Joseph Javier

Ultimately, Architecture Should Transform You And Your Paradigms. This Transformation Comes From The Positively Disruptive Effect Of Designed Environments.

In 1993, at the academic studio of my mentor Bronne Dytoc, my manifesto was first drafted. While it was adjudged by Dytoc to suffer from verbal diarrhea (my writing has since improved when I started writing for BluPrint 15 years after. Judith Torres was a lovable editor from hell), it nonetheless provided me with very definite points to design my belief system back then—and my worldview now. Twenty-five years hence, after distilling these ideas through various meaningful conversations, painful and costly failures, inebriating moments of victory, memorable alliances and traumatic severances, I am now in possession of a manifesto that not only influences how I govern my practice, the built environments and systems I create, but also the minds and lives that I shape through my academic studio—and should, to a large and very direct extent, influence the core belief system of the institution I help found with 4 others, the Architecture Program of the DLS-College of Saint Benilde.

The Manifesto of Transformation

Architecture should have the quality of intelligent reason and response. Built environments are, after all, primarily supposed to work efficiently for the human being, the person, the thinking and feeling individual. But more than this, architecture should afford you a memorable and meaningful experience. Ultimately, architecture should transform you and your paradigms. This transformation comes from the positively disruptive effect of designed environments. Architecture should provoke by asking difficult questions and causing conversations, optimistic or otherwise—and move or ultimately solves issues of society. This transformation can only and undeniably yield to improving lives.

Agenda of Design

Good design is good business