Building and Decorative Materials

Finally, here is the list of some interior eco-friendly materials that are available to the Philippine market. 


1. Boysen Eco-friendly Paints : Boysen's eco-friendly paints has the Green Seal for Certified Paints with significantly low VOC content. If you also want your project to be LEED certified, the new line of Boysen paints can help you gain points by using their line of paints that have VOC levels under 50 grams per liter. If you want to know more about the new line of Boysen eco-friendly paints, you can visit their website at Boysen Paints .


2. Campos Rueda Corporation Cork Products : Campos Rueda distributes cork products that are available in different thicknesses and colors. Applications may be for exterior walls, double walls; flat and sloping coverings; floating paving slab (impact noise); partitions; door insulation; prefabricated wooden houses; thermal and acoustic wooden panels; expansion/dilatation joints (adequate density); external frontages on view (MDF quality frontage). Other applications are home and office accessories such as bulletin boards, noise reduction solution to underlayment, flooring and wood panels, gaskets and materials for automotive and heavy duty applications (rubberized cork sheet), thermal protection shields, expansion and contraction joints, wall decor and covers. You may contact them at (02)726.7031 or you may check their website Campos Rueda.


3. APO Engineered Wood Flooring: APO's engineered wood flooring is called APO Realwood. It is a natural wood product made from Toog or Philippine Rosewood. It is a natural and biodegradable product. The trees were selectively cut and replanted in a permanent forest in Surigao. It was cited as a model for sustainable development by the Tropical Timber Organization and "Best Practice in Forest Management" by the UP College of Forestry and Natural Resources. 


The wood flooring comes in different finishes such as camel, sedona, spice, rosewood and wengue. It comes ready to install and has 8 coats of APROTECT for durability and easy maintenance (no need to wax). Each piece with dimensions of 6" x 48" x 12mm thick is priced at PhP 325.00 each.  Visit your local home depot for more information or you can visit APO Realwood for more details.


4. HM Trading Natural Woven Mats: HMT Natural Woven Mats are made form the finest fibers such as rattan, abacca, saguran, pandan and other exotic materials that are handbloomed and perfected by traditional fiber weavers. They have a wide array of designs and natural materials to choose from that can be used for furniture, wall and ceiling panels, and decorative purposes. You have to check out their website, HM Trading, and see what I'm talking about.


5. TN Philippines: If you're looking for someone who can fabricate a product out of capiz, shells, bamboo, abaca or any natural indigenous material, TN Philippines is where you go to. They have a lot of different designs and selections of materials in their factory and they can fabricate it to whatever design you want. You can call (02)829.3820 or (02)829.3819 and look for Mr. Al Caronan.


6. Formaply Bamboo Products: Formaply Industries carries bamboo products namely bamboo veneers, bamboo panelling and bamboo flooring. Their bamboo flooring is available in different finishes, abrasion resistant, scratch resistant, resistant to cigarette burns, stain resistant, non-toxic and non-polluting. Check out Formaply Bamboo for more information.


7. Larry's Curtain 100% Cotton Fabric: Larry's Curtain and Upholstery has a new line of 100% cotton fabrics which are certified tested for harmful substances according to the Labo-tex certification system and Oeko-tex Standards. The Oeko-tex is the most widely recognized eco-label for textiles and it guarantees that these products are 100% safe for you and your family - free of harmful toxins and irritants. Besides that, the fabric line comes in different beautiful colors and textures, although it may be a bit pricier than the regular cotton fabric. You may contact Larry's at (02)833.8780.


8. Mariwasa Ceramic Tiles: Mariwasa tiles are composed of more than 8% of recycled materials. The use of recycled materials reduces the waste shipped to landfills and cuts down on mining of clay and other minerals needed to make conventional tiles. Mariwasa’s technology for zero waste renewable energy and raw materials from rice husks enables the company to use biomass instead of fossil fuels. Mariwasa uses renewable energy to reduce carbon dioxide emission to lessen greenhouse gasses and mitigate impact of climate change. Know more at Mariwasa.

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Grow: an art and urban agriculture project

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a Saturday afternoon helping facilitate a workshop for Grow: an art and urban agriculture project. The Grow project is multi-faceted participatory art project exploring themes of community development, food security and urban agriculture through a series of workshops, lectures and “creative experiments in urban agriculture.”

The main site for the Grow project is a 10,400 sq ft. plot of land on the north side of the seawall walkway in SEFC. Over the summer, this land will gradually be transformed into a community garden, through a series of sculptural installations. Dubbed “the Bulkhead Laboratory,” the plot is a transitional space, an overgrown remnant of False Creek’s industrial past sitting next to the carefully designed landscaping of SEFC and the deliberately constructed habitat island. It is space that has the power to challenge our definitions of “urban green space,” “community gardens,” “public open space.”

The workshop I attended, the second in an ongoing series, focused on exploring urban agriculture, specifically, creative solutions to growing food crops in containers and small spaces. The workshop began with a presentation from lead artist Holly Schmidt and collaborator/industrial designer Ocean Dionne of the Vancouver Design Nerds. They presented some creative container designs and art projects from around the world, and the group discussed the requirements for growing mediums, drainage, light and other considerations for container gardening.

After the presentation and discussion, we took a walk around Southeast False Creek. The discussion turned to the prescribed nature of the landscape. It was noted that despite the fact that there is lot of “green space” in Vancouver, much of it is not available to residents to use to grow food, or even to use as they see fit. The landscaping around SEFC is beautiful and it meant to be looked at. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the popularity of community gardens in recent years shows that Vancouverites are seeking out green spaces that they can participate in, green spaces that can be productive as well as decorative.

We spent some time discussing the possibilities for agricultural interventions into the existing landscape. Self-watering gardens floating in the water features? Using magnets for attaching containers to metal fixtures or furniture? Are there possibilities for creating small productive spaces within this decorative landscape? We eventually made our way over and took a quick look at the Bulkhead Lab, a completely non-prescribed space where our ideas could be given form.

The rest of the afternoon was spent sketching out, creating and planting some simple containers. Then we installed them over at the Bulkhead.

The Grow project will be going on all summer. There are upcoming tours, talks, workshops and work parties. Check out the Grow website for more information.

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Announcing our new Community Design Studio

VIA Architecture is pleased to announce the formal roll-out of its Community Design Studio (CDS). Informally conceived in 2009 as an initiative to serve smaller-scale, yet equally visionary projects that have not been traditionally taken on by architecture firms, we are ready to introduce this approach to a broader audience.

VIA has built its reputation on integrated architectural design and community planning over a period of 26+ years, and we are perhaps best known for our large-scale projects such as the various phases of Vancouver’s SkyTrain system, the Seattle Monorail Project, and master planning for communities as diverse as Southeast False Creek, Bremerton, Kelowna and Tacoma. Yet quietly in the background, we have long served community groups, non-profits, and other smaller clients with thoughtful, crafted responses to much more humble needs. It is this work that we are now bringing to the forefront.

We are inspired by the growing interest locally and globally in urban agriculture, homesteading, community-shared resources, the revival of practical skills and preservation. Simultaneously, we are aware of communities across the country that are, in some measure, fragmented or even broken due to social, economic and environmental factors such as missing infrastructure, unequal access to food and outdated regulations. We recognize the great potential to address these issues in profound ways through small-scale, hands-on design approaches that can have a powerful cumulative effect.

Our focus with the CDS will be issues of applied craft, community resilience, planning and design for food production, and other problems where we can be of direct assistance to improving the quality of life for our clients. Our work seeks to restore and reinvigorate communities through thoughtful, practical and cooperative solutions around food, mobility and open space.

The CDS consists of architects and community planners within the VIA team who share a passion for helping to create connective communities that are resilient and thriving. The team is led by Catherine Calvert, VIA’s Director of Community Sustainability, who brings a background of not only architecture and sustainability work, but specialized training in areas such as Farm Design and Permaculture.

Our services include:

• Integrated design and planning for small-scale residential, commercial and institutional projects in rural and semi-urban areas.
• Visualization and early design services for agriculture-focused site planning and building projects, both urban and rural.
• Education around issues of strategic sustainability, local resilience and design for self-sufficiency.
• Resolution of regulatory barriers to community-based projects.
• Facilitation of community discussions or workshops.

To date we have worked on a variety of projects in the Seattle area, including:

Rainier Vista Community Farm – VIA has been assisting Common Ground in the design of shelters made from salvage materials.

Atlantic City Urban Farm – VIA has been working with Seattle Tilth and the Friends of the Atlantic City Nursery on site planning concepts for conversion of the former Seattle Parks nursery to a new urban farm.

Spectrum School Farm – VIA provided early site design concepts for a one-acre farm on the campus of the North Kitsap High School, designed to support the school science curriculum and provide food for the school kitchen

Option A

Option B

Finn River Cidery in Chimacum WA – VIA is working with this 33-acre organic farm on site planning concepts, as well as the design of the Chum Hut, a shelter for educational gatherings adjacent to the salmon-bearing Chimacum Creek that runs through the property.

Our projects are both urban and rural in location, serving the Puget Sound and Fraser Valley regions to date but with the potential to expand beyond these areas to wherever we can be of assistance.

VIA has been actively interested in the topics of food security, planning for agriculture, and issues around integrating art and agriculture in urban areas. See our previous blog posts on these topics:

- Grow: an art + urban agriculture project
- Trends in Small Farming - Kitsap County
- Rethinking Highest + Best Use
- Transitioning Towards Local Resilience
- Agriculture through Rose-Colored Glasses

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Monday News Roundup

Here's what you missed out on last week!

Saying Goodbye to 'Leave it to Beaver' Urbanism? (Sustainable Cities Collective)
An exploratory tour of the iconic front yard and lawn. Long protected by cultural position -and zoning setbacks -is the classic Leave it to Beaver lot configuration really part of a sustainable future?

Cardboard bank in the Netherlands (Dezeen)
Amsterdam architects have created a bank using giant cylinders of cardboard and paper to enclose meeting rooms and multi-ply cardboard for textured patterns.

Urban farming in a box (Swiss Info)
Swiss entrepreneurs Urban Farmers are pushing the concept of local production and have come up with a pioneering solution to many of the problems of conventional farming methods.

How walkable is Seattle? (Seattle PI)
Walk Score just released its latest list of most-walkable cities in the nation, and Seattle made the top 10!

Law and Order and Parking Lots (Sightline)
In this post, we take a look at how Northwest municipalities deal with parking at drinking establishments. Who gets it wrong, and who gets it (almost) right?

When Design Kills: The criminalization of walking (Grist)
It's a plain fact: When you design streets solely for cars, people die as a result. So why don't we design streets for the reality of human needs and behavior?

Report: Centers, Cities, Clusters (Sustainable Cities)
This report focuses on sustainable economic development through case studies from Barcelona, Boston, and Curitiba highlighting innovative strategies for economic development in urban cores.

The Modern List Manhattan (Build LLC)
As an architectural laboratory and one of the greates social experiments ever conducted on earth, NYC is one of the best places for the design-minded to observe, research, and learn.

Retro Futuristic Space Colonies (Wanken)
A lot of great futuristic visualizations came out of the 1970's including these brain warping space colonies that could accomodate up to 10,000 people.

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Some Square Format Views

I think my favorite photographic format is the square view given to me by my Hasselblad and Ciroflex cameras. Filling a square makes me think harder about composition -- lines, shapes, colors, and where they are positioned within the frame. It's a good format for architectural photography.

Here are a couple of photographs that came from film that was just recently developed! Both were taken over the summer (July 2010) while I was still living up north.

Thill's Fish House, Marquette


St. Anne's Church, Calumet

This year, I hope to do more medium format photography. Sometimes, I forget just how much fun it is! I almost always end up with better-composed, higher-quality photographs. Only having twelve exposures per roll makes me get it right the first time, in comparison to the hundreds of exposures that can be held on a memory card.

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Meaningful Sanctuary in a Space for Many

I can say that I enjoy living in an apartment built in 1898, because I am a person who appreciates the design details of the time.  For me, built-ins, high ceilings, solid wood mouldings, large bright windows, and hardwood floors are more important interior details than new appliances, modern heating, or a dishwasher (Okay, I kick myself sometimes for living without a dishwasher.)  There is something so satisfying about coming home to solid interior elements.  They create a sanctuary.

The Grex, 1898

The once common telephone nook

When I say “sanctuary”, I don’t mean a refuge or shelter, “sanctuary” here is like the inmost recess, the holiest part of the church that contains the altar.  I once lived in an apartment where I could hear the woman above me sneeze.  I did very little living that year and a lot of worrying about being quiet to avoid eviction for breathing too loud.   That apartment was a shelter from the outdoors, but it was not a sanctuary.

 More than a roof over a head, a sanctuary makes us feel comfortable, secure, and peaceful.  In a sanctuary, we can be dynamic and joyful.  We can create calm.  We can project ourselves into the space and feel reassured in return by the interior’s design. 

 Simple design elements are part of making a sanctuary, such as wall color; light grey for "calm", a vibrant yellow for "lively."  The feeling and choice is as unique as the individual.   As an interior designer, I have the vocabulary to help individuals realize their vision.  But, what happens when designers are speaking for large groups?  The needs of the whole overshadow personal preferences.  In large project architecture firms, this is the interior designers’ challenge.  

I am currently working on an Assisted Living project, where EVERYTHING has more purpose and meaning than the average individual eye can see.   For the residents that will live there, it is the type of place that many would understandably be reluctant to call home.  Whereas a personal sanctuary reflects individual choices and independence, most assisted living residents will move in with neither.  Yet, it is the space that will last longer than their memories and will likely be the last interior space image they remember.

The design elements of assisted living are driven by operational and elder care needs.  Wall color that is soothing, lighting for older eyes, stain resistant carpet - those are easy.  But, choosing carpet that doesn't disturb depth perception, chair rails that are really hand rails, wall coverings that indicate floor levels, and room dividers that act as walker storage are the things that an individual doesn’t notice, let alone think about.

Every design element has a reason, everything has a purpose, every detail is meaningful.  Designing a space to function well is integral to the purpose of the building as a whole. Allowing the space to address individual emotional needs are also essential to creating a sanctuary for a large number of residents.  We can create interior spaces that are harmonious to surrounding communities and residences to bring inside some of the much needed outside.  For example, many residents will find a lonely bench in a long corridor as a much needed friend.  A prominent place in each room to display a treasured piece of themselves will let residents show everyone who they are. 

Memory Box

 Once the common areas are defined and designed, it comes back to the details.  It is in the details that a space becomes  an inviting place and a room becomes a sanctuary.  The challenge is knowing that it is ultimately the individual who decides what is meaningful to them and what is simply “taking up space.”  Wrestling with these details is all an investment in sanctuary.  I think about it all the time.  I think of details that convey the feelings we get from a piece of art or from something as simple as a smile.   I think, back in my apartment, part of my sanctuary is reflected in the sponge that matches the dish towels and pot holders.  Through interior details, large and small, we seek to give the residents on our project the sanctuary they deserve.

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