Visit to GK Aya!

15 Jan 2011

Having touched down in Manila at the ungodly hr of 450am, 13 sleepy-eyed elfs led by their fairy godmother linked up with our fairy queen, Roma… After a hearty Filipino breakfast, the we were whisked off to our first site GK Aya multinational village, in Paranaque city.

All Filipino breakfast=P...pats tummy

GK Aya is one of the first resettlement villages built 9 years ago under Gawad Kalinga’s resettlement program. We were led on a informal tour of the village=) One of the things that were really striking are the murals that decorate the walls of the community hall.

 

GK Aya was built on an existing slum so we also saw remnants of thatched houses which survive side by side wif the brightly -colored GK housing… also another thing that struck me r the cosy spaces, the very human sense of scale afforded by the alleyways which are brought to life by kids playing. Over here, they’re racing one another to the finish line!

The kindergarten..

The place where village ladies sew to earn extra income for their families and also the village.

In retrospect, GK Aya in comparison with Bagung Silang and GK Enchanted may have been initially masterplanned with similar layout and massing, but on the ground, we witnessed how each of the villagers have over time made the spaces their own. It is a very insightful perspective into design, where the design process does not end following its construction, but rather, architecture here evolves in a very organic, fluid manner in a very pleasant synergy of top-down planning and bottom-up inhabitation.

Cheers to GK Aya, mabuhay!!!

giggly wif her new found friends in aya...
Cheers
Zany