The client wanted us to design a boutique hotel for their family lot in Ermita, Manila, as a tribute to pre-war Ermita, back when it was the poshest area in Manila. We were so surprised; once upon a time, Manila’s “back door” (and red light district) was once the most prime of all areas in the city! We felt so driven to create something that would inspire a revival of the district, a sparkplug project that would start a collective effort to bring back Ermita to its glory days.
[A PORTAL TO GLORY DAYS]
Understanding how the pre-war Ermita was, how do we now design an architecture that will remember those “glittering decades?”
In coming up with a series of ideas for the project, we were not interested to replicate or recreate a traditional kind of architecture as a strategy to remember the glory days of pre-war Ermita. After all, everything about it was new and progressive: ladies wore high fashion couture, houses displayed the latest architecture, and quite a number of important buildings were there.
To rekindle that spirit, we therefore proposed a progressive kind of architecture, one that belongs to the present and is innovative in form and design strategy.
Project Team : Principal Architect – Jason Buensalido; Associate Architect / Lead Project Architect – Nikki Boncan-Buensalido, Project Architect – Jeff Bernaldez