Provenance and Patina

Having transitioned from young gun to sought after mentor, Buck Sia is set to continue a lineage of design.

- Angel Yulo

Modernist: this is what Buck Sia wants to be and is pouring all his efforts on becoming. With over eleven years of practice, the Cebuano architect is indeed establishing this reputation having designed structures that are antithetical to his hometown—the oldest city in the country—but are still very rooted in it. Perhaps this is because he knows how to acknowledge the past, especially his own, and give credit where it is due.

“The foundation of my motivation is my father. The foundation of my design is my former boss, Alex Medalla,” he says. As early as eight years old, Sia already knew the path he wanted to take. His parents, who ran a building finishings business, noticed that their son liked to draw which sparked the idea of encouraging him to study architecture someday. It did not take a lot of convincing. “I didn’t even draw very well. But they said I could be an architect and that was it!” Sia quips. “They hoped the course would help me manage the family business, which I do now on top of running the firm. But for a time, I was the only sibling uninvolved with it.”