Preview’s Creative IT List

We are proud to share that Design Ambassadors and two out of the three partners of Buensalido+Architects are part of this year’s Creative It List! Read about it below.

“Architects Nikki and Ems are two of the three partners that run Buensalido+Architects, with the collective purpose to contemporize Filipino architecture thru progressive and contemporary propositions that are always coupled with authenticity, preservation of sense of place, and respect for context.

Both graduating with honors (Nikki is a magna cum laude and Ems is a cum laude), they are no stranger to excellence, which they naturally apply in running the firm, constantly finding ways to evolve. Part of this is to ensure a culture of collaboration, where design democracy is practiced and a multiplicityf ideas is produced with their teams, in the end being narrowed down through the sifting process of design thinking. Almost like curators of the firm’s design solutions, they always ensure that any proposition of the firm addresses the basic parameters of a project (such as function, budget, and practicalitywhile ensuring that their structures would inspire, lift the spirit, and give hope. This stems from their personal optimism and belief in a better future, a belief that they share with others thru their architecture.

They extract the metaphysical aspects of the Filipino culture and decipher how it can be applied in architecture. Summed up as “Four Points of Philippine Culture in Architecture”, these are : Responsive Vernacular Models (the babahayubo and the bahay-na-bato), Weaving, Personalization, and Weaving. As a team, constantly cross-checking and challenging each other’s thoughts, they have helped develop a stringent process, half intuitive and half scientific, that ensures that all of their projects express these four points of the filipino culture in varying degrees. They believe that thru this authenticity and honesty about cultural identity, that our cities will eventually be able to offer a unique urban experience that flaunt local flavor in a contemporary way, something that can only be felt in the Philippines.”