APL 412

PLANNING 2
FUNDAMENTAL OF ARCHITECTURE URBAN
DESIGNAND COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE

TITLE: COMMUNITY PLANNING APPROACH AND PROCESS

ACTIVITY NO: RSW– M T 0 1

DATE GIVEN: SEPTEMBER 05, 2023

DATE DUE: SEPTEMBER 12, 2023
DATE SUBMITTED: SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

SUBMITTED BY:

TUTAAN, JUMEIRAHLYN B.
20-UR-0018 / ARCHI 4A

SUBMITTED TO:

AR. ZALDY CORPUZ

INSTRUCTOR
A. Case study of actual PH community plan or development

Title: Parks, plans, and human needs: Metro Manila’s unrealised urban plans and

accidental public green spaces

ABSTRACT

Planned after the City Beautiful Movement and Garden City Movement, Manila City and

Quezon City, now among Metro Manila’s 16 cities, did not result in the desired outcomes of

their planners. The history of unfulfilled visions that began with Burnham’s 1905 Plan for

Manila repeated in similar fashion in Quezon City in its 1949 Frost-Arellano Plan. How do

Metro Manila’s public green spaces, as remnants of these plans, sustained specific visions for

meeting human needs? To find answers, we focused on Rizal Park and the University of the

Philippines (UP) Academic Oval – two public green spaces that remained from the Burnham

and Frost-Arellano plans. Contemporary uses of these spaces suggest that the intermingling

of the upper and lower classes as envisioned in these plans is limited; nonetheless, they

represent endeavours by fairly diverse groups to actively satisfy human needs within and

beyond how these spaces were initially designed

 Introduction

When in 1905 renowned American urban planner and architect Daniel Burnham

unveiled his master plan for turning sleepy and crumbling Spanish-era Manila into an

American tropical model city and showcase of successful US-American colonisation of the

Philippine Islands, he took inspiration from the thenpopular ‘City Beautiful’ Movement, of

which he was a co-founder and verdant advocate . The heart and soul of his grandiose design

was the civic centre north of a small grassy field then known as ‘Luneta’ (Spanish for ‘half-

moon’), where Filipino national hero Jose Rizal had been executed barely 10 years earlier.

Here, facing Manila Bay with its fabulous sunset was to rise a majestic capitol building,

surrounded by imposing neo-classical government buildings, ministries, museums, and

cultural institutions, all tied together by a grand public mall in front facing the bay, and a vast

esplanade at the rear (Zialcita and Akpedonu 2021). From this esplanade, wide and spacious

tree-lined boulevards and avenues would spread out to connect each and every corner of the

new shiny metropolis with its monumental core, which was to be a new ‘Acropolis’ by the

sea, evidence of the great civilising and democratising mission of the United States of

America, which took on the ‘White Man’s Burden’ to bring the light of civilisation to these

‘barbaric’ Islands. Alas, Burnham’s grand vision never came to bear. Today, his grand civic

centre that never was is known as Rizal Park. It is ironic and indicative that what today is the

most famous public park anywhere in the Philippines was never planned as such by Daniel

Burnham.

More than four decades later, another grand vision emerged of what was then a

desolate and wind-swept plain of cogon grass and brushes. In 1949, the socalled Frost-

Arellano Plan envisioned the to-bedeveloped Quezon City as the new capital of the newly-

minted nation state of the Philippines . Its founding father, Manuel Quezon, then President of

the Philippine Commonwealth, envisioned and modelled the ‘City of Man’ after the then
popular Garden City Movement. Quezon City was to be the showcase of the new nation,

evidence of Filipino spirit and industriousness, a new ’Promised Land’ for the hundreds of

thousands left homeless by the devastations of World War II and the utter destruction of the

former ‘Pearl of the Orient,’ Manila.

Here, on the highest point of the Novaliches Plateau, would rise the new capitol of the

nation, a new government centre no less imposing that the one planned by Burnham in

Manila at the turn of the century, but of course in the new Modernist idiom of the time. This

new capitol complex would be approached from the West by a grand 4.5-km long boulevard,

which was to be the urban centrepiece of the new national capital. Along this monumental

boulevard, the Philippines’ answer to the Champs-Elysees of Paris fame would line up

imposing office blocks, luxury hotels, government buildings, villas, cultural institutions, and

all the other paraphernalia of a young, ambitious, and emerging nation that has shaken off the

shackles of colonialism and was looking towards a bright future. This Grand Boulevard was

to be known as ‘Republic Avenue.’ That road actually still exists today, but instead of the

showcase of the new nation, the vast linear squatter colony today is a grim reminder of the

social ills that have been plaguing the Philippines ever since the Spanish era.

The two stories above are set within quests to meet human needs while also actively

shaping society. In the Burnham Plan for Manila City and the FrostArellano Plan for Quezon

City, public green spaces had prominent roles not only in providing ecosystem services. In

the Burnham Plan, public green spaces were viewed as tools for the socialisation of the poor

as they become an avenue for the rich and poor, elite and workers to meet and mingle. In the

Frost-Arellano Plan of 1949, a huge ‘green lung’ was also considered essential for the leisure

and recreation of the working class. This planned intermingling of groups involved the

simultaneous setting and elimination of symbolic boundaries in Philippine society at that

time.
 Planned with the ideals of the City Beautiful Movement and Garden City Movement

in mind, Manila and Quezon City, now among the 16 cities of Metro Manila, did not,

however, result in the desired outcomes of their planners. The large parks that were to

provide opportunities for the rich and poor, elite and workers to set and challenge symbolic

boundaries through a broad range of practices in parks never came to be or were gradually

given over to commercial and residential development (e.g. Harrison Park in Manila was

turned into a shopping centre, the Quadrangle in Quezon City now houses shopping and

residential complexes). Thus, at least two questions arise: Why did these two cities diverge

from the plans? And yet, how do Metro Manila’s contemporary public green spaces, as

remnants of Western urban planning, continue to simultaneously eliminate and affirm social

and symbolic boundaries in Philippine society?

To find answers, this article opens with a framework and methodology for

understanding deviations from urban planning. Then, it focuses on the role of public green

spaces in these plans. Next, the article discusses how the unrealised promise of the plans

resulted in the creation of two accidental green spaces in contemporary Metro Manila that

remained from the Burnham Plan and Frost-Arellano Plan, albeit as miniscule fragments. It

then analyzes the contemporary usage of these two parks within and beyond how these were

initially designed and conceptualised as forms of ‘boundary work’ (Wimmer (2008)), or

instances in which individuals and groups set, challenge, or reinforce social and symbolic

demarcations or other divisions in Philippine urban societies. The paper ends with a reflection

on how today’s public green spaces are meeting human needs that the Burnham Plan and the

Frost-Arellano Plan aimed at satisfying by engaging similar dynamics of boundary work.

In our study, ‘public green spaces’ refer to any parcel of land or water with some

level of vegetation that is essentially devoted to an open space use for the purpose of outdoor

recreation (ASSURE 2019). Furthermore, it uses ‘public’ to refer to ownership by a national

or local government body, or by a nongovernment body in trust for the public, or by a private

individual or organisation but made available for public use or access. This reference follows

Habermas (1989) definition of events and occasions as ‘public’ when they are open to all, in

contrast to closed or exclusive affairs.

Conceptualising urban planning deviations in Metro Manila

Urban planning in Metro Manila happens ostensibly alongside the (re)construction of

social relations in the context of modernist nation-building (Lico 2008; Boquet 2016). At the

individual level, modern life is the search for new meanings in everyday life; however, at the

societal level, modernity has a political side: the creation of national governments which are

associated with the creation of better and equitable national societies (Knauft 2002). Yet,

urban planning is also entwined with global capitalism wherein the concentration of wealth

(e.g. highrolling capitalists, high-end professionals, high-end real estate development,

gentrification) coexists with social segregation and dispossession (e.g. marginalised migrants,

sweatshops, slumification) (Ortega 2016). Thus, the incomplete implementation of urban

plans which are central to imaginaries of better and equitable modern Metro Manila can

ultimately be traced back to a lack of political will as cities become spots for the absorption

of capital surpluses.

Here, urban planning can be viewed as a project of meeting human needs in an

unequal metropolis that is a patchwork of squalid slums and secluded enclaves (Garrido

2019), where the urban poor have to perennially defend their place (Berner 1998). Human

needs can be categorised into three distinct groups (Di Giulio and Defila 2020). The first

group refers to material and physical needs, namely, the need ‘to be provided with the

material necessities for life’ such as food and shelter (Need 1); ‘having free access to nature

in daily life’ (Need 2); and ‘to live in a livable environment’ such as non-crowded spaces
(Need 3). The second group of needs focuses upon the person, namely, the need ‘to develop

as a person’ including performance of physical activities; (Need 4) ‘to make their own life

choices’ such as pursuing a particular lifestyle (Need 5); and ‘to perform activities valuable to

them’ such as those that will keep them healthy and fit (Need 6). Finally, the third group are

needs in relation to the collective: ‘to be part of a community’ such as spending time with

family and friends, even the general public (Need 7); ‘to have a say in the shaping of society’

such as attending public discussions (Need 8); and ‘to be granted protection by society’ such

as feeling safe and free being in public spaces (Need 9). Needs satisfiers include forms of

material and spatial arrangements, social organisation, political structures, social practices,

values and norms, and types of behaviour and attitudes (Max-Neef et al. 1989). Thus, while

basic human needs are universal, how they are satisfied reflects historical and cultural

contexts.

The pursuit of the aforementioned nine interrelated needs in the public parks of an

unequal megacity entails ‘boundary work’ as the poor experience discrimination, exclusion,

and alienation in every turn (Garrido 2019). Such boundary impositions can be experienced

by the poor in their lack of access to institutional resources, in the stigma as squatters, or in

the physical presence of gated and walled enclaves. Originally used by Wimmer (2008) to

examine ethnic boundaries, boundary work is applicable to many social dynamics unrelated

to ethnicity wherein the elimination of boundaries occurs amidst boundarymaking dynamics

of class, gender, and age, among others. Parks are places that are constructed, and contested,

and every park visitor experience, in varying ways, the significance of social and spatial

barriers in these places. Parks are, thus, made and unmade by those using them. Hence,

deviations from urban plans designed to address social ills and inequalities, at least as

understood during the time of the Burnham Plan and the Frost-Arellano Plan, can mean the

nonsatisfaction of the needs they were meant to address. This, in turn, fuels the contemporary
quest for spatial justice in the metropolis as social differentiation widens over time. Spatial

justice focuses on the fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and

the opportunities to use them (Soja 2009). One source of spatial injustice is the political

organisation of space through social control and institutionalised residential segregation.

Thus, Harvey (2008) and Lefebvre (1996) call for the reclamation of the city from the

alienating effects of capitalism and the spatial inequalities they beget.

As shown by Bayat (2010), such reclaiming of one’s right to the city can be done by

‘nonmovements’ which refers to the collective actions of noncollective actors (Bayat 2010).

Current usage of parks by petty vendors, the homeless, and informal settlers, on the one hand,

and by members of the middle classes to satisfy varying needs can be forms of

nonmovements embodying shared practices of large numbers of ordinary people whose

fragmented but similar activities trigger much social change, even though these practices are

rarely guided by an ideology or recognisable leaderships and organisations. The public green

spaces that accidentally remained from the Burnham Plan and the Frost Arellano Plan are

among the few spaces in Metro Manila where such claims to the city and boundary work

could be pursued relatively freely.

Data

This paper draws from an extensive review of literature on the historical and architectural

development of the Philippines during the American colonial and immediate post-

independence period. These data were complemented by primary data derived from

observations and short interviews with a total of 30 users of two public parks in Metro

Manila: Rizal Park and University of the Philippines (UP) Academic Oval. Rizal Park is

among the few elements that remain from the Burnham Plan, albeit as a miniscule fragment

and not originally planned as a park, while the UP Academic Oval complements, then as
now, the vastly reduced remainder of the green space allotted in the Frost-Arellano Plan. The

selection of research participants aimed at capturing the diversity of users of public green

spaces (e.g. age, gender, employment, social class) and park usage (e.g. activities, social

interaction). This form of qualitative sampling started with initial ideas; in this case, from

observations and the literature on who are the users of public green spaces (Strauss and

Corbin 1998). Researchers asked for informed consent in writing and if this was not possible,

agreement to participate in the interview was recorded verbally.

Rizal Park is a 58-hectare park in the City of Manila, whose most prominent feature is

the monument of Dr Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines. The Philippines’

Kilometre Zero is located in Rizal Park. A children’s playground, botanical gardens, lagoons,

a mini-forest, orchidarium, butterfly pavilion, and activity areas are located inside the park.

There are also event venues such as an open-air auditorium and a grandstand. Installations

within the park are a relief map of the Philippines and a musical dancing fountain. The

National Planetarium, National Museum of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural

History, and the National Library of the Philippines border the park.

The UP Academic Oval is inside the campus of the University of the Philippines in

Quezon City, in the northern part of Metro Manila. The green Oval is a 2.2 kilometre stretch

of asphalt road with a shared bike/ pedestrian lane and bordered by large shade trees, which is

vehicle-free on weekends. On the eastern end of the Academic Oval is a sunken garden – a

large grassy field bordered by large rain trees. At the other end of the oval is the UP Lagoon.

The lagoon is about a metre deep and is the habitat of fish and water birds. The university

amphitheatre is located on the western end of the Academic Oval. It has rising tiers for

seating, bordered by plant boxes. Art installations are also found in this area.

Rizal Park’s location in the heart of the nation’s capital means it is in close proximity

to various forms of cheap public transport (e.g. Light Rail Mass Transit, buses, jeepneys) and
thus accessible to a wider mix of users, including the homeless, vendors, students, and

jobseekers. In contrast, users of the UP Academic Oval tend to be homogenous (i.e. alumni,

students, faculty and staff, and their families) since UP is served only peripherally by

jeepneys and not accessible on foot from the nearest public space (e.g. Quezon City Hall)

and, except for the main entrance, requires private vehicle gate pass stickers.

Fieldwork at Rizal Park started in December 2018 and was completed in February

2019, while the data gathering at the UP Academic Oval took place from March to June

2019.

Designing the city and the role of public green spaces

When the Americans came to Manila as the new colonisers, they found the city to be

(in their mind) dirty, filthy, unhygienic, prone to communicable mass diseases, such as

cholera and typhoid fever, plagued by malaria, and dengue; a miserable, backward, and dingy

provincial town devoid of any comfort, modern amenities, and conveniences (Lico 2008).

Thus, the first few years of the new administration were spent on sanitary engineering and the

mass inculcation of personal and communal hygiene. These interventions, focusing on the

training of Filipinos in the hygienic disposal of faeces, were termed by Anderson (2006) as

‘excremental colonialism’ that equated Filipinos with irresponsibility and incontinence.

Having improved the sanitary conditions of the ‘natives’ to great success, the next

step was elevate the minds and spirits of their new American subjects by introducing a new

comprehensive system of public education based on US-models, epitomised by the

‘Thomasites’ (i.e. American school teachers, the first batch of whom arrived on the American

Transport, USS Thomas) and the ‘Gabaldon Schools’ (i.e. standard-design school buildings

which would soon be found in each and every corner of the colony; named after
Assemblyman Isauro Gabaldon who drafted the legislation allocating funds for the

construction of these modern public schools).

This state-of-the-art educational system would lay the foundation for the third great

step, the training of the Filipino people in the process of self-government following the US-

American model. While the primary motives that brought the Americans to Philippine shores

were clearly economic (e.g. natural resources, economic prospects in mining and agriculture,

a stepping stone to trade with China as an outlet for the booming American industries) and

military (e.g. a naval base in Subic for the US Pacific Fleet to protect American interests and

its merchant marine in Pacific waters), there was also undeniably an element of a ’civilising

and democratising’ mission that went far beyond providing a mere democratic veneer for

more ulterior motives (Rusling 1903, as cited in Lico 2008, p. 201). With Filipino

participation, albeit limited and restricted, in the new civil administration of the Islands after

the end of military rule (e.g. first and second Philippine Commission), while still under

colonial tutelage, arose the need to build civil and democratic institutions and to erect

appropriate public buildings for these (e.g. provincial capitols, municipal buildings, court

houses, customs houses, government buildings, ministries).

By putting the new civic core at the very centre of the new tropical model city,

Burnham emphasised the importance of civic and democratic institutions for the colonial

enterprise. After initially experimenting with a restrained Filipino version of the California-

Mission style under Insular consulting architect William Parsons (1905–1914), the

architectural style eventually settled on the then en-vogue Neo-Classical style. Neo-

Classicism was deemed most appropriate, as it was closely associated with Greek democracy

and Roman republicanism, as well as the Roman Empire, in whose tradition as a great

colonising and civilising empire turn-of-the-century Americans saw themselves (Zialcita and

Akpedonu 2021). Subsequently, all the grand government buildings that were actually
implemented following the Burnham Plan, such as the Legislative, Agriculture, and Finance

buildings, Manila City Hall, and the imposing Manila Post Office, were erected in this

majestic and dignified idiom.

In line with the ideals of the conservative and ‘Victorian’ social reformist City

Beautiful Movement, Burnham’s Manila sought to inspire the Filipino with awe of and

admiration for its monumental architecture and grand urban plan and in extension, for the

colonising power, the USA and the values it (supposedly) stood for. This was to inculcate in

the Filipino desired virtues such as civil-mindedness, obedience, industriousness, law-

abidingness, and a general sense of refinement and sophistication. This was, however, not

entirely a colonial theme as the same motives played out in the USA themselves and

wherever this approach was implemented.

Public green spaces played a vital role in the City Beautiful ideology, as they were

seen as integrated public meeting places where rich and poor, elite and workers would meet

and mingle, where ‘inclusive green spaces provided a place where the lower classes of

society could learn appropriate social behaviors by observing upper class citizens,’ becoming

more refined, civic-minded, and lawabiding in the process (IBI Insights 2021) Subsequently,

Burnham planned for five large parks in Manila. In addition, the once water-filled moat

surrounding Intramuros (which had become a breeding ground for mosquitoes) was drained

and converted into a golf course, the oldest in Manila. Sadly, only one of the planned five

parks was actually implemented (i.e. Harrison Park, which, however, was converted into a

shopping mall in the late 1980s). Thus, there is a marked class element in the evolution of

green spaces in Manila (and the rest of Metro Manila): none of the planned publicaccess

parks survives/exists today, while elite recreational grounds such as the Intramuros Golf Club

are still thriving and operating today, albeit catering to a wealthy elite only and inaccessible

to ordinary Filipinos.
 Forty years later, President Manuel Quezon took the opposite ‘leftist’ or ‘socialist’

approach when he envisioned Quezon City as a home for the common ‘tao,’ (man) where he

could live a dignified life in a healthy and green environment, with fresh air and clean water,

far from the then increasingly overcrowded worker’s districts and slums of Manila. Rather

than focus on building and beautifying public spaces and monuments to ‘elevate the human

spirit,’ the actual physical living conditions of low-income Filipinos were to be addressed and

improved. Hence, public land was to be bought cheaply from the vast haciendas and to be

made available to ordinary and working-class Filipinos as well as government employees,

who would be provided with a small bungalow for rent or for purchase on long-term, low-

interest instalment payment, a concept which Quezon had picked up from the then ongoing

comprehensive land reform in Mexico.

Instead of imposing boulevards, monuments, and government buildings, the emphasis

of Quezon City would be on affordable low-cost housing in large numbers, rows and rows of

uniform, simple and small, but functional bungalows stretching over the vast plain as far as

the eye could see. This was a major shift from the previous City Beautiful approach which

took a moralistic ‘Victorian’ approach to better the plight of the urban poor: poverty was a

moral issue, not a practical one, and exposure to beauty in the form of nature (e.g. parks,

boulevards), public spaces (e.g. plazas, promenades), and art (e.g. monuments, public art,

imposing government building, museums, and libraries) would certainly improve the moral

condition of man and guide him/her away from gambling, crime, prostitution, vagabondism,

alcoholism, and other vices then generally attributed to the lower-classes.

In contrast, Quezon recognised that improving the condition of the common ‘tao’ was

to provide him/her with a homestead of his/her own, and in a later phase, with easy access to

local needs and conveniences, such as markets, schools, churches, among others. Although a

monumental layout never played as much a role in ‘proletarian’ Quezon City as in ’Imperial
Manila,’ some grand urban designs did nonetheless find their way onto the drawing board

and thence into reality, such as the large circle (actually an ellipse) today known as Quezon

Memorial Circle; the Grand Boulevard connecting Quezon City to Manila (Quezon Avenue),

and the Government Complex (Batasan) along Commonwealth Avenue. But in principle

Quezon City has always been a place for the common ‘tao,’ modelled in part on the Garden

City concept, a social-reformist urban planning movement developed in 1898 by the British

Ebenezer Howard and dedicated to the improvement of the human condition and a reaction to

the then speculative and chaotic development of the fringes of industrial centres and the

overcrowding and subsequent ‘slumification’ of worker’s districts. The principal idea of the

Garden City concept was to combine the advantages of urban living (e.g. employment,

shopping, cultural, and leisure amenities) with the amenities of semi-rural living (e.g. fresh

air and clean water, open space, gardens, and parks) by developing a series of radial and

circumferential satellite cities of about 30,000 inhabitants centred around a central green and

public space, surrounding a central core city of about 60,000 inhabitants. The satellite cities

would be separated from each other and the core city by wide greenbelts consisting of parks,

forests, meadows, and agricultural land, and be connected to each other and to the core city

by a network or railway lines, thus enabling fast access to central services in the core city,

while simultaneously providing access to natural environments on the fringes (Howard 1902).

Public parks were not seen as an instrument of ‘moral improvement’ in the Garden

City concept, but a practical and social one: for the leisure and recreation of the working

class. In the Frost-Arellano plan of 1949, the entire 400-hectare ‘Diliman Quadrangle’ was to

form one huge ‘green lung,’ containing a zoological and botanical garden, a golf course, and

a sports complex (Camagay 2019). This quadrangle was to be about the size of New York’s

Central Park and formed by East, West, North, and South/Timog Avenues. This ‘central
park’ was to be complemented by smaller outlying parks, as well as the campus of the

University of the Philippines, Diliman.

Unrealised plans and accidental public green spaces

Inscribed into Daniel Burnham’s master plan was his vision for American-era Manila:

Possessing the bay of Naples, the winding river of Paris, and the canals of Venice,

Manila has before it an opportunity unique in the history of modern times, to create a

unified city equal to the greatest of the Western World with the unparalleled and

priceless addition of a tropical setting.

Yet, it was not meant to be. The reasons why the Burnham Plan for the City of Manila and

later the Frost-Arellano Plan for Quezon City were not fully implemented are many and

complex but can be summarised in the following points:

To start with, the City Beautiful concept gradually began to fall out of favour

beginning in 1913, when technical professionals gained dominance over visionary urban

planners. This accelerated during the 1920s in the wake of the twentieth century’s first

trauma, World War I (1914–1918). Before the war, revivalist architecture such as the Neo-

Classicism embraced by the City Beautiful Movement was associated with the old imperial

order in Europe (Second German Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman and Russian

empires) which the global conflict had swept away. After World War I, the Modernist

movement led by urban planners and architects such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and

Walter Gropius introduced new concepts of urban planning and architecture (e.g. Bauhaus,

International Style) which gradually replaced City Beautiful ideas. The old concept stuck on

somewhat longer in the USA and its dependencies such as the Philippines and would only

disappear after the second trauma of the twentieth century, World War II.
 Second, Manila started to become overcrowded in the 1920s and 1930s (or what was

then considered ‘crowded’). Thus, urban development began increasingly moving outwards,

aided by new and efficient mass transport systems such as the electric tranvia and increasing

automobile use. The rapid population growth fostered rapid development which in turn led to

a rapid rise in land values, which made it ever more difficult for the government to

consolidate enough land to implement the vast public infrastructure projects envisioned by

the Burnham Plan.

This, together with perennial lack of funding ultimately, prompted Commonwealth

President Manuel Quezon in 1938/39 to start on a fresh slate by developing Quezon City in as

new capital for the soon-tobe independent nation. Quezon City would be out of range of the

naval artillery, unlike Manila, which being by the sea was seen as militarily vulnerable. In the

end, it was the political decision and ‘vision’ of President Quezon, which in conjunction with

the terrible destruction of Manila in March 1945, that dealt the death blow to Burnham’s

grandiose masterplan. Hence, the decision in 1948 to move the government away from

Manila to Quezon City spelled the end for the then only partially completed government

complex in Manila, which subsequently developed into today’s Rizal Park.

Forty years later, the Frost-Arellano Plan for Quezon City would meet a similar fate

as the Burnham Plan, and for similar reasons:

As in Manila previously, the onset of massive land speculation once the plans became

public dramatically increased land prices, making it ever more expensive for the government

to consolidate enough land for public infrastructure.

At the same time, the meteoric rise of Makati City, now the business and financial

capital of the Philippines, at a time when Manila was still rebuilding and when Quezon City

was not developing fast enough meant that there now was an alternative commercial centre in

competition with both cities.

 The huge homeless population left in the wake of World War II, worsened by the

massive rural–urban migration starting in the 1950s and 1960s (and continuing to this day)

eventually led to vast informal settlements which today can be found all over the city,

occupying almost all of Constitution Hill (Batasan) and blocking all of the planned Republic

Avenue (see Pante 2019, on how the city developed due to urban-rural overlaps inherent in

sociohistorical forces).

Already in the 1980s, one-third of Quezon City’s population consisted of informal

settlers. The problem was compounded by the long-time lack of an overall land use plan and

zoning ordinances, and their incomplete implementation.

In Quezon City, the experience of Manila’s Rizal Park repeated itself: With the

decision to move the government centre from Quezon Memorial Circle to Constitution Hill,

the Diliman Quadrangle lost its planned function as a ‘green lung’ and was given to private

developers, government offices, hospitals, and a planned central business district, while the

Quezon Memorial Circle which was to house the capitol building (which by then was only

partially built) became the green public park that it is today.

As in Manila, the reason for the incomplete implementation of the plan can

ultimately be traced back to lack of political will, as subsequent local and national

administrations pursued ever-changing agendas, and to the political decision to keep

Government dispersed between Manila (the Judiciary/Supreme Court and the

Executive/Malacañang Palace), Pasay City (Legislative/Senate), and Quezon City

(Legislative/Congress). Moreover, politicians preferred to stay in metropolitan Manila rather

than move to what until the 1970s was largely a cultural and economic wasteland.

Subsequently, appropriation of funds remained a perennial problem as it took Congress 30

years (1949–1978) to appropriate urgently needed funds, given many alternative and more

pressing funding priorities.

 Of the 400 hectares dedicated to green and leisure space in the Quezon City

Quadrangle, only about nineteen hectares remain today in the Ninoy Aquino Parks and

Wildlife Center (Bueza 2014). Almost all other remaining green spaces in Quezon City (and

much of Metro Manila) today are access-controlled private parks of gated subdivisions and

accessible only to homeowners of the subdivision. In fact, most open spaces left in Metro

Manila today (with a few notable exceptions such as Quezon City’s Balara Filters Park) are

either golf courses or cemeteries.

While public green space especially for the ‘masa’ (ordinary citizens) gradually

vanished from the map, golf courses for the middle/upper class and/or military personnel

remain in the heart of the city to this day, both in Manila (Intramuros Golf Course) and in

Quezon City (Camp Aguinaldo Golf Course, Veterans Memorial Hospital Golf Course). In

the case of Quezon City, the 1955 Veterans Memorial Hospital (initially the site of the

planned presidential palace) was surrounded by a golf course in 1958. Although the golf

course, in principle, is open to the general public, golf is not a popular sport for the vast

majority of ordinary Filipinos, not least because of the associated costs. The wide boulevards

and avenues planned for Manila and Quezon City were likewise either never constructed or

were only partially completed (e.g. Dewey/Roxas Boulevard, Manila; Republic Avenue,

Quezon City). Up to today the street network remains fragmentary and disconnected,

especially in Quezon City.

The wide tree-lined boulevards and avenues that were actually built have since lost

most or all of their former shade trees (e.g. Taft Avenue, Manila; Katipunan Avenue and

Quezon Avenue, Quezon City), usually in the wake of road-widening to accommodate ever

more vehicular traffic.

Thus, as shown above, almost none of the green spaces planned or implemented for

Manila City and Quezon City remain today, or only as tiny fractions. Moreover, the largest
and best-known parks in Manila and Quezon City today were not initially planned as parks

but are actually left overs of unrealised national government complexes given to new use,

which explains their comparatively small size, but also their very central and thus accessible

location. Another popular park in Quezon City today, the Academic Oval of the University of

the Philippines in Diliman, was likewise not conceptualised as a public park, but over time

developed into one due to the lack of accessible alternatives and aided by a laissez-faire

policy of the university administration.

Consequently, the remaining overall park land in both Manila and Quezon City today

is in gross disproportion to their population size. The World Health Organization standard

recommends nine square metres of open spaces per inhabitant, and a green space should not

be more than a 10-minute-walk away. Siemen’s Green City Index underscores how Manila,

with its average of five square metres of green space per Filipino, fares very poorly in

comparison to how 47% of Singapore’s land area consists of green space, while Rio de

Janeiro’s stands at 29% and New York City’s at 14% (Von Einsiedel 2019). In gross contrast,

Manila’s green space is a mere 0.03% of its land area and often consists of small,

disconnected pocket-parks, that are also built up with structures, such as libraries, school

buildings, and market stalls.

Boundary work in Metro Manila’s public green spaces

While today’s parks in Metro Manila are merely unplanned products of chance, do they now

at least fulfil the functions for which their unrealised counterparts were originally planned?

Public green spaces were an integral part of the City Beautiful Movement, which in the USA

aimed at improving the moral of poor workingclass immigrants flooding the rapidly

industrialising cities at the turn of the century, a situation not unlike the one faced all over

Metro Manila since the 1960s and continuing today.

The majority of the users Rizal Park and the UP Academic Oval come from the low- and

middleincome classes who themselves observe that the rich and elite do not visit these

spaces. This is evident, for example, in the types of people who visit Rizal Park: the homeless

(e.g. resting and spending the day), self-employed earning a living (e.g. photographers taking

pictures of park visitors for a fee, vendors), and unemployed job-seekers (e.g. waiting for

updates from nearby shipping crew recruitment agencies), many of whom are from the

provinces, mixing with students from nearby universities (e.g. rehearsing group

presentations), and other ordinary citizens from different parts of Metro Manila socialising

with family, friends, or doing solitary exercise.

The most common activities in Rizal Park are resting and relaxing under the shade of

trees and exercise (e.g. jogging, running, walking) along the paths around the park. For some,

jogging in the park is seen as both a physical activity (for health and fitness) and a

psychological exercise: ‘just look around [to see the trees] when you’re jogging, and your

stress goes away.’

For many park users, their presence is intentional; they go to the park to find space for

their activities, such as families and couples who want to spend time together without having

to spend a lot of money. The proximity of the park to nearby schools and churches makes it a

preferred space for groups to prepare for school activities and presentations and for teachers

to bring their students for class activities. Rizal Park is also a venue for vendors and

professional photographers to earn a living. For others, their presence at the park is

incidental: they pass by whenever they are in the to attend religious gatherings, wait for

employment updates from nearby labor recruitment agencies, or visit speciality stores (e.g.

for bicycle parts) nearby.

In comparison, the users of the UP Academic Oval are far more homogenous with

most of them from the University of the Philippines community (i.e. students, professors,
alumni, and their families and friends). It is also frequented by members of the general

public, usually on weekends to avail of the vehicle-free oval for jogging, walking, or biking,

as well as residents of nearby informal settlements. Similar to Rizal Park, the UP Academic

Oval provides opportunities for livelihood for food stalls and mobile vendors since many

research participants go to the Academic Oval to buy snacks such as taho (a sweet Filipino

snack made of silken tofu) and sorbetes (ice cream). Birdwatching is also a popular activity –

the tree cover and other vegetation make it a habitat for birds and other interesting wildlife

and there are groups inside the campus that organise birdwatching or tree walks. It is also

used as a living laboratory for Biology and Ecology classes, and many university members

pass through the UP Academic Oval because of the convenient shortcuts it provides to other

places on campus. Due mainly to location that, in turn, determines the park’s accessibility to

which groups, Rizal Park and the UP Academic Oval vary according to what needs they

mainly satisfy. Table 1 shows that most research participants (60%) in Rizal Park identified

meeting people and friends and the sense of community (Need 7) as the primary need being

met by the park. As a key informant said: Mostly I see the park is used for families to bond.

Even if I go here alone, I feel like I’m still part of a community. I don’t feel alone because

there are lots of people, even if they come from different backgrounds. In comparison, for

most research participants (64%) from the UP Academic Oval, the green space fulfils, first

and foremost, their need for a livable environment (Need 3). This particular need hewed

closely to the need for self-development (Need 4) which was mentioned by half of the

research participants. Selfdevelopment included the performance of physical activities or

having a quiet time for thinking and reflection. Half of the research participants, thus, visited

the UP Academic Oval to bike, jog, run, or walk on their own and not seeing a need to be part

of a collective. Nonetheless, like the research participants from Rizal Park, they admitted

deriving inspiration and motivation from seeing others do what they themselves are doing.
These major forms of park usage, while different for each park, indicate that both parks

continue to satisfy human needs that were central to the urban plans from which they were

born. The need ‘to be part of a community’ (Need 7) recalls the Victorian mindset of the

Burnham Plan although there is not much intermingling of the poor and the rich in Rizal Park

nowadays, while the need ‘to live in a livable environment (Need 3) and ‘to develop as a

person’ (Need 4) resembles the Frost-Arellano Plan’s vision of the working class relaxing in

a safe and secure place, and where physical exercise plays an important role in societal

integration. Our interviews and observations demonstrate that the ways in which low-income

groups such as vendors and the homeless use parks to meet their needs constitute a form of

boundary work marked by ‘quiet encroachment’ (Bayat 2010). This is seen in everyday

practices of micro-resistance towards achieving spatial justice in the city. Since according to

homeless man, ‘[t]he [Rizal Park] guards are always going around and ask those who are

sleeping to get up,’ homeless people who stay in the park the whole day, until it closes at

night, are usually neatly dressed and sit together in specific areas.

During the night, when the park is closed, they find shelter in the roadside near the

park and pay establishments in the area a minimal fee for toilet and bath. Organising

themselves into a group and keeping watch over each other has been a common mode of

going about their livelihoods. A woman who works as photographer in Rizal Park since 2012

explained how she feel secure by being part an association of photographers in Rizal Park

and from friendships with the vendors and the homeless. Middle-income users of public

green spaces who see the park as a site for leisure and physical or mental fitness generally

recognise the right of others to the space and welcome the presence and services offered by

vendors. They feel that these spaces are safe places to be, which they attribute to the presence

of security guards.
 Low-income groups who use the park for leisure appreciated that they could stay in

the park without having to spend for anything. Living in an overcrowded city, many of them

welcome the opportunity to enjoy the spaciousness of the parks and to see mature trees. They

also see these public green spaces as a means to obtaining a reasonable livelihood.

Remarkably, those among them who feel that public green spaces are not safe also attribute

this to the presence of security guards, but from an opposing point of view: they feel harassed

by the guards because according to an elderly vendor, ‘the security guards here catch us every

night if we sleep here.’ Park management regulates commercial activities inside both parks,

resulting in attempts to avoid regulations and regulators. Due to some tensions between

vendors and the park management, a vendor shared that she and fellow vendors avoided

specific areas where the park director passed on her way to work. Vendors also played a

‘catch game’ with Rizal Park guards:

They [security guards] would ask us to leave, but we would just return. And

the guards might be back again. They don’t really take our products, but we just go to

the side.

Yet, boundary work can involve open confrontations with symbolic and social

boundaries. A UP Academic Oval key informant recalled:

When I was still doing tai chi, there was a group of young people playing

volleyball and were very noisy. We told them to move a bit and their response was:

‘Why? Does UP belong to you?’ . . . Here, there are people who are not what are

considered to be ‘UP-type’ people. The jumping jologs (a term used to describe a

tawdry person who belongs to the lower class). They jump up and down during

concerts. They will steal something from you.

A younger academic described the un-desirable as ‘people who hang out to drink

alcohol, from the informal communities. There are young boys, like a group with BMX bikes.
They appear early evening and do dangerous maneuvers.’ Indeed, many young men from the

informal settlements nearby are seen as engaging in park activities deemed unacceptable to

the higher-income and older generation.

By sharing public spaces, including public parks, with upper and middle-class

citizens, so the proponents of the City Beautiful hoped, the lower classes would eventually

adopt the ’good’ habits and morals of the former. The use of public green spaces by the urban

poor in turn-of-the-nineteenth-century American cities may be quite different from

contemporary global South metropolises haunted by massive poverty, homelessness, street

children, and the desperate need to earn a livelihood. To be emphasised, however, is today’s

changed role of green spaces not as sites of moral regeneration, but rather of mental and

physical recreations. Where more than a century ago, in line with the then common

paternalistic view of the ruling class on the ’lower’ working class, which was assumed a

priori to be drawn to moral temptation (e.g. drinking, gambling, prostitution, crime), the self-

improvement of the ‘problematic’ urban poor by mimicking the ‘good’ and ‘respectable’

classes was the latter’s own obligation and onus. Thus, today’s view of public parks as

democratic spaces open to all without prejudice and expectations illustrates a remarkable

democratisation of the public sphere. As such, not only have parks changed over the past 100

years, but so has the urban environment and society at large. In that regard, Metro Manila’s

public green spaces are much closer to the vision of President Manuel Quezon in the 1930s,

who saw these sites as dedicated to the enjoyment of ordinary working-class citizens, a role

which indeed they still fulfil today albeit on a much lesser scale than envisioned by Quezon.

Physical exercise, a common contemporary usage of parks, played an important role around

1900, when physical exercise was seen as another important avenue to moral regeneration

and social integration as evidenced by the numerous sport clubs and unions which

mushroomed at the time. This is also evident in the Burnham Plan, which included 12
planned sports fields, evenly distributed over the city (and none of which was built). Thus,

the diversity of actors and the activities pursued in Manila’s Rizal Park and the UP Academic

Oval in Quezon City today indicates that the purposes and functions for which the green

spaces were designed in the Burnham Plan and Frost-Arellano Plan at least partially still

resonate with the needs of many residents in Metro Manila today.

Conclusion

Given that almost none of the grand planned parks were ever built, that the most

popular public parks in Manila and Quezon City today are tiny leftovers of failed grandiose

government complexes, and the ever-dwindling green spaces left in Metro Manila, one could

easily conclude that the history of public green spaces in the metropolis and their ambitious

societal goals is a tragic story of failure. But this conclusion would be too short-fetched.

Our study shows that remaining public green spaces such as Rizal Park and the UP

Academic Oval continue to be the spaces they were envisioned to be: in the case of Rizal

Park, a place where a sense of local community and even national cohesion are constituted,

and where citizens engage in socialising and physical exercise, just as has been envisioned by

the planners of the City Beautiful Movement; in the case of the UP Academic Oval, a place

that, in addition to recreational activities and physical exercise, is also seen as a space for

personal self-development and - improvement, in line with the Movement’s social

engineering ambitions. At the same time, the UP Academic Oval provides the sense of

liveable environment for ‘ordinary’ people that lay at the heart of Manuel Quezon’s vision for

the city named after him. Even though majority of the users in both parks come from the low-

and middle-income classes, they still represent a great variety of social groups in comparison

to those gathered in other public and private spaces in the metropolis, with one notable

exception, Manila’s elite. This is particularly noticeable in Rizal Park, which includes what
during the Spanish era was known as the ’Luneta’ and which was then the principal leisure

and recreation site of Manila’s elite: a large oval where during the cool late afternoon breeze

the rich and famous would socialise and parade in their horse-drawn carriages in clockwise

fashion, with only the carriage of the Spanish governor-general moving in counter-clockwise

direction, while a band would play music from the public bandstand. Today, the elite have all

but disappeared from Rizal Park. As in the rest of the metropolis where the already small

group of upper-class citizens has increasingly withdrawn further into gated residential

communities or heavily guarded high-rise condominiums, upper-class Filipinos nowadays

largely avoid public green spaces, preferring instead facilities in their own gated enclaves or

vacationing abroad, and at least partially followed in this trend by uppermiddle-class

Filipinos. Hence, the social cohesion encouraged in the social sphere and promoted by

planners like Burnham is limited today.

The disappearance of upper-class Filipinos from public green spaces may be linked to

the rise of another social group, which was unaccounted for in the Burnham and Frost-

Arellano Plans, namely the homeless and the informal urban settlers who are among those

who earn a living as beggars or unregulated vendors in many public spaces in Metro Manila

today. Thus, today’s usage of public green spaces now reflects the outcomes of the

unforeseen increase of informal settlers, where access to public green spaces play a key role

in ensuring their right to city.

Our data show that the intermingling of the upper and lower classes as envisioned in

the Burnham Plan does not take place anymore in the public parks of Metro Manila.

Although Rizal Park, very much like, for example, New York’s Central Park, initially started

out as the favourite recreational ground of Manila’s elite during the Spanish era , the upper

class had since almost completely retreated from public green spaces to the enclaves of the

rich and privileged, such as privately owned resorts, private or publicly owned golf courses,
and other secluded enclaves. Revisiting Soja’s concept of ‘spatial justice,’ it can be argued

that, while equal access to the city is today a widely accepted ideal, granting increased access

to one social group may result in the voluntary or involuntary withdrawal of another social

group: As much as the gentrification of previously poor neighbourhoods may lead to the

urban poor avoiding such areas, the real or perceived lack of safety, order, and tranquillity of

places accessible to the urban poor may result in the withdrawal of privileged groups into

their own secluded enclaves.

Yet, for a society to be truly cohesive and progressive it is vital that all social groups

interact with each other to some degree, to foster a minimum of mutual understanding of, and

respect for each other. In a society where the elite can isolate itself physically and mentally

from the effects of their actions or non-actions, social divide is only bound to increase,

whether this applies to housing, transport, or leisure. In this regard, the disappearance of the

upper class from public spaces is a cause for concern.

In 2013, Gustavo Petro, mayor of Bogota and socialist candidate for the Colombian

presidency, famously declared that: ‘A developed country is not a place where the poor have

cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.’

Paraphrasing Petro’s statement, our study would argue that ‘[a] developed country is

a place where the rich use public parks, too.’

Nowadays, more than ever, urban planning requires broadening engagements with

the various groups living in the city so that park management and policies may correspond

more closely to their goals. Conflicting needs and expectations will need to be balanced,

common ground found, and sometimes painful compromises negotiated. If such can succeed,

it will fully re-establish public green spaces as what they were envisioned – a place where

different people come together to eliminate social and symbolic boundaries and in doing so

fulfil needs and vice versa.

B. Case study of actual International community plan or development

Title: A case study of a community center project based on appropriate technology as a

community capacity building of underdeveloped country

ABSTRACT

This study is a case study on community center planning in Gondrapa Village of

Mymensingh City, Bangladesh, where the urban poor are densely populated. The goals of the

plan are to build the capacity of the community, improve the local sanitation level, improve

gender equality, and create a more sustainable urban environment. Particularly, this project

was judged that the process of project planning and construction through participatory design

and implementation with local residents contributed to enhance the local residents’ pride and

the consciousness of the residents themselves.

1. Introduction

In order to respond to rapidly changing city growth,UN-Habitat wants to manage cities by

looking at cities as concepts of settlement space from a subjective viewpoint of

production and consumption. UN-Habitat also emphasizes high-speed urbanization,

global environmental crisis consciousness, the gap between rich and poor, urban and

rural disparity,urban development and regeneration, urban planning and implementation.

It has expanded the problem of urbanization not only to architecture but also to envir-on

mental, social and economic aspects and emphasizes a regional approach. The 2015 UN

SDGs aimed to create a comprehensive, safe, sustainable urban and human living

environment that resolves disparities and conflicts between tiers, regions and

races.Recently, the international community has continued its efforts to eradicate poverty

in low-developed countries, create a closer interchange among countries and expand

citizens’ participation. This has led to the emergence of research on appropriate

technologies to sup-port the development of the ability of poor users, and to create new

opportunities based on them, as a solution to international social problems. Appropriate

technology requires architectural technology based on the characteristics and capabilities

of the local area, but the existing architectural aid system lacks understanding of local

materials and technologies.This research considers the community center project, applies

appropriate technology aiming at improving capacity building and hygiene levels of an

urban poor community within an underdeveloped state, improves gender equality

awareness and considers the process of realizing appropriate technology.

2. Theory of appropriate technology

A discussion of appropriate technology begins with the definition of the term

“intermediate technology” from the book Small is Beautiful written by the economist E.

F. Schumacher in the 1960s. Intermediate technology is said to be located between super

technology and raw technology as “technology by the masses.” It is popular and rustic

technology, which means that materials and capital can be supplied and demanded

locally, empha-sizing that it is a technology that aims to actively participate at the

regional level in production activities. On the other hand, when interpreting this meaning

in another way, it is widely used as the term “appropriatetechnology” in view of being

able to evoke terminological diversion (Lee and Lee2016).

After all, appropriate technology is technology that helps to develop the capabilities of the

poor and to create new opportunities based on it; that is to say, itis designed to adapt to

the environment of the poor. It means technology that enables them to continue activities

to increase their income by providing goods and services necessary for daily living.

Appropriate technology is technology that minimizes damage to the environment and

other people by using the technology to emphasize human progress, not technology

advancement. In particular, appropriate technology tries to solve problems that could

never be resolved using gloomy, advanced technologies in poor countries(Mun and

Hwang2012). The term appropriate technology is defined as follows; the general

definition is very diverse (Kim2011).

 Create employment by utilizing local technology and labor.

 The size of the product must be adequate and the method of use must be

simple.

 It must be able to be used without knowledge of a specific field.

 It must be able to be created for themselves.

 Draw people’s cooperative work and contribute to the development of the

local community.

 Utilize renewable energy resources.

 People using the technology must be able to understand the technology.

 Be able to change according to the situation.

 Does not include intellectual property rights, consulting fees, import

duties, etc.

 Match the culture and interests of local people.

In terms of industry, technology and materials, the above 12 types of conditions can be

categorized into six: feasibility, sustainability, convenience, diversity,regionality and

environment (Table 1).3.

3. Process of community center project

a. Site selection

The target area was Gondrapa Village in Mymensingh City, located in the

northern part of the Dhaka division, where the urban poor are densely

populated in the area subject to the new master plan, and the population of the

town is 2,715 people. Most of the population of the town maintains its

livelihood through daily labor, and this daily labor become extremely

impoverished when the labor is seriously affected by a period of non-

utilization of the annual labor force. As a result, the area has difficulty with-

drawing from long term poverty. Under such circumstances, local government

support is very poor, and the basic sanitation environment is bad. In that area,

some ethnic groups are mobilized and the village community organization is

relatively active. The unification and integration of the community was

identified as one of main issues (Table 2).

 In terms of

sanitation level,

the main source

of water supply

in the village is

a standing

column well,

and three tube

wells installed

in the village were in charge of the entire town’s water supply. Also, only

8.6% of the total number of toilets is equipped with drainage facilities.

Particularly, the majority of women bathe in an insecure external space as can

be seen from Figure 1.

b. Project goals and main strategies

This project was promoted with the following goals. First, this project

aimed to strengthen the capacity of urban poor communities through securing

community space. In the case of developing countries and under-developed

countries, as the urbanization is rapid and the settlement systems become

unstable, the slum areas are produced widely. Although community activities

are active, a public forum for that community space is often very short.

Second, it aimed to improve the community’s hygiene level. For slum areas

around large cities, basic water and sanitation systems are poor and are very

susceptible to disease, so it is urgent to secure basic hygiene levels. Third, it

aimed to improve gender equality awareness at the regional level through

the expansion of sanitation facilities. In the case of slum areas, due to poor
hygiene levels, women are exposed to the outside, causing social

consciousness to deteriorate or causing unprotected riminal circumstances.

Finally, it aimed to createa sustainable urban environment. In consideration

ofthe ripple effect of the surroundings and the post-management of buildings,

this project sought for a scheme that could match the level of technology

technology. and labor of the area, and accordingly, introduction of appropriate

technology was considered.In addition, according to the above objectives, a

community center plan was prepared and cooperation with diverse entities was

carried out to secure the site, plan, design and construct. Gondrapa Village

has four ethnic groups with a total population of 2,715 people, and there are

many community-based groups active in the area, so about 41% of the village

population (1,045people of total 1,111 people, 94.1% are women in the

vulnerable strata) are actively participating M organization which was the

most representative community-based organization(CBO).The M organization

is co-chaired by six leaders who work with international NGOs like UN-

Habitat to provide villagers with income growth, educational services etc.

Recently, elementary schools have been opened to promote basic education

for children in the village. M organization owned a small site of 128 square

meters in the town, but concrete business plans and execution budgets were

not prepared. M organization showed a very favorable position to the

proposal of the community center project, and actively opened various

opinions on detailed programs, proposals and construction methods through

consultation (Table 3).

Meanwhile, in connection with the introduction of the appropriate

technology scheduled from the beginning, the university’s sustainable

laboratory participated for the implementation of the appropriate technology

method considering the level of construction labor technology within the

region, durable construction methods and techniques utilizing avail-able and

utilizable materials were discussed and grown. The program consulted by

architectural company, university’s sustainable laboratory, CBO com-bines

the village community office to maintain and operate it as the space for

women and children who are vulnerable people in the town. A community

center was planned to operate for the CBO office,educational institutions

including classrooms and reading rooms for young children not supported by

formal education. The basic design plan initially pre-pared according to the

planning of sanitation facilities consisting of water supply facilities, toilets and

bathing facilities for the safety and hygiene of women in a certain area is as

follows(Figure 2)
 c. Design

development and construction

After the basic design plan was confirmed,a design workshop was held in

which three experts from the project team, CBO, residents and local

government entities participated together. The first workshop was held for

cooperative and sustainable construction through user participation.The

second workshop was heading to make a detailed design of the center by

experts. The third workshop was for the residents’ maintenance of community

center (Figure 3).

In the first workshop on space composition and the sustainable construction
method, the placement and scale of the space were determined. The pro-ject

team made two proposals with an alley and courtyard as their central concepts,

and selected a fair type preference, which is highly utilized in multiple

gatherings and event spaces in the com-munity. In the arrangement of the

detailed space, the community office, the bathing facility and the educational

facility were adjusted to reflect the needs and culture of the residents. The

community conference room is located in the first floor where contact with

residents occurs easily and several groups such as M organization organize

various programs such as basic economic education,hygiene education and

civil society education for the residents. In the case of a sanitary facility, the

scale of the bathing space for women and children who are socially vulnerable

is applied at 150 percent compared to men, reflecting the direction of thetoilet,

the type of toilet, bath action etc (Table 4).Educational facilities are planned

according to the necessity of the classroom and after school learning space in

classrooms and libraries, but make maximum use of the limited area by

creating a mezzanine space utilizing bamboo. The University’s sustainable

laboratory and international NGO can provide local residents with profit by

their participating in the production and use of compressed interlocking earth

blocks(CIEB) as an environmentally friendly material to mini-mize energy use

in natural drying, and an adoptedconstruction method using wood and bamboo

pro-duced locally (Figure 4).The second workshop was to combine of the

CIEB block and tree fittings, to join waterproofing and utilize the bamboo

for courtyard roof classroom mezzanine, library bookcase. Localmaterials

were for excellent utilization and on-site construction for natural light. In the

thirdand last workshop, the management staffsandorganization that ensures the

community centeris not dedicated privately as a common space, inorder to

ensure sustainable operation of the com-munity center (Figure 5).

d. Conclusion

During a period of design and construction we could find three issues through

this project. First, this project applied appropriate technology for sustainable

management. Community center must secure com-munity office, library for

young children and sanitation facilities for women. Mixture of CIEB and

bamboowere optimal alternative for residents because materi-als are available

locally and construction methods are manageable by themselves. Second, this

project aimsto collaborative design and construction process. The four times

workshops consist of design and construction also which included sanitation,

governance andeconomy education. All those program was heading for

enhancing community capacity for low-income and less-educated people.

Third, this project showeda model of role allocation of each participant.

Therewere four sectors which were university’s research lab,architectural

company, NGO and CBO. University’s lab and architectural company led

design and construc-tion and NGO held workshops and proceeded

approval process. CBO was a active negotiatorbetween professionals.

C. Identify your Community and Opine on the appropriateness of community planning

approach and process to your own community.

Community as a concept pertains on how group of people, live together in a certain place

sharing common customs and beliefs. To achieve a sustainable community, it is essential to

undergo community development, positive social and cultural interaction and the leadership of

local organizations.

Community development is a process wherein there is a common ground for local knowledge

and expert’s knowledge in forming solutions to the issues lying in a community. Within a

community, the treasures of collective talents and experiences are united which, could lead the

community in the desired goals for making a better community to live in.

In yielding the development of community is the process and approaches of community

planning. The outgrowing population and mushroomed residential zones are the challenges

primarily existing in a community. With lack of planning and prevalent measures, danger and

threats are possible that affects the peaceful living of the inhabitants. The dilemma on pollution,

privacy and security, accessibility and the worst case of war and riot could arise from lack of

rules and regulations and in negligence of proper planning within a zone. Thus, community

planning take part in establishing ties between the community, authorities, and planners to

undergo development, beautification and enhancement, and proper spatial organization as

primary precautionary measures in preventing complications in the future.

One of the underlying issues found in our municipal community is the lack of good planning

in the proper allocation of buildings with regards to the zoning classification along the

downtown. There are buildings under its classified zoning are improperly built and been erected

to different zonings such as there is no definite commercial zoning for the market both wet and

dry wherein these were separated and consumers need to walk for about a 100 meter from the dry
market to the wet market for fish and meat products. Retails stores were scattered and mixed up

with service facilities like remittance centres, printing press, pharmacies. The worst case that

exists in the central business area is the improper location of the fish and meat market wherein

the location of the fish and market can be found along institutional and commercial zone for

retail stalls. Its location is at the rear side of the newly renovated Sangguniang Bayan building,

the west side is the Water District and the part of the lot where it is erected is the boundary from

the residential zone. The presence of public toilet within the area is approximately 3 meters from

the nearest vendor space. These issues serve as the notable problem that enlists the municipality

to be lacking of good community planning. To mention, the problem on the newly renovated

Sangguniang Bayan at the front of the fish market suffering challenges in good sanitation of the

surrounding environments, effectiveness of natural ventilation, and proper application of energy

efficiency serves as my topic in our previous case study in Design 5 under Arch. Mislang. The

general conclusion of this study as to why there is a prevalent issue within the area is the lack of

community planning and development.

Consumers and residents at the area and the neighbouring municipalities were primarily

affected from the stated problems in our municipality. In that case, since our location is at the

boundary of San Manuel and Binalonan, availing goods and necessities at Binalonan is more of

our preference because the conditions are far better.

Community planning and development is an integral part to bring the community to an

orderly manner in availing and rendering services especially at the poblacion. It serves as

catalysts in building sense of community, nurtures stringer ties between residents, address how

people perceive and use their environment, improve the liveability of communities and most

importantly, community planning helps the residents to have a peaceful living and achieve the

most of the human experiences.

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43–48https://doi.org/10.1080/13467581.2019.1595628© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa

UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of the Architectural Institute of Japan,

Architectural Institute of Korea andArchitectural Society of China.This is an Open Access article

distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,distribution, and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.