BAGONG SENADO

BAGONG SENADO The winning design for the Global Conceptual Competition for the New Philippine Senate Building together with AECOM, LDG Architects, EPEA and ESCA. | Image courtesy of AECOM

How can we afford not to be green?

In collaboration with Green Architecture Advocacy Philippines (Green AP), Green Restorative Actions and Sustainable Solutions (GRASS), United Architects of the Philippines (UAP), and other partners and allies in the built industry, LDG works hard to extend awareness and inspire actions supporting the National Green Building Campaign by the Climate Change Commission and other national institutions.

Garcia won’t be boxed in that popular belief that architects can only be bothered by architectural and decorative foundations and plans. She is one of the few who thinks that finding a way to participate in the water and energy cycle more intelligently is as important as our demand-side conservation of energy. Much can be learned about this from what LDG did with the DHouse and ADB. ADB, already an LEED Gold Certified building, sought to further enhance their building’s current green performance. Garcia recalls, “My team conducted building envelope studies to identify strategies and determine how to further maximize the building’s potential for energy saving. Through this tedious analysis of the shell and the current interior conditions and how its users function, the building is seen to increase its energy savings performance beyond green building certification standards”.

These strategies were actually based on the learnings, performance, and success of one of their award-winning projects. Called D HOUSE, this concept was designed to embrace modernity and sustainability by going back to the basics of traditional design and senses of Filipino living. It is driven by the main principles of adaptability and resilience to design and culture. This structure aimed to achieve a self-reliant and self-sustaining residence through the re-use of water reserves and food production, adaptive and resilient structure for self-preservation and adaptability to expansion, replicable, resourceful and efficient shelter for basic habitation comfort and definitive, reliable and socially acceptable design.

Garcia’s ideology is a solid one. It’s a deeper shade of green that goes beyond sustainability and into conserving energy and resources, reducing costs, and incorporating sustainable finishes and materials. “If we don’t do this today, when?” She who knows how cliché that sounds still quips boldly. The economic, social, and psychological costs of climate change will be staggeringly huge the longer we wait to begin the fewer resources we will have to work with as years go by.

The obvious things hardly occur to people. Beauty and sustainability are not two separate concepts. The former is essential to anything that aspires to be sustainable. You could even say that it is not truly beautiful if it is not green. We love beauty and we need to take care of it for it to stay that way and keep that loving feeling. Architect Lui knows this full well and champions beauty and green in all its forms. This “Queen of Green” has a verdant mind. And we will see its fruits in the coming years.