiling.
Instead of a typical plastic chair that one would see in
a school canteen, SDA went an extra mile by furnishing
the cafeteria with Panton chairs. A classic,
1960s-designed furnishing which is curved precariously,
it gives the user second thoughts about using it with
the thought that it might tip over. From the canteen, a
cantilevered mass can be seen hovering above the space.
Housing the faculty room for the professors, its design
promotes a kind of transparency between the students and
professors from the full-height glass that wraps the
room. The students can actually wave at the professors
in the faculty while they are enjoying their lunch, and
vice versa.
The
facilities of the building are up-to-date. There are
several video and animation laboratories in the building
with no less than MacBook-clad workstations. There are
sound production labs and recording studios that are
equipped with latest technology as well. I got to enter
one of them and I felt like I was a professional
recording artist about to dub his first hit song. For
students of film, there are a number of film production
studios with motion-capture equipment and even a
double-story green-screen room. Of course, film-related
courses wouldn’t be complete with the 105-seater cinema.
Their two-story library, although still empty during my
visit, will eventually have one of the richest
design-related collections in the Philippines. It will
not only house literature, but also actual materials
that are used in the different courses of the school.
For example, a fashion design student can go to the
library and browse its collection of fabrics and even
borrow samples to take home and experiment with.
This
means that the students will not only have a theoretical
take on their courses, but they will actually get a
hands-on experience. They say that one of the reasons
why professors want to teach there is so that they would
be able to gain access to the library’s collection. As
if the library will not be enough, the school is also
fully WiFi enabled and the first building in the
Philippines to be equipped with the 10-G technology. So
for all the students in Benilde, who ask where their
tuition is going and why in the world it is so
expensive, just look at the building and you’ll get your
answer.
Because
of the carefully designed glass louvered façade, the
building is generally naturally ventilated. This also
allows the interiors to be flooded with natural light
because of the transparent nature of glass, making the
energy consumption much lower than what one expects. The
building features an efficient Building Management
System with intelligent controls for air-conditioning,
smoke detection and fire alarms. It has a CCTV
surveillance security system and its own sewage
treatment plant.
The
School of Design and Arts, in my opinion, is one of the
most forward-looking buildings in the Philippines today.
Although it encountered a lot of problems during
construction, which resulted to the downgrading of some
materials and finishes, it still has turned out to be an
iconic work of art. “The students, the faculty, the
guards—people in general are learning to love the
building. They are proud to be part of the school and
they themselves are taking care of it,” says our guide.
They are also starting to develop an aesthetic liking to
the building, and you can even catch some of the guards
making some suggestions about the design. The building’s
all-white color scheme had the administration worried
about vandalisms and graffiti. But until now, months
after the opening of classes, there has not been a
single case of vandalism throughout the school. I guess
if we make a piece of art that makes people feel they
are part of, the need to take care of it will naturally
come from them. If we design something that intimidates
or excludes them, then they will grow to resent it and
start degrading it.The glass pyramid in the louvre, for
example, is one structure that the Parisians will die
defending if it encounters trouble, even if they loathed
it at first. That is because they started to realize
that its design was more respectful of their history,
tradition and heritage, rather than obstructive and
offensive. The School of Design and Arts was dubbed as
the “jewel in the crown of the De La Salle University
System Schools,” and I am sure that its students will
take leaps in defending it too.
You may e-mail the author at design@buensalidoarchitects.com
and visit his web site at www.buensalidoarchitects.com. |
