ENTROPOLIS: Lessons from Manila

ENTROPOLIS Lessons from Manila

Timothy Cramer Walser The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Chicago Foundation — 2014 Martin Roche Travel Scholarship

ENTROPOLIS Lessons from Manila Timothy Cramer Walser The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Chicago Foundation — 2014 Martin Roche Travel Scholarship

With special thanks to the staff and members of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Chicago Foundation, including Zurich Esposito, Executive Vice President; administration and faculty at UIC School of Architecture, including Alexander Eisenschmidt, assistant professor; University of the Philippines--Diliman faculty and students, including Hannah Delgado, and my parents, Lawrence and Diane Walser.

Dedicated to the unflappable inhabitants of Manila.

London School of Economics: Living in the Endless City

2%

of Earth’s surface is covered by cities

53%

of the world’s population lives in cities

33%

of city dwellers live in informal settlements

Introduction Human development quietly achieved a landmark in 2010; with more than half the global population now inhabiting cities, the world has entered a new paradigm of high velocity urbanization. That amount will increase to 75 percent by 2050, with the majority of growth occurring in developing nations.

These new megacities, unequipped to accommodate such phenomenal growth, rely on informal methods of organization to provide the necessary support for urban life.

Manila, Philippines, the most densely populated city in the world, with a density six times greater than Tokyo and nine times that of Chicago, embodies this new urban condition due to a lack of formal intervention and the proliferation of informal architecture. The condition has become so extreme that inhabitants seeking space have moved into mausoleums in the city’s cemeteries.

Rather than perceiving these seemingly entropic conditions as something that architecture must resolve, ENTROPOLIS proposes that when examined through a different lens, an underlying logic begins to emerge; the informal transit system of jeepneys begins to resemble the metros of Paris or Moscow. The project examines such hidden urban potentials as they manifest at various scales.

The opportunity to discover and study the potentials found within the encrypted logic of the world’s most dense city is the culmination of a three year graduate study at UIC in which we’ve examined ways the city and architecture are no longer seen as in conflict with each other. Asserting a relationship in which architecture can retrieve lessons from the city may inform the development of professionals committed to working within the context of increasingly dense contemporary cities.

Disclaimer While speaking with faculty and administration at The University of The Philippines, in Diliman, Quezon City, someone mentioned that Manila is a place that many Filipinos see as a place to work and live in out of necessity, not to build a life in. She expressed hope that this study, conducted by someone with a healthy amount of naivety, would reveal potentials in the city overlooked by habituated eyes.

A recurring theme in discussions with academics, designers and residents of Manila is that it is not an easy place in which to live. It quickly became evident why: the hyper-density has placed the city in a perpetual gridlock, and the difficulties of living in substandard housing are compounded by the oppressive heat and dangerous crime and pollution levels. Still, many people have built lives in Manila and once the initial shock of the extreme poverty subsides, a hidden logic begins to emerge.

The process of documenting this logic frequently involves photographing people’s shops, homes and daily activities. To the unadapted viewer, it can be difficult to see past the staggering living conditions and can appear to be voyeuristic “poverty porn.” Additionally, there is the risk of romanticizing this environment, an even more dangerous mindset that can lead to complacency towards a highly disparate global economy. While it is important to acknowledge these social issues, it is critical for this study to also look beyond them to uncover the city’s language as a potential import into the field of architecture.

Philippines

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Metro Manila

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Manila

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Mabuhay - Welcome Metro Manila is located on Luzon, the main island in the Philippines’ 7,107 island archipelago. Home to 12 million people, the megacity is actually composed of sixteen integrated cities. Manila, the second largest of these cities, is the nation’s capital and houses 1.7 million people living within it’s 14.88(mi²) boundaries. At an average of 111,000 people / mi², Manila is the most densely populated city in the world.

Although the area has been known as a regional capital since at least 900AD, modern day Manila was established by Spanish colonists in the late 16th century with the construction of the walled city of Intramuros. By the time Americans gained control of the country in 1898, the city had expanded well beyond the walls and attracted immigrants from around the world.

Although the American government invested a great deal in the city, which came to be known as the “The Pearl of the Orient,” heavy bombing following Japanese occupation in World War II leveled much of the city– after Warsaw, it was the second most destroyed city in the world.

Following Philippine independence in 1947, Manila entered a regrowth known as “The Golden Age” that lasted until the Marcos regime took control of the country in the 1970s and redirected resources to a small group of elites. Since the fall of Marcos in the 1986 People Power Revolution, the country’s politics has been rife with corruption, coup attempts, terrorist threats, and economic downturn, causing much of Manila to fall into disrepair.

From “The Pearl of the Orient” to “the sick man of Asia,” the Philippine economy has experienced significant improvement over recent years, with a 7.8% growth in 2013 and an expectation to exceed those figures in the future. Currently unaffected by the Asian economic slowdown, the Philippine’s growth is second fastest in the region, and their economy is now the 40th largest in the world. While many of those living in poverty have seen no results from these improvements, a once-small middle class is booming, prompting construction across Metro Manila.

The physical growth of the city has been unable however to keep up with the influx of citizens from the provinces. The issue is compounded by high birth rates resulting from the country’s strict Catholic policies on family planning, a remnant of Spanish colonization. The resulting extreme density has prompted those with limited resources to created unique architectural solutions worthy of investigation.

“Paris of the Orient” 1905 Burnham Plan for Manila

“Paris on the Prairie” 1909 Burnham Plan for Chicago

The Burnham Connection Chicago and Manila have a strong, if not surprising, connection: their plans were generated by similar visions of architect and urban designer Daniel Burnham.

The 1909 Plan of Chicago was published as a vision for a distinctly American metropolis that rivaled cities at home and in Europe. Just four years earlier, Burnham submitted the Plans for the Development of Manila. With the Philippines recently acquired by the US, Burnham similarly envisioned Manila as a premier city in Asia asserting the new American Empire. Manila was in many ways a breeding ground for Burnham’s ideology in Chicago.

While the article “Analysis and Comparison of Public Open Spaces of the Burnham Plan and Present Manila,” by UP Diliman’s Nappy Navarra outlines how the present day city has strikingly deviated from Burnham’s vision, remnants of the original plan can still be found throughout. Walking through Manila can sometimes feel as if one were in a dystopian Chicago.

A common theme in Burnham’s work is giving the public unimpeded access to the waterfront. This was particularly critical in Manila’s tropical climate to give the inhabitants a reprieve from the constant heat. Both cities possess a “Sea Boulevard” (Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive and Manila’s Roxas Boulevard) and a “River Drive” (Wacker Drive, Chicago; Riverside Drive, Manila).

Due to underdevelopment and constant flooding, River Drive is largely abandoned, save for a few families who built make-shift homes beside the flooded street. Roxas Boulevard similarly lacks public utilization during the day due to extreme heat, and also at night following a mayor’s crackdown on prostitution. The boulevard does however draw a sizable crowd for the city’s famously beautiful, pollution-generated sunsets.

Transit in Manila An ongoing tourism campaign promotes an image of a lone kayaker traversing an emerald lagoon in an image that resembles a desktop background, containing the tag line: “Commuting: more fun in the Philippines.”

The advertisers must have an excellent sense of humor since commuting in Manila is anything but fun. With over 2.5 million cars registered in the city and roadways that are regularly flooded, Manila is consistently ranked among the most congested cities in the world.

Personal record for slowest drive: a 3½ hour taxi ride to travel 8 miles following a rainstorm.

The singular form of public transit, an aging metro system built during the Marcos regime, serves only a fraction of the city and is severely overcrowded, carrying double its daily limit of 350,000 commuters. Manila denizens started an “MRT challenge,” calling upon their politicians to ride the metro system just once to experience what they endure daily.

Personal record for slowest commute: 90 minutes to ride 12 miles, plus another 90 minutes queueing at a transfer station.

The response to this lack of public infrastructure is the “jeepney,” a uniquely Filipino bus originally made from WWII American jeeps, owned and operated by the driver. Although their frequent and unpredictable stops exacerbate traffic conditions, jeepneys have become so ubiquitous that malls have begun building formal terminals for them, effectively doubling the mall as a transit hub and further convoluting its function, ala Rem Koolhaas’ “Junkspace.” Indeed, the majority of Filipinos rely on jeepneys to serve their otherwise inaccessible communities, and a vast network now crawls throughout the city.

Although the high level of congestion is due in part to Manila’s density, it’s also one of the main reasons for that density. Spending over two hours to commute 12 miles isn’t viable, and many Filipinos cannot afford to live directly in the city center. The only option then is to move within a mile or two of their workplace, and build in any space they find left: under bridges, on rafts, and in cemeteries.

One of the fastest ways to address Manila’s density and provide opportunities for social mobility is to address the issues surrounding physical mobility.

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The Sites The following sites in Manila were visited between August 17 and October 10, 2014. Some were discovered even before the trip via GoogleEarth, some by word-of-mouth, and others by exploring randomly selected segments of the city without a specific direction, in the spirit of the mid-20th century Situationist dérive.

The sites vary in terms of scale and location, though they were all conceived as solutions to the pressures of the city: the lack of economic and spatial resources became a catalyst for design, and generated highly specific architecture. Although these sites respond directly to their context, their underlying logic can be exported by design professionals to other environments with similar (or not so similar) limitations.

The sites are shown in the order in which they were visited, with the date and time of each visit, and are mapped out with accompanying coordinates, as street addresses aren’t always applicable. Since Manila is a city in constant flux, it’s likely some of these examples will be gone before they’re revisited.

One or two images capture the site, with isographic drawings used as diagrams to clarify their logic. A brief description accompanies each drawing, allowing the sites to become generators of short stories about Manila: it’s history, culture, economy and inhabitants. With this format it is not only the sites that are examined, but also the city in which they manifested.

CONTAINER COMMUNITY

The first site found was in Manila’s San Nicolas district. The area’s thousandyear-long history as a shipping port continues today, and a recent restriction on trucks in the city has lead to a surplus of cargo containers at the port; thousands are stacked right up to the street, creating a miniature skyline and an opportunity for housing.

Bobby Serenio has lived at the site for 3 years, where he’s run a successful junk shop and has begun building a community; he began by purchasing unused containers from Ardees Ventures & Logistics and converting them into his home and business on a small, rented corner of their land. The formula has been so effective that he’s since hired a team to transform additional containers into homes, which are then rented out to families.

Already located on a shipping site, materials are readily available and the parent company allows use of their crane to transfer the container homes from their land onto Serenio’s rented space.

Location: Brgy. 275, San Nicolas, Manila 14°35’51.2”N 120°57’57.3”E Date/time: August 17, 2014 2:40p.m.

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BORROWED CRANE SEAPORT STORAGE

FINISHED HOMES ON LEASED LAND

CONTAINER COMMUNITY

CONTAINER COMMUNITY

SHALLOW HOUSING

Located only a few minutes from Serenio’s container community are a series of abandoned and gutted warehouses built during the Marcos regime. While the interiors have been gutted and are largely uninhabitable, the exterior walls are intact and set back roughly five feet from the street.

In the 1970s, local residents collectively built long homes along this five foot gap. With a structural wall already in place, it proved easy to build, repair or replace the three additional walls. Whereas many homes in dense areas rely on depth and have little street frontage, these spaces are shallow and long, allowing for more interior light and ventilation.

Location: Brgy. 286, San Nicolas, Manila 14°35’48.0”N 120°58’03.4”E Date/time: August 17, 2014 3:20p.m.

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GUTTED WAREHOUSE

5 FT DWELLINGS

STANDARD 20 FT DWELLINGS

SHALLOW HOUSING

SHALLOW HOUSING

RAILROAD-MAIN ROAD

While Tokyo’s density has generated a number of planned, mixed-program spaces that merge with infrastructure (Atelier Bow Wow’s Made in Tokyo), Manila offers it’s own informal variety.

The cacophony of Blumentritt Street Market quickly dissipates as you walk down the tracks of the Philippine National Railway, which links the city to the suburbs. The relatively infrequent use of this rail network has allowed somewhat of a green corridor to emerge. Down this corridor is a longestablished community of railway employees, shop owners, students and laborers that flank either side of the grassy tracks.

At the entrance stands Pedro, a railway employee who has worked at the rail crossing guardhouse since 1990 and uses the space as a secondary residence. Further down the tracks and hidden beneath an overpass is a laundry area, chapel and gambling tables, the center strip of grass is frequently used for cooking, and the “LV Store,” wedged into an irregular barrier wall, has been run by Elvira since 1972.

Location: Brgys. 368/9 Santa Cruz, Manila 14°37’20.4”N 120°59’11.4”E Date/time: August 21, 2014 2:45p.m.

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CHAPEL UNDER OVERPASS

SHOP

“LV STORE”

ACTIVE RAILWAY

GATEHOUSE

RAILROAD-MAIN ROAD

RAILROAD-MAIN ROAD

ROXAS RAFTS

Dotted along the waterfront walk of Roxas Boulevard -- one of the remnants from Burnham’s 1904 plans for Manila -- are rafts made from driftwood and old bamboo scaffolding. Fabric huts are constructed on the rafts and house single men and small families, just steps from the imposing, walled-off American Embassy.

The inhabitants are primarily fisherman, who benefit from not only being on the waterfront, but also near the pocket-filled tourists the city’s famous sunsets attract. During storms the rafts can be picked up and moved inland to avoid the destruction those with traditional waterfront homes are threatened by. The mobile nature of the unit also allows them to avoid authorities, who frequently attempt relocation.

Location: Brgy. 701, Malate, Manila 14°33’52.4”N 120°59’03.8”E Date/time: August 28, 2014 12:50p.m.

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RAFTS

BANCA BOAT

SEA WALL ROXAS BLVD PROMENADE

ROXAS RAFTS

JETTY VILLAGE

The linear city, first developed in 18th century Spain and propagated by Soviet Constructivists, sought urban growth that expanded along a singular axis. The pressure from the extreme density of BASECO, the largest informal settlement in Manila, has lead to a similar condition at the area’s terminus.

A three mile pier that carves out a small harbor and extends into Manila Bay has been slowly built on as informal growth creeps out.

The buildings, with programs that include housing, internet cafes, karaoke bars and food stalls, are built around the pier and allows public circulation through the core, creating a continuous breezeway. Originally extending even further into the bay, the linear village was severely damaged by Typhoon Pedring in 2011, which washed away the furthest structures. Despite the threat of a recurrence, the village is once again crawling outward along its trajectory and into the sea.

Location: Brgy. 649, Port Area, Manila 14°35’05.2”N 120°57’32.7”E Date/time: August 31, 2014 11:00a.m.

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PRIVATE HOME

FOOD STALL + DINING AREA

KARAOKE BAR

STORAGE PUBLIC CIRCULATION

RUBBISH BEACH

JETTY VILLAGE

JETTY VILLAGE

ESCOLTA FIRE STATION

Known as “The Broadway of Manila,” Escolta Street was built by the Spanish in 1594 and runs through the heart of the world’s oldest Chinatown, Binondo.

Manila’s relationship with Chinese merchants began around 900 AD and continues today.

Eng Bee Tin is a Chinese delicatessen that has been run by the same family for four generations. As the business grew, it’s Chinese-Filipino owners used the profits to purchase 10 fire trucks and recruit 4,500 volunteers to serve the city.

In a district that has tightly packed historical buildings, fire remain a chief safety concern. With a lack of resources to properly address the hazard, the city relies heavily on this private charity and gave them access to a scare resource: land.

Wedged in ally behind an American-era finance building, a fire station made from recycled shipping containers hangs over a river and is the headquarters for the historic Escolta Street.

Location: Brgy. 303, Santa Cruz, Manila 14°35’55.6”N 120°58’47.8”E Date/time: September 2, 2014 4:15p.m.

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ESCOLTA FIRE STATION

PRISON VILLAGE

Manila City Jail was built in the outskirts of the city by the Spanish in the 1800s and later used by the Japanese to house WWII POWs. The jail continues to operate today and is now surrounded by major roadways, malls, two metro terminals, sky bridges and neighborhoods. Arranged in a series of buildings fanning around in the shape of an asterisk, the original courtyards have been invaded by the forces of the city, with homes and shops wedging themselves between the prison wings.

Designed to hold 1,000 inmates, the prison now houses 5,000 and continues to grow. Space outside the city walls is just as scarce; in such a central location, housing demands are high and people build atop one another, cantilevering over the streets and creating fully enclosed tunnels.

Although solid walls prevent exchange between prisoners and their immediate neighbors at the street level, the stacked homes have build upward beyond the reaches of the walls, making it possible to see and interact with prisoners from home.

Location: Brgy. 310, Santa Cruz, Manila 14°36’15.5”N 120°59’03.3”E Date/time: September 6, 2014 4:45p.m.

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BARRACKS VILLAGE PRISON WALL

BARRACKS

PRISON VILLAGE

PRISON VILLAGE

CITY OF THE DEAD (AND THE LIVING)

The Philippines is a predominately Catholic country; with cremation rarely practiced, space for the living competes with space for the dead. Manila North Cemetery is the city’s largest, with 54 hectares, the cemetery contains over 1 million deceased and up to 10,000 living inhabitants.

It’s not uncommon for families to rent plots for deceased relatives, over time the family may not be able to keep up with payment, and the remains are removed— effectively evicted from their plot or mausoleum. The grave diggers involved in the burial (and removal) of these remains began moving their families into unvisited or abandoned mausoleums. Soon after, more families moved in offering support services such as food stalls, water delivery and motorcycle hire, transforming the cemetery into a city in which the living cohabit with the dead.

Flotesca runs a food stand outside a mausoleum in which she lives with nine relatives since 1980 and one deceased body. The ground floor has a television and a tomb, which has been carefully decorated by the family; the second floor contains a living room, kitchen area and bathroom, and the makeshift top floor is used for sleeping on especially hot nights.

While many families are squatting in Manila North Cemetery, this family rents the mausoleum from the relatives of the deceased, who uses the money to pay for the burial space maintenance fees. Flotesca prefers living in the cemetery because it saves money to send her children and grandchildren to school, and finds it more peaceful than the rest of the city.

Location: Brgy. 374, Santa Cruz, Manila 14°37’50.6”N 120°59’19.6”E Date/time: September 8, 2014 3:00p.m.

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MAUSOLEUM

BARRED WINDOWS

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MCO SALIT JA

CITY OF THE DEAD (AND THE LIVING)

CITY OF THE DEAD (AND THE LIVING)

PULIS STATION

Lawton Plaza, named after a fallen American General during WWII and part of the former national plaza constructed during American colonization, is framed by overpasses leading traffic across the river. Under one of these overpasses, across from the long-abandoned Manila Metropolitan Theater from the same era, is a small, obscured police station.

While Atelier Bow-Wow’s Made in Tokyo describes a police tower that connects cars to both the elevated highway and the street below, Manila’s variety remains more discrete, and instead uses the city’s infrastructure as a means of physical support, relying on the overpass for it’s ceiling and column for structure.

Location: Lawton Plaza, Ermita, Manila 14°35’39.5”N 120°58’47.4”E Date/time: September 23, 2014 11:40a.m.

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OVERPASS

PATROL CAR LOT

STATION HOUSE

PULIS STATION

LIVE / WORK / LIVE / WORK

The early 2000s construction boom in China lead to the proliferation of urban migrant workers. Moving between construction sites, these workers frequently reside on-site in overcrowded prefabricated units that have become a common element in China’s urban landscape.

The current economic boom in Manila’s economy is allowing a once-small middle class to burgeon, prompting construction across Metro-Manila such as “Manila Rivercity Residences” in Santa Ana. With fewer safety regulations, Filipino migrant workers reside directly on the site, in the lower levels of the tower. Primitive electricity and plumbing is available from the construction, and more space and air circulation is available than in the cramped, prefabricated housing units used elsewhere.

Location: Brgy. 866, Santa Ana, Manila 14°34’54.5”N 121°00’30.1”E Date/time: September 28, 2014 4:40p.m.

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CONSTRUCTION

TEMPORARY HOUSING

LIVE / WORK / LIVE / WORK

LIVE / WORK / LIVE / WORK

COURTSIDE HOUSING

Basketball, the most popular sport in the Philippines, isn’t always compatible with Manila’s weather. With a six month long rainy season followed by the oppressive heat of summer, courts need to be covered to maximize usable time. The amount of space these structures occupy competes with the space needed for housing.

In a Santa Ana barangay, resources were pooled to construct a roof over a long-exposed court. Homes in this tight district are built right up to the court’s foul lines and cover their windows with bars to protect against loose balls. When the roof was introduced, the structure of these homes had to be modified for the scaffolding, while the roof extends over their tops.

The sacrifice came with perks for the homeowners however, who now run concession windows from their homes and have a balcony view of the games.

Location: Brgy. 900, Santa Ana, Manila 14°35’05.4”N 121°00’44.9”E Date/time: October 2, 2014 4:45p.m.

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LOOSE BALL WINDOW PROTECTION

COVERED COURT

INVERTED CORNER

CONCESSIONS

COURTSIDE HOUSING

COURTSIDE HOUSING

REGROWN HOME

With housing packed so tightly together and few safety regulations in Manila, domestic fires are a common issue. While more affluent parts of the city such as Binondo have privately funded fire departments, the majority of the city lacks adequate coverage and entire neighborhoods can be affected.

In Santa Ana, a fire in 2012 damaged a number of homes, with the area now in a state of varied repair. While some buildings have been completely rebuilt or renovated, other lots are still vacant and filled with charred debris.

One family lost their second story and were forced to move back with their relatives in the provinces. A new family has since squatted on the site, but unable to afford the necessary repairs for a property that isn’t theirs, has instead built a makeshift home on the second level. The home uses the existing walls for structure and cooks in an uncovered kitchen with a fire pit that is protected from the wind.

Location: Santa Ana, Manila, PH 14°35’00.2”N 121°00’40.8”E Date/time: October 3, 2014 4:00p.m.

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REBUILT APARTMENTS

UNCOVERED KITCHEN SLEEPING AREA

ORIGINAL STRUCTURE

ASHES

REGROWN HOME

BASKETBALL CHAPEL

With Catholicism introduced to the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era and basketball during the American, both remain integral parts of daily Filipino life. Virtually all communities establish chapels and basketball courts throughout Manila, while one barangay in Quiapo with limited space combed both, creating a distinctly Filipino space.

A covered chapel with a glassed in crucifix sits above a basketball court, with fencing to protect the icons from stray balls. During religious events, community members set up their own chairs in the court while a priest delivers his sermon from the pulpit. During games, the pulpit serves as balcony seating for spectators, who believe the nearby crucifix brings luck to the home team.

Whereas Bernard Tschumi’s National Library of France shockingly proposed to bring together the seemingly disparate activities of running and reading, the basketball chapel, generated by local culture and pressures of the city, makes perfect sense in the eyes of it’s inhabitants.

Location: Brgy. 306, Quiapo, Manila 14°35’46.0”N 120°58’56.0”E Date/time: October 8, 2014 4:10p.m.

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CHAPEL

PULPIT / BALCONY SEATS

BASKETBALL COURT

BASKETBALL CHAPEL

WALL MALL

Intrarmuros, Manila’s historic core, was constructed in the late 16th century to protect the city from foreign invasion. Latin for “within the walls,” the city’s 1¼ mile perimeter was enclosed by 20’ walls with a moat. Today, the moat is used as Manila’s only golf course, while the wall has become an elevated park and mixed program space for the inhabitants.

Like The Highline project in New York City, the walkways on top of the wall offer a reprieve from the narrow, congested streets below. Additionally, former supply lockers built into the wall are now covered food stands, larger areas above the gates serve as tambayans (hangout places) for students, while the nearby ramped access points, originally built for artillery, are used for athlete training.

Location: Brgys. 654/8, Intramuros, Manila 14°35’31.9”N 120°58’41.1”E Date/time: October 8, 2014 5:00p.m.

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GOLF COURSE / FORMER MOAT

HANGOUT WALKWAY FOOD STALLS

ATHLETE TRAINING

WALL MALL

WALL MALL

PARADISE HEIGHTS

A study of Manila wouldn’t be complete without visiting Smokey Mountain; this landfill gained global notoriety in the late 20th century as having some of the world’s most inhuman living conditions. At the time, 30,000 people lived on or near the 2 million metric ton mountain of trash. The constant fires that gave the site its name lead to frequent accidental deaths and chronic breathing conditions, while disease ranging from dengue or “bonebreak” fever to tuberculosis ran rampant. Due in part to pressures from the international community, Manila decommissioned the landfill and constructed low-cost housing complexes on the site.

Today these towers, dubbed “Paradise Heights” by their 17,000 inhabitants are aging and severely overcrowded. With many of the inhabitants only trained in sorting rubbish, truckloads of waste are still brought into the area and piled up between the buildings. Inside, single story apartments have been converted into two family homes, with makeshift floors creating an upper half-level in virtually every apartment. The front portion of the apartment is frequently turned into a shop, internet café or water distribution center to supplement income. Even in the hallways, the central light well is covered with metal screens and used as storage.

Nearby is a larger, more formal trash sorting community; however it was discovered upon visiting that guards don’t allow foreigners inside, although satellite image suggests a major fire recently burnt out much of the village. It appears the same problems of Smokey Mountain continue to exist today, but are perhaps better hidden.

Location: Brgys. 124/8, Tondo, Manila 14°37’58.3”N 120°57’42.9”E Date/time: October 9, 2014 1:40p.m.

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APARTMENT BLOCK

RUBBISH SORTING PICKUP / DELIVERY

PARADISE HEIGHTS

PARADISE HEIGHTS

HANGING HOUSE

Urban density, particularly in Asia, conjures images such as those in photographer Michael Wolf’s “Architecture of Density” series, in which the façade of residential towers occupy the entire frame, no longer bound by the ground plane. In reality, the extreme density cities face manifest very close to the ground, at times even going under the traditional ground plane.

In Tondo, an area that has been settled for over a millennium, contains nearly 250,000 inhabitants per square mile and is the most densely populated district in the world’s most dense city. This extreme condition is due to the proliferation of informal communities, filling medians of highways and tucked under bridges, making effective in-city relocation projects, such as one currently underway by the United Nations, almost impossible within this supersaturated city.

This particular under-bridge settlement is unique in that rather than being built on stilts over water, which could be washed over during strong surge, homes are actually suspended underneath the bridge structure, and sway from traffic overhead.

Location: Brgy. 129, Tondo, Manila 14°37’46.3”N 120°57’34.0”E Date/time: October 9, 2014 4:00p.m.

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HIGHWAY BRIDGE SUSPENDED SLEEP CRAWLSPACE

SUSPENDED PORCH + LIVING SPACE

CONVENIENCE SHOP

HANGING HOUSE

HANGING HOUSE

VENICE OF MANILA

This site, saved for last, is actually just beyond the city of Manila in nearby Malabon. Dubbed the “Venice of Manila,” the area was originally a housing village for a textile mill that closed in 1989 following a strike. Only a few years later the area flooded about chest-deep, and the waters never receded.

Residents today live in a mixture of the upper floors of the original buildings, and in post-flood homes built on stilts. While they have electricity, clean water must be retrieved from dry land daily. A series of pulleys allow shops to stock up on supplies from land easily, and single-paddle rowboats are used to get around the village.

While residents concede life is difficult in Manila’s Venice, they’re fighting to stay as an investment group looks towards eviction; they’ve become attached to their new way of living and the unique beauty of the area. An old watch tower just yards from the dry land provides a great lookout point; a friend and I watch the sunset over the watery village and share a celebratory beer over the final site visit.

Location: Panghulo, Malabon, Metro Manila 14°41’06.6”N 120°57’10.2”E Date/time: October 10, 2014 3:00p.m.

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PRE-FLOOD HOUSING, SECOND STORY OCCUPIED

SUBMERGED HOOP

POST-FLOOD SHOP ON STILTS

CHAPEL

VENICE OF MANILA

VENICE OF MANILA

VENICE OF MANILA