The Future of Design

If you have any doubt, any doubt at all, about the talent and resourcefulness of Filipinos when it comes to design, whether of interiors or furniture, go to the LKG Tower on Ayala Avenue where the advanced class of the Philippine School of Interior Design is exhibiting. You have until October 31 to see the work of students who are going to be tomorrow’s interior designers (or as soon as they pass the board exam anyway).

"Every year students outdo the last batch of exhibitors," says the young Dean of Students Jie Pambid proudly.

What makes this year’s exhibit doubly significant is that the school is celebrating its 35th year and paying tribute to 35 individuals who have made a difference in the design industry, including architect Lor Calma, top retailer and PSID graduate Ben Chan, design publisher Opat Hermano, interior designer Nardy Aquino, award-winning furniture designer Leo Yao, and PSID founders Edith Oliveros and Agustin Cancio.

The 35 booths occupy two floors of LKG. The students’ ages range from 18 to 45. This shows the popularity of interior design as a degree today as the PSID student body is composed of students that came straight from high school, college shiftees and individuals who already hold other degrees, like architecture and other related or even unrelated fields.

Called "Tribute: An Affair in Black and White," the exhibit is the students’ thesis and may very well be the showcase of how local interior design will look like in the future. As Pineapple lifestyle store owner Leah Puyat remembers, she used to see the exhibit years ago when the graduating batch would hold the event in such places as Greenhills Shopping Center because there were only a handful then. But now, more than a hundred students are graduating and designing in such diverse statements for rooms that range from a bathroom with a feel of a New York loft to a quiet prayer room, a study for a nun who graduated from PSID, a romantic living room, a sumptuous minimal kitchen, a home theater, and a dining room.

The brief given to the students was: Design your booth by treating your honoree as your client. So the students went out and interviewed their honorees, incorporating their design philosophies and lifestyles into their booth design. It was truly a practice for what the real world would be like for interior designers in terms of sourcing and satisfying their clients (and their dean for that matter!). Students presented renderings of their designs to the honorees, who suggested changes or fine-tuned what they wanted. During the process of building the booths, Dean Jie Pambid, himself an honoree, would check the progress, propose changes in the accessories or the furniture used.

Sponsors – paint companies, contractors and furniture and accessories shops – were not lacking as the PSID has presented such wonderful exhibits in the past that it is almost guaranteed to give them new business.

Since we can’t put all the 35 booths in these pages, we chose a diverse selection to represent what today’s design world and the future might look like.

* * *

The first booth that made an impression on us honors architect Lor Calma, designed by Sally Bascara, Jaime Cabanes, Erlie Macaranas and Jovan Romero. It is a kitchen for the modern household: Minimalism and functionality rolled into one, the way Calma designs for his own clients. The white walls are embellished with abstract artworks and the cabinets, almost invisible, are accented with stainless steel. A suspended ceiling is used to further emphasize the clean lines of the design.

Calma’s "Wala kong borloloy" statement surfaces in this kitchen where the materials used are the ornaments themselves. "Calma’s details are fine and bold. He believes that one must think out of the box and be innovative to come up with his own lines and then go far beyond them."

* * *

For retailer Ben Chan, the group of Pam Xena Bicerra, Mylene Q. Lising, Gretchen Picache, Maria Luisa Quijano, Jessica Tsoi and Cristina Trinidad designed a living room that he requested to be minimalist, just like his own house. The students say that a visit to his house gave them the impetus to design along the lines of his favorites, such as Le Corbusier, Mies Van Der Rohe, Richard Neutra, Christian Liaigre and Peter Marino.

Of course, there had to be that piece of furniture that speaks of both his business and his Pinoy inclinations: the bench or bangko. But it’s no ordinary one; instead of the usual wooden bangko, it is made of metal and took several people to carry. In the living room that puts simplicity and sophistication together, the students put his favorite colors – red and white – a Harry Bertoia classic chair and frosted glass to give a luminous glow, and artworks from the Drawing Room. But what to do with the floor? The owner of Bench and Dimensione, himself a PSID graduate and a stage designer early in his career, would not want anything so ordinary yet nothing so overtly ethnic either. So Mylene and her group decided to put together multi-colored planks of narra wood, which resulted in an unexpected conversation piece.

* * *

Honoree Claro Fererra is an interior and furniture designer. "He wanted to be a priest when he was younger, but was convinced by his father to take up architecture instead," according to student designers Erika Babasa, Devi Blauta, Angie Pingol and Vince Ricafort. "He worked for Mobil Oil as draftsman while studying and in the late 1970s he took up interior design at PSID."

They found out that Ferrera is a Santo Niño devotee and active in his church. He wanted a modern prayer room, one that would show his love of nature and eclecticism. So the group created a modern prayer room that puts to good use cushions in different textures. In the middle of the altar is a crucifix made of stainless steel and acrylic enclosed in a glass casing. But how to put nature in a prayer room without its looking like a jungle? The students simply put cascading water on either side of the crucifix and river stones in the middle of the room to divide the room.

"We wanted it to be a place of solitude, where one can reflect on one’s life and be thankful for the blessings."

* * *

Many of the booths display a variety of modern lines, but the students designing for Jie Pambid decided to go the other way: To go maximalist and create a jungle of a study for their dean. Hazel Adriano, Candy Bernardino, Gladys Mallilin and Joy Manalo interviewed Pambid and found three things: he liked exotic pieces made of Philippine hardwoods, he liked to have the water element in his room, and he loves his students.

So for his study, they put up a sort of a wooden bulletin board where they displayed mug shots of all his 144 graduating students in small wooden frames; a groove on the floor where water runs flanked by river stones; and a totem pole by Riel Hilario, an artist based of Pinto Art Gallery in Antipolo.

But wait, there’s so much more, there is a chair carved out of a single piece of wood, a floor treatment of coconut weave that came out of a PSID lab class which looks like leather, candles all around, a ledge by the window where he could take a break from work while his feet were soaking in water, and other local materials the students got from their "field trips" (the tiring trips for materials, in other words). The only thing missing in this setting is the sound of animals, but Pambid laughs and says, it is his "fantasy of an office": rich in texture and displaying an abundance of local materials.

* * *

When the students asked book publisher Josephine "Opat" Hermano what she wanted them to design, her response was a bathroom that would reflect her love of New York. A believer of the minimalist and Zen design philosophies, Opat described herself as a "New Yorker at heart" even as she showcases Filipino design in her books such as La Mesa: the Filipino Table, and her newest book, At Home with Filipino Art and Artists.

Students Janice Tricia Sy, Vida Marie Tan, Lee Chi Po, Charles Hansley Yap and Kenneth Villanueva designed for her a bathroom with a faux view of New York’s skyline before the September 11 terrorist attacks by using small black tiles to create a wall mosaic. They used old Meralco posts to create a "four-poster bathtub" with curtains, and to satisfy Opat’s leanings towards modernism, they used Philippe Starck WCs and lavatory; to showcase her love of art, they borrowed an abstract artwork by Ivan Acuna entitled "September 11"; and to show her love of the unusual, they used a Gabby Barredo chair made from a motorcycle gas tank. The design also shows the wonderful contrast between rough materials such as the Meralco posts and the smooth tiles of the floor.

* * *

Another room that leaves a lasting impression on the viewer was created by the group of Queenie Marie Estanislao, Celine Cruz and Paul del Rosario. Their honoree, Pinky de los Reyes, is a graduate of the UST College of Architecture and took up interior design at the New York School of Design and PSID.

It is a white living room with a bar and wine cabinet, which shows how white can be so hot. The group’s design is a textured space playing on hard materials such as frosted glass and wood, and soft material such as an area rug you can sink your toes into and a stuffed ottoman ball.

One wall features white wooden squares, one on top of the other, and opposite it is a wine cabinet in frosted glass. It’s a display of the ingenious way of creating mood with lighting. The shapely Tom Vac chair and chaise lounge complement the hard edges of the design. An all-white interiors that create a maximum impact.

* * *

Renowned pottery artist Tessie San Juan Pettyjohn is enamored of Scandinavian design and the students who designed for her a studio – Marie Emmanuelle Alpaño, Ma. Abigail Llagas, Melanie Santiago, Nicole Tuble and Marie Antoinette Viray – used the same philosophy. Scandinavia, the European region encompassing Denmark, Norway and Sweden – that has produced such wonderful designs and influential designers such as Alvar Aalto, is known for modern, spare designs.

During the three-month preparation for the exhibit, the group got to know the other side of Tessie. She is not only a potter and a furniture maker, but also holds a degree in Fine Arts from UP. She also took up interior design at PSID and at the New York School of Interior Design where she took up design and pottery.

The studio they designed for her imbues the spareness of Scandinavian style and the earthy qualities of her own pottery, rich in texture and with the feel of something carved out of one’s own hands.

* * *

The group of Heidi Abanes, Jenny Gonzaga, Ivy Rose So Hu, Arnulfo Basco and Iris Joyce Salonga took inspiration from their honoree’s preferred travel destination: Japan. Architect Rose Marie Bautista, a graduate of UST, has been teaching for 34 years at PSID and is a director at the College of Saint Benilde’s School of Design and Arts. Married to poet Cirilio Bautista, Rose Marie prefers a quiet, serene place.

So the young designers designed a space that uses a lot of stone and cement finishes and glass blocks on the floor. Typically Zen, nature plays a big part in the design.

* * *

An Impy Pilapil sculpture in metal stands at the entryway of the office designed for Wilfrido Nicho-lo Magcase, whose design style can be described as unpretentious, simple, uncomplicated and less ostentatious.

Nick Andrei Reyes, Chiqui Ongson, Chiqui Rose Dacanay and Martha Anne Asuncion designed a space that would inspire Nicky’s creative mind.

"The study room projects an atmosphere of serene tranquillity in a space designed to become a haven for meditation," say the students. "With a monochromatic palette of black and white with accents in brown, the room invites the eyes to rest and the mind to wander. The interplay of elements, with every piece embodying restraint and character, allows a unified uncluttered style."

* * *

Red is the preferred color of Leo Almeria, a graduate of PSID and instructor at the College of Saint Benilde. According to Lizza Juarez, Maria Isobel and Niña Pascual, there are five major elements that compose their design for Leo: "The collection of interior accessories, a display of a new line of products in an actual setting; a color scheme that shows contrast; a sitting area with various accessories; the different materials that accentuate the walls, ceilings and walls; and a lighting design that gives focus and emphasis on the accessories."

* * *

It is fitting that for PSID co-founder Agustin Cancio, the group of Emelino Francisco, Ma. Carmen Lim, Yoan Garcia, Karlo Jamer and Francis Marte should design a study where he can relax as well, and not just immerse himself in work.

A mechanical engineer and designer, Cancio believes in utilizing local materials in building our homes, and "he introduced the Knoll furniture line in the Philippines, an exceptional contact furniture line that can be seen in major establishments."

The room they designed for Cancio is a study in contrast. Black, red and white are the dominant colors. Shapes are angular as well as rounded – a luscious winding staircase gets our attention right away, as well as the bookshelf around a pillar (a difficult thing to construct according to the students).

The wall art includes a work by Napoleon Abueva, "Rizal and Josephine in Bed," carved out of wood.

* * *

Catch the PSID exhibit at the LKG Tower on Ayala Avenue, Makati, until October. 31.