Undergraduate Thesis: Cultural Center of the Philippines - Center for Contemporary Arts: Art as Social Experience (2014)

Title: CCP Center for Contemporary Arts: Art as Social Experience
Site: CCP Complex, Pasay City

Contemporary art is practically defined by new and emerging artists. In order for these new and emerging artists to be established in the art scene, their artworks need to be seen and talked about by people who have never seen them before.

This project is a sociocultural bay front development that aims to create an active public space for the development of Philippine contemporary arts. The CCP Center for Contemporary Arts will answer the need for a well-functional public space that immerses the public to the growing Philippine contemporary art scene by incorporating educational, exhibition, gathering, and commercial spaces. It also attempts at employing the urban waterfront as a tool in improving the quality of life in the city.

The project presents design solutions that are programmed to achieve sufficient social engagement in an artistic environment where artists, patrons, and the public collide with each other and have the potential to informally and formally interact with each other. Through this, architecture becomes a tool in nurturing creativity by increasing social interaction, thereby not just helping new and emerging artists establish themselves, but also providing the public realm with a different kind of aesthetic, social, urban, and cultural experience.