Fragments of Home is an architectural manifesto, a thesis that explores the meaning of Filipino identity through the architecture of the home in its many forms. With an emphasis on the culture of the Philippines, and its long colonial history, the thesis recognizes the complexity of the house in a cross-cultural context where traces of submission and resistance to colonization are present up to this day. The thesis tells a narrative through architectural allegory to discover and reveal the different fragments of home. Four houses are conceptualized to represent a story particular to the cultural and physical landscapes of history, identity, memory, and becoming.

 

The origins of the Philippines can be traced back to the colonization of the archipelago by the Spanish, Americans, and Japanese for more than three centuries. As a result, the Philippines have become an imperial artifact of these different power regimes that manifests to culture, language, cuisine, arts, and architecture. With a complex history, the meaning of identity continuously shifts to acclimate to hybrid environments. Thus, an understanding that the search for meaning in “Filipino identity” is difficult to grasp with a quantitative exploration.

 

Allegorical design is used as a form of storytelling to introduce a shift from the often precise and rigid practice of architecture to allow for a more speculative and intuitive process of drawing and exploration. Representation of the work requires interpretation to create room for meaning to shift. It invites agency and allows the spectator to engage with the content through a personal filter. The project features four fictional houses through architectural visualization and quasi-film media: a house on the mountain, a house on the water, the collective house, and the house of becoming. The house in each story uncovers not only the tangible aspects of architecture but attempts to capture life in each of them portraying allegorical narratives of landscapes in relation to rootedness, stories of the family, the chaos and excitement of dwelling collectively, and a hope of becoming. The houses ultimately come back to the ongoing question of Filipino identity which is reflected in the home as it is a fluid entity, always changing, an unfinished work of architecture.