The Problem of Being Green

Being a couch potato has its benefits, you get exposed to very relevant information. And by relevant information, we don’t mean the newest development in your favorite teleserye but we do mean things that can help save the planet.

One of the more interesting shows in cable is Living with Ed. For those who have been living under a rock, and has no idea what the show is about, Living with Ed is the hit reality TV series with actor Ed Begley Junior and wife, Rachelle.

Don’t dismiss it as your run-of-the-mill reality show, Living with Ed is about the home life of the couple and their efforts to go green. And we’re telling you, “efforts” is such an understatement, and obsession may be a more fitting word to describe Ed.

Last week’s episode featured several products that piqued my interest: lawn turf and insulation. Why on earth, you may ask would I be interested with turf or insulation? Here’s why: the turf completely requires no watering and the insulation is completely soy-based.

The turf is synthetic but looks so real, and as mentioned earlier requires no watering and only minimal maintenance. So not only do you save on

image from artificialturfsupply.com

your water bills but you save up on what could be gallons and gallons of precious water.

The soy-based insulation on the other hand was featured as a solution to noise pollution in the home of actress Beverly D’Angelo. It works with the same efficacy and effectiveness as plastic foam insulation, but the fact that it is plant-based makes for something biodegradable. And as with any insulation, it helps modulate interior temperature, keeping the cool or the heat in, therefore doing away with excessive use of airconditioning, or heating and lowering your energy bills. It may look like taho, or look good enough to be eaten, its benefit as noise pollution reducer simply dandy in keeping at bay noise from all our neighbor’s belting out videoke songs, all while being green.

There’s one simple catch though. While any green advocate would go gaga on the prospect of getting their hands on these products, you may be hard pressed in finding a supplier here in the shores. This is the great dilemma, so many good and green products out there, and it still remains to be just that—out there. If only someone would take the first step to bringing them all here…is there anyone?
On a related note, we are happy to report that the recently concluded Earth Hour last Saturday was a success, and the Philippines ranked as the highest in participation with 647 towns and cities turning off their lights for the event.Now, ain’t that grand?

Our Cross to Bear

Navigating through the streets of Manila always brings a mixed sense of wonderment and dread. An accidental drive through Sta. Cruz and Binondo area reintroduced me to this historic area. But for all of its rich historical and cultural past, it couldn’t be saved and what remains is a grimy ghost of its past glory, hardly recognizable. It is now a labyrinthine world of small shops, hawkers, narrow streets, and a multitude of people, electric cables draping and crisscrossing through the plaza.

It makes one wonder whether the people milling about its streets, going through their business ever stopped to appreciate the beauty what they actually have. Are places and time like horses that lose their meaning once they’ve ran a good run? Or is it the fact that I am an outsider looking in that makes it easier to see what others have been sorely taking for granted?

It seems that as a people we are constantly waging a war with our past, and the means to win it is to obliterate traces of our history and reduce what’s left to something that amounts to as little as possible. And it begs the question when we could finally be at peace and reclaim our heritage and our past.

We found photos of the old Sta.Cruz District and some recent photos of the area. See for yourself what we’ve made out of this treasure, then what can we do to save it. – TM

old sta.cruz church postcard (photo courtesy of manilahub)

sta.cruz church now (photo from manilahub)

plaza goiti then (photo from manila nostalgia)

sta cruz plaza now (photo from nostalgia manila)

Landscape Architects?

Historically Landscape architecture evolved for the basic reasons of sustainability – centuries ahead of this ‘Green Awareness’ and ‘the quest to save the planet Earth’ movement which brought about the institutionalized and systemic planning approaches of ‘alternative energies’, LEED certification, green buffer zones, green revolution, and environmental consciousness to the effects of pollution and the ‘quality of air and water, save the whale, save the planet, save the trees, organic, nature, etc.etc.

We, the Landscape Architects are the gatekeeper of the landscape environment, the mechanic of the ecosystem and the creator of a balanced and environmentally sustainable human creation of the ‘paradise of Eden’.

Ebenezer Howard or Frederick Law Olmstead had envisioned a professional alter-ego of the architect’s monstrosity of stone and steel structures that had engulfed humanity and devoid its humanly existence from nature and thus the appreciation of the ‘gardens’ and the ‘eastern culture and value system in close association with nature forming the basic elements of landscape architecture.

The evolution of landscape architecture as a science and art of nature and human creativity that has brought about the ‘Green’ concept and has made the scientific community’s efforts and awareness much easier in conveying to the public the forthcoming global environmental crisis – caused by the excesses of human activities and ‘architecture’ .

Global warming aside from the hazardous gasses emitted into the upper layer of the planets ‘atmospheric shield’ is also caused by the reflectivity of human shelters, road networks and a ’sea of paved areas’ generating a reflected heating of the underside of the ‘reflective shield’ and defleting the ‘living giving air mix’ essential for healthy life froms.

The Landscape Architect is the only profession that is qualified to universally understand this environmental sensitivity to the delicate balance of nature and the existence of living forms of the planet.

PALA has to make this statement and a presentation of the professional role of the landscape architect in the man-made environment, the creator of a balanced human expression of nature and architecture.

Nat John G Duenas

(This entry is being reposted here with permission from Landscape Architect Nat Duenas, who wrote this in line with a lecture on landscape architecture’s sustainable design principles via the PALA yahoogroup. For more information on the Philippine Association of Landscape Architects (PALA), check out www.pala.org.ph)

Forgotten Heritage: A look at Quiapo and its architecture, part 2

We acknowledge the fact of how much influence man exerts on his environment, how our personalities, ideologies and even our politics have shaped our homes and cities. But we neglect the part that it is also a two-way process—we are also shaped by the environment we have created ourselves. We draw our identities as a people by the cities and structures we build.
During a lecture and discussion on architecture and their hidden meanings, I had used Plaza Miranda in Quiapo as example how even public spaces can have its own language, its own significance other than the obvious. They looked at me dumbfounded, with nary a glimmer of recognition of what I was talking about. Maybe they were too young. To another generation, Plaza Miranda had been the battlecry against tyranny and dictatorship, but to this group of wide-eyed college students, Plaza Miranda was nothing more than a site for bazaars and peddlers.
Quiapo is only a small fraction of, but it is quite telling of the shape our city is in now. We have achieved to create a city that holds no relevance anymore to both culture and history except to serve economics.
Heritage conservationists, the men and women who fight to preserve our built environment have been fighting a good fight. And as much as we laud their efforts, it makes me think how limited the scope of buildings and structures that they’ve tried so hard to save. And this begs the question about conservation itself: Do we save only those that have been held as the bastions of the elite, those that had been designed and built by the more famous architects? Do we disregard those we deem as pedestrian no matter if they hold architectural merit?
We talk about Manila, its charm and character but we’ve so much taken it for granted. We’ve grown so complacent about the way things are that we don’t notice that all its charm and character is crumbling away the same way its buildings are. And if our history, culture and identity is intertwined with our architecture and our cities, shouldn’t we endeavor their preservation, lest we forget who we are and where we came from? – TM

Forgotten Heritage: A look at Quiapo and its architecture, part 1

It is an unavoidable circumstance to overlook and take for granted what is right before you, and everyone is mighty guilty of this on a daily basis. After all, objectivity is hard to maintain once you find yourself embroiled in anything at all. It takes someone from the outside to actually point out what you’ve failed to realize all this time.
This goes for architecture as well. As soon as a building or structure loses its novelty then it becomes almost impossible for people to look at it in a new light. Most often, they are reduced to being dated and irrelevant, and like an old movie star, they lose their shine just waiting to be upstaged by the next young thing.
Such is the fate of most of the buildings found in downtown Manila, and particularly that of Quiapo. Once a relatively wealthy business district, Quiapo has now fallen to such neglect and disrepair and has devolved into the seedy part of Manila—dilapidated apartment blocks, adult movie theaters—and people these days rarely try to look beyond the grit and grime. It would be a lie to say that I’ve always seen Quiapo for both its historical and architectural value, and if it weren’t for a nasty traffic jam by the Quiapo bridge, I wouldn’t have had a new-found appreciation for the area.
A cursory look at the buildings reveal those built during the burgeoning stages of modernism here in the Philippines. Though not exactly skyscrapers, these buildings aren’t exactly lacking in interest either.
No taller than five stories, buildings were designed to have a very distinct humanized scale. Brise soleil or sunshades were commonly used to control admittance of light and heat, and façade embellishments may have been minimal but tasteful. And who knows, maybe during their heydays, these buildings may have held people’s admiration as it did mine now.
There was even a building with a distinctly Art Deco flavor, and it’s funny how people with a supposed interest in architecture can only think of the Metropolitan Theater as the only extant example of Art Deco architecture. Another building even bore on its façade a bas-relief, a detail that is now lost in an age where glass and steel had become commonplace, and is obviously overshadowed by a more famous bas-relief by National Artist Napoleon Abueva on the façade of the Insular Life in Makati.
They were all there—artifacts from a bygone era designed by unsung and nameless architect—but forgotten. People have been so busy attending to more practical matters that we have lost sense of history. We, with our short memories have tried to replace these tangible memories from our past with buildings void of soul, all in the name of progress. – TM