lET’S TALK ABOUT WATER.

This project’s main agenda of sustainability over specific issues — transport and mobility, environment, and aquaculture industry — surrounding the urban-rural coastal municipality of Hagonoy, Bulacan, in the Philippines is the solid base from which the transcendental attributes of an architecture and the sensibilities it must endow to a post-globalised world shall be exhibited; a renewed relationship with water.

As Hagonoy battles for continuity in spite of rising sea levels and worsening tide flooding, its independent aquaculture industry and community culture remain ever rich and strong, thus a new way of thinking for its urban fabric must be set in motion to assure its growth and survival. To drive this is an eco-urban catalyst, THE AQUACULTURAL PORTAL, that integrates water transport, a punduhang bayan (fish port), and recreation space into a unified entity. The design vision for this spatial intervention is to create a permeable, energy-efficient, and resilient structure, much like the mangrove, which is the prime heritage and resilient model for Hagonoy.

Notwithstanding the natural capabilities of the mangrove root system to adapt and expand, the PORTAL is then fit to catalyze within Hagonoy, wherein the change for continuity shall sprout, from the simple vision of allowing the municipality to flourish amidst climate change by REPLANTING it on water.