BluPrint’s latest Ask the Experts panel discussion brought together esteemed minds of architecture to discuss two weighty topics for students today. The first examines how we can build a sustainable future for Philippine architecture. The latter debates the role of AI in architecture.
This latest installment occurred at the College of St. Benilde (CSB) School of Environment and Design on October 4. Architects Cathy Saldaña, Sudarshan Khadka Jr., and Joey Yupangco graced the college with insight and openness as they analyzed the state of the industry.
The theater was buzzing with energy and anticipation, with a full house of students eager to listen to the guest roster rhapsodize about architecture in the modern day. Unforeseen walk-ins gave a higher-than-expected turnout for the event. Excitement floated through the air as the discussions commenced.
Cathy Saldaña, the founder and CEO of PDP Architects, kicked off the opening for Ask the Experts. She came in to help paint a picture for the students of the kind of future they can expect in architecture. Less concerned with philosophical questions, she instead got into the nitty-gritty of the business, grounding students’ expectations for the future.
During her talk, she discussed some of the different emerging fields in architecture to watch out for. She emphasized three different fields in this area: artificial intelligence, building technologies, and sustainability practices.
Saldaña touched upon AI in architecture, in the ways that she uses it as a tool to augment her practice. She uses it for, among other things, energy and sustainability modeling, cost management, and site management. It makes her work easier and gives her insight that she might not get through conventional methods.
Saldaña touched more on the latter two, which found itself interrelated through its effects on the environment. For the building technologies, she essentially said that good architects need to keep an eye on technological improvements that can be integrated into the country.
She gave solar panels as an example. When it first emerged, she said, it was an expensive and cumbersome technology; but current advancements allow it to be light and efficient in taking and storing energy for future use. These technologies can extend the lifespan of a building, and improve its efficiency and maintenance costs for the people in the establishment.
Saldaña discussed global green certifications and the need for environmentally-sustainable practices in how we build. Her company has a global design mindset, especially in adhering to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. During the panel discussion, it was also pointed out that she won different environmental awards in 2023 and 2024.
For her, sustainability means being careful in planning out every aspect of the business, from operations to design to the actual construction. At times, it might mean for companies to vet their sources and make their own materials to align it with your goals.
Overall, Saldaña said that it’s each student’s choice on what kind of architect they’ll be. But that each architecture should strive to serve the community more than anything else, in whatever field they choose.
“[Architecture is about] how to build—not just people, not just structures, but communities,” she said.
Meanwhile, Sudarshan Khadka Jr., partner at LVLP and Khadka + Eriksson Furunes, devoted his Ask the Experts presentation on the role of AI in architecture. Khadka felt a larger conundrum at the center of artificial intelligence and humanity’s relation to it.
During his speech, he expressed his feelings regarding the possibility of AI overtaking human intelligence, and the existential crisis that comes from meaning being removed in one’s work. With that in mind, he said that this technology allows us to re-evaluate our perspective on art and architecture.
“What is the spirit of our age and what is the freedom of our art?” he asked, looking to redefine the position of mankind in the craft we create. His conclusion, or at least as much conclusion as one can get from an emerging technology, is that AI cannot provide the necessary human connection and intentionality to make a project work.
During his presentation, Khadka presented different works of his that exemplified that human touch. Punta Fuego House, for example, utilizes concrete in interesting ways that integrates itself to nature. Streetlight Tagpuro in Tacloban, built in the aftermath of Yolanda, showed the necessity of humanity in crafting livable public spaces.
“The spaces that you create only become architecture when you give it meaning,” he said.
Even then, however, Khadka does not discount the huge impact of AI in architecture. He spoke of how generative AI models create designs in a near-instant capacity while a typical architect takes weeks to months in crafting their designs.
This has positive repercussions for the community, Khadka said. He believes that AI can “democratize image making” because it allows people not well-versed in the terminology but have a vision for their homes anyway.
But it also has negative repercussions, too. During the speech, Khadka discussed a genuine fear of architects losing their income due to the faster output.
With a limited number of buildings going up, he believes that architects will be competing for lower prices to ensure business. This includes how some clients could remove portions of the architect’s fees by rendering the design on their own and just asking the architect to build it.
![[From left] Joey Yupangco, Cathy Saldaña, and Sudarshan Khadka Jr.](https://assets.bluprint-onemega.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/BluPrint-2024-October-In-Article-ASK-THE-EXPERTS-x-SDE-09.jpg)
For now, he believes that architects are safe; they provide safety and liability for a building in a way that artificial intelligence legally cannot. But Khadka said that he believes architects need to see themselves as artists and authors to survive the wave of artificial intelligence.
“Architecture is an art,” he said. “It is a way for us to investigate what it means to connect with something bigger than ourselves.”
Later on, in the panel discussion, architect Joey Yupangco sowed doubt at some of the more dire predictions Khadka provided. He pointed out that architects had a better feel for the material than artificial intelligence ever will, and that current machines can only spit out what’s been inputted, not create new ideas.
“What happens when the ground goes up?” Yupangco said. “At the end of the day, kailangan mo talaga ng tao.”
For this Ask the Experts discussion on AI in architecture, it ended up being open-ended in how this will affect the industry’s future. However that may be, the hope of these experts is that the future architects of this nation work towards community-building and innovation to ensure that this country will not be left behind in the future.
Photos by Kim Santos.
Related reading: A Unique Opportunity to Ask the Experts at Enderun CAD
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