by Penny Angeles-Tan | Jan 23, 2020 | Awards and Competitions
The PETA Theater quickly filled up with excited finalists and their friends, family, teachers, and judges … all eager to hear the announcement of who won finally won the Asia Young Designer Awards Philippines 2019 (AYDAPH2019).
We’ve heard the expression “everyone’s a winner” and this is very true in this competition. All AYDAPH2019 finalists who do not receive the silver or gold award will still receive a cash prize of P10,000.00. However, being a finalist is not enough, each one is, of course, shooting for gold.
Nippon Paint did not make the audience wait long and neither will I.
The special and major winners in Architecture
2019 is a good year for male Architecture students from outside Metro Manila. For the first three awards that I will mention, if they do not win the major awards they each receive P10,000.00 in cash for being a finalist PLUS the cash prize for the special award.
Best Color Choice Award
Christian Adrian Manalo of Batangas State University received the BEST COLOR CHOICE AWARD. He received an additional P5,000.00 cash prize. This means his total cash prize is P15,000.00.

Best Green Innovation Award
The award for BEST GREEN INNOVATION went to John Carlo de Jesus of Bulacan State University. He received an additional P5,000.00 cash prize. This means his total cash prize is P15,000.00.

People’s Choice Award
The PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD is based on online votes and Johann Orozco, also from Bulacan State University received that most votes in the Architecture category. He received an additional P5,000.00 cash prize. This means his total cash prize is P15,000.00.

Most Supportive School


The award for MOST SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL went to the Far Eastern University for having the most number of entries submitted in this competition. They received a cash prize of P10,000.00 plus a paint voucher worth P10,000.00 also.
Silver Award
The recipient of the silver award will receive a cash prize of P30,000.00 plus an internship opportunity with a renowned Architecture or Interior Design firm.

John Harold Siblag
And the silver award winner is John Harold Siblag of St. Mary’s University in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. He could not contain his shock upon hearing his name.
Gold Award

… John Carlo (JC) de Jesus of Bulacan State University. As the gold winner, he received a cash prize of P50,000.00 plus an internship opportunity AND he will compete against other gold winners from participating countries at the Asia Young Designer Award 2020 Summit at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Since he also won the green innovation award, this brings his total cash prize to P55,000.00.
Best Mentor
The Best Mentor award goes to the professor who guided the gold winner in his journey to victory. This award goes to Ar. Diane Alfonso of Bulacan State University, the mentor of the gold winner in Architecture, John Carlo de Jesus. She received a cash prize of P10,000.00.

Ar. Diane Alfonso
Best College/University


The award for BEST COLLEGE / UNIVERSITY goes to the school that the gold winner represents. Congratulations, Bulacan State University! The school that receives this award receives a cash prize of P10,000.00 plus a paint voucher also worth P10,000.00.
In this year’s Asia Young Designer Award Philippines BULSU produced two finalists, both of whom won awards. That is pretty amazing!
The special and major winners of Interior Design
Where Architecture was dominated by men, Interior Design was dominated by women. Just as above, all finalists who do not win either silver or gold will receive a cash prize of P10,000. And, if they win a special prize, that amount will be added to their cash prize.
Best Color Choice Award
The award for BEST COLOR CHOICE goes to Michael Gabriel Vazquez of De La Salle College of St. Benilde. He was the only male Interior Design student to win an award in the Interior Design category. He received an additional cash prize of P5,000.00 which brings his total cash prize to P15,000.00.

Michael Gabriel Vasquez
Best Green Innovation Award
The award for BEST GREEN INNOVATION went to Josette Thai of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. She received a cash prize of P5,000.00 in addition to her cash prize for being a finalist, which brings her total cash prize to P15,000.00.

People’s Choice Award
The PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD goes to the finalist who received the most online votes. In the Interior Design category, this award went to Erika Mari Ordinario of De La Salle College of St. Benilde. She received P5,000.00 on top of her cash prize for being a finalist which brings her total cash prize to P15,000.00.

Erika Mari Ordinario
Most Supportive School

The award for MOST SUPPORTIVE SCHOOL for the Interior Design Category went to De La Salle College of St. Benilde for sending the most entries. Additional information that is important to note is that five out of the ten finalists of Interior Design are all from De La Salle College of St. Benilde!
The school that receives this award receives a cash prize of P10,000.00 plus a paint voucher also worth P10,000.00.
Silver Award
The recipient of the silver award will receive a cash prize of P30,000.00 plus an internship opportunity with a renowned Architecture or Interior Design firm. Congratulations to Clarice Limsui of De La Salle College of St. Benilde!

Clarice Limsui
Gold Award
The recipient of the gold award is Abigail Florence Taghoy of the University of San Carlos, Cebu. She received a cash prize of P50,000.00 and an internship opportunity. For receiving the gold award, Abigail will represent the Philippines in the upcoming Asia Young Designer Award 2020 to be held in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

Abigail Taghoy
Best Mentor
For mentoring Abigail Taghoy, IDr. Hermie Oplado of the University of San Carlos received the award for BEST MENTOR. He received a cash prize of P10,000.00.

IDr. Hermie Oplado
Best College/University


University of San Carlos
The award for BEST COLLEGE / UNIVERSITY goes to the school that the gold winner represents. Congratulations, University of San Carlos, Cebu! The school that receives this award receives a cash prize of P10,000.00 plus a paint voucher also worth P10,000.00.
It is to be noted that three out of ten finalists in the Interior Design category came from their school.
The Asia Young Designer Award challenged students of Architecture and Interior Design to come up with designs that are both innovative and sustainable, our winners have displayed both!
To Mr. John Carlo de Jesus and Ms. Abigail Taghoy, good luck in your coming competition in Vietnam!

by Penny Angeles-Tan | Aug 3, 2018 | Advocacy
The Design Center of the Philippines celebrated recently World Industrial Design Day 2018 with the one-day event Designing Wellness at Robins Design Center on Meralco Avenue, Pasig City.
The annual World Industrial Design Day (WIDD) is an initiative of the World Design Organization, of which the Design Center is a member. It spotlights a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and underscores the role of design in achieving the objective. For 2018, with the focus on UN SDG Number 3, holistic health and well-being were highlighted.
In partnership with Robins Design Center, Designing Wellness featured talks, workshops, and exhibitions at the Schema, Perchand La Europa showrooms.

On-Off Group strategist Leo Lallana challenges participants to come up with creative solutions as they are instructed to apply Design Thinking in different activities. (Photo by JC Lucas)
Leo Lallana of On-Off Group facilitated a Design Thinking workshop that taught participants to “fail forward” and to come up with solutions tailor-fit for pain-points of businesses.
Participants were presented with different challenges during the workshop. One challenge asked them to come up with designs that took into account the insights of their chosen partners. Activities emphasized empathy and the active seeking of innovative solutions to problems at hand.

Reimon Gutierrez imparts his art philosophy to participants of the Life By Design workshop. (Photo by Paolo Quiocho)
Reimon Gutierrez talked about his philosophy of art as a tool for self-discovery in his Life by Design workshop. He encouraged participants to “visualize wellness”, helping them with the process by instructing them to describe various objects given to them.

Melanie Go discusses the modern built environment and the holistic farming practices of Holy Carabao Farms. (Photo by Paolo Quiocho)
The second part of the event, Design Talks, featured talks by homegrown design champions.
Kicking off the series of talks, Melanie Go explained that building biology “addresses the ecological nature of the building – a step forward in harmony and balance with nature” and made the home “our third skin.”
“These homes are meant to protect what’s going on inside and what’s going on outside. We should think about the home as a living organism,” Go said.
A co-founder of Holy Carabao Farms, Go said the well-being of the soil, the animals and the people involved were top priorities in the practice of holistic farming.

Jenica Dizon, COO of Waves for Water Philippines
Waves for Water Philippines director for operations Jenica Dizon emphasized the importance of immersing one’s self in the source of the problem he/she wanted to solve. She encouraged her audience to help effect change while doing what they were passionate about.
“It’s really hard to advocate for health, for wellness, when people don’t have basic needs,” Dizon noted as she talked about how her passion for aquatic activities evolved into her advocacy to provide clean water for everyone after she saw the plight of indigent communities. She showed the audience the water filter that Waves for Water provided communities to make water clean.
Arooga Health founder Dominique de Leon and Innovable, Inc. chief design officer Christina Guanzon stressed the need for accessibility of design, particularly in relation to their respective advocacies, mental health and a safer world for everyone, able-bodied or not.

Dominique de Leon, Founder of Arooga
“We don’t have convenient access to mental health care,” De Leon lamented as he discussed the impetus for Arooga Health, an online application that champions improved mental health policies in the workplace. “Hopefully, together, we could design a future that we’re all excited to see,” he said.

Christina Guanzon, Founder of Innovable, Inc.
“In designing products, you have to design for any possibility,” Guanzon said. She said, as a hearing-impaired person herself, the difficulties she faced in a world that was mainly accessible to differently abled individuals served as the inspiration for Early Action Response System (EARS), a device that would enable deaf wearers to detect threats in their environment.

Niña Terol, Chief Fireball and Co-Founder of Kick Fire Kitchen
“To all the designers here, we encourage you to make design inclusive even on the basic level,” Chief Fireball and co-founder of Kick Fire Kitchen Niña Terol said during the fireside chat she moderated.
“We are proud to be at the forefront of sparking the much-needed conversation in ensuring that the physical, mental, social and psychological dimensions of an individual and the community are top priorities in designing wellness,” Design Center of the Philippines Executive Director Rhea Matute said.
The Design Center also partnered with the Saint Brother Jaime Hilario Institute and the School of Deaf Education and Applied Studies of the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde in the recent PWD Entre-ployment Expo 2018.
With a grant from the Embassy of the United States in Manila, the expo promoted equality in employment opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).

Rhea Matute, Executive Director of Design Center of the Philippines
Design Center set up an institutional booth at the Henry Sy Hall in De La Salle University that featured its key services of the agency. It also facilitated a workshop, Do the Dough, that taught the 27 participants techniques they could apply to homemade air-dried dough to create various products that they could sell for a profit.
“The Design Center believes in accessibility as embodied by our accessible design services,” Matute explained. “We hope to continue playing an active role in the advancement of employability of Filipinos, regardless of their conditions.”
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Feb 6, 2018 | Business
Your journey, your future, your choice.
#vibe #visitbenilde #virtualbenilde
http://vibe.benilde.edu.ph
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Feb 3, 2018 | Education
Still thinking about where to pursue a college degree? Watch this video and consider this among your options. Dare to be different, dare to be extraordinary.
🙂
#ViBE #VisitBenilde #VirtualBenilde
Visit http://vibe.benilde.edu.ph.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Nov 22, 2017 | Events
Augmented realities and fake news, the politics of relationships, Manila as dystopia. These are some of the themes that will be tackled and presented in ‘To Differ, Digitally; Calls for Change Through New Media’ an exhibit by the College of Saint Benilde’s Center for Campus Art (CCA) in partnership with the New Media Cluster of the School of Design and Arts.
The clamor for change is now played out on the platforms of digital and social media as the tools of every person to differ and speak out. New Media, as this exhibit portrays, are vital means to merge art and design with the independent statements by our educators today.
The production is the first digital exhibit of the CCA and as well, the first one that is headlined exclusively by Benilde faculty, in particular those from the New Media Cluster composed of the Photography, Digital Film, Animation and Multimedia Arts programs.

SDA New Media Cluster artists of the To Differ, Digitally Exhibit
Molly Tamola Velasco-Wansom, Lea Sacdalan Abarentos, Katrina Santiano Juane, Penny Angeles-Tan, Jomel Gregorio, Rafael Liao, Sharon Mapa, Vanju Alvaira, Hannah Sison, Jesse Ray Lazaro, Mito Tubilleja, Mochie Cuyco, Roy Molon, Pepe Manikan, Don Henry Bañaga Bolo, Volty Garcia, Daniel Enriquez, Yolec Homecillo, Love Asis, Leo Santos, Jag Garcia, and Seymour Sanchez will present their statements and calls for change through the use of contemporary tools and platforms.
Curated by Arch. Gerry Torres, Director of the CCA and Karen Ocampo Flores, Benilde faculty and curator, Philippine Women’s University School of Fine Arts and Design (PWU-SFAD) Studio Gallery.
The exhibit will run from November 23, 2017 to January 20, 2018. The opening of the exhibit will be on November 23, 6:00PM at the 12th Floor SDA Gallery, SDA Building.
This is open to the public. See you all there!
For more information about this event please visit the website Be Heard, Benilde! or check out their social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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