Fil-Am architect designing 2,000-seat Cebu Church–something that’s never been seen

Carlos Arnaiz, who’s also designing the Boracay airport, uses fresh eyes to keep from repeating himself

By: Alex Y. Vergara
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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NEW YORK-BASED Filipino architect Carlos Arnaiz JOSEPH AGCAOILI

Style is one word Carlos Arnaiz, a Filipino-American architect based in New York, tends to avoid when asked to describe what sets him apart from fellow practitioners. And he has a good reason to do so.

Aranaiz was in Manila recently to oversee projects. They include the Shrine of Mary, a Catholic church to rise in a reclaimed area in Cebu, and the new and bigger Boracay International Airport, a public-private partnership between the national government and San Miguel Corp.

“What I try to do is produce something that hasn’t been seen before,” he said. “Sometimes, I hope it’s something that I haven’t seen before.”

To achieve this, he and his team rely more on methodology. His “research-based” approach to doing projects requires him to focus more on their context as well as clients’ needs and issues that need to be addressed.

“People like to say that architecture is an art,” said Arnaiz, a product of Xavier School and International School in Manila. “I tend to disagree. For me, art is more utopian.”

Not that there hasn’t been utopian architecture, he conceded. But unlike painting and poetry, which don’t require a client, architecture requires one. The degree of collaboration between architect and client is usually an ideal gauge of how successful a project would be.

Arnaiz, who finished architecture at Harvard University, has been practicing for a little over 12 years now. After working for a number of firms in the US, he put up his own architecture firm in Brooklyn, CAZA or Carlos Arnaiz Architects, almost four years ago, and now employs a dozen or so associate architects from various parts of the globe.

COMPUTER-AIDED Marian shrine in Cebu

CAD of Cebu Shrine’s courtyard

Other than in the US and the Philippines, CAZA has ongoing projects in Colombia (Arnaiz’s mother hails from there), Brazil and Taiwan. The company has also done projects in Korea, Malaysia  and Costa Rica.

Master plan

Once finished, the Boracay International Airport, which is located in Caticlan, can accommodate more and bigger planes to and from the world-famous tourist destination.

“I’m quite excited about the Boracay project,” said Arnaiz, 35. “We’re not doing any construction yet, as we’ve just been through the master plan.”

HAMILO Chapel offers worshippers panoramic view of lush greenery.

HAMILO Chapel at Pico de Loro resort in the Philippines

But the overhaul will be massive. The terminal building will be just one of eight new buildings in an airport that will be expanded from 800-2,000 meters. People behind the project will have to work around the old airport without disrupting current operations.

“One of the main challenges is how to make a responsive airport without making it, particularly the terminal building, too generic,” he said. “An airport’s functionality requirements are quite intense, but how do you make a building that’s relaxed? A lot of today’s airports feel overwrought. They’re trying to do too much.”

The 1,000-seat, 2,220-sq m Shrine of Mary is in the South Reclamation Zone in Cebu. Arnaiz plans to create a main entrance set against a series of walls with varying heights.

The project is financed by SM, which is building a mall complex in Cebu similar to SM Mall of Asia in Manila.

The entrance evokes the mystery one supposedly experiences while wandering through a mythical forest. The series of walls symbolizes the many paths and obstacles one goes through to arrive at one’s own enlightenment, said Arnaiz.

“Construction started this month. The building should be finished before the end of 2012. The owners’ goal is to have Christmas Mass celebrated in the church this year,” he added.

CAZA is also into urban planning and gentrification. The company will have a project with the Cebu City government to improve the streetscape of historic Osmeña Avenue.

The gentrification project along the 2 km stretch entails creating a series of sidewalks, patterns and monuments from downtown to the city hall building. It also involves a series of “traffic-calming” devices, lamps and benches.

“It’s probably one of the simplest and humblest projects we’ve done, but it’s one of my favorites,” said Arnaiz. “It’s different from other projects we’ve done, that’s why I’m proud of it.”

Permutations

Arnaiz has no problem with creating something distinct and recognizable. But doing permutations of a particular look more than once can be quite limiting. A classic example would be that of esteemed American architect Frank Gehry, the man behind the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the almost similar (at least, from the outside) Disney Music Hall in Los Angeles.

“Gehry himself complained that the Bilbao project pigeonholed him,” said Arnaiz. “People would hire him and say they want a Bilbao. In a way, he has become a victim of his own success. I have a great deal of respect for him, but he himself is trying to change and innovate.”

Repeating one’s design through a distinct look is something Arnaiz consciously tries to avoid. The key here, he said, is to approach every project with a fresh pair of eyes.

“Every time we start a project, we treat it as something entirely new,” he said. “We adopt an approach that’s anchored on the belief that we can organically grow something from within.”

And instead of showing clients variations based on a particular theme, Arnaiz and his associates, working in teams, produce multiple alternatives that are totally different from each other. This, he said, goes against the grain of industry practice.

“I want to promote conversations based on the client’s reactions,” he said. “Everything, of course, is based on his needs, which he doesn’t usually know how to translate. In that translation, something magical happens. Something which, I hope, goes beyond what the client expected.”

In his book, great designers produce excess—excess that isn’t tantamount to waste, but excess that can be both beautiful and utilitarian.

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Danilo Casimiro–one of the world’s top vaccine developers, and a Filipino

The UP graduate is the only Filipino scientist in Merck’s vaccine discovery department, which produced the world’s leading vaccine against HPV

By: Alex Y. Vergara
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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Danilo Casimiro, the only Filipino scientist who was part of the team that worked on Gardasil, the world’s leading vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV), is now busy working with colleagues on a vaccine to help prevent dengue.

Casimiro flew to Manila recently from West Point, Pennsylvania, where a number of Merck’s state-of-the-art laboratories and manufacturing plants are located, to give a series of talks to local pediatricians and gynecologists/ obstetricians about the need to address HPV at a young age through a series of vaccinations.

A magna cum laude with a BS Chemistry degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, Casimiro later took postgraduate and doctorate studies in biochemistry and chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

He holds the distinction of being the only Filipino scientist in Merck’s vaccine discovery department, composed of close to 90 people.

Second-generation drug

“To be honest with you, I was involved in Gardasil more on the tail-end,” the soft-spoken Casimiro said. “But, obviously, after Gardasil’s licensure, there were more studies that needed to be conducted.”

And those studies have led Merck to work on a second-generation HPV vaccine that works not only on four, but nine types of HPV. It’s now on its “phase three” or late-stage development.

It may be the gold standard in HPV vaccines today, but Gardasil, which was first introduced in the market in 2006, only covers 70 percent of HPVs, which cause cervical cancer among women. In effect, there are still so-called high-risk HPV types that aren’t covered by Gardasil.

“The second generation [Gardasil] adds five more types, which brings the coverage to 87 percent,” said Casimiro.

According to a Center for Diseases Control fact sheet, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection among sexually active men and women. The more than 40 types of HPV can cause anything, from benign but unsightly genital warts to life-threatening cancers such as cervical, anal, rectal, penile and even cancer of the oropharynx (back of throat).

Even monogamous couples who have had previous relationships are still at risk, as the virus, even if acquired from a previous sex partner and remains inactive in the body, can still be passed on to a current sex partner.

In most instances, as long as your immune system isn’t compromised, the body is eventually capable of neutralizing the virus by itself. But there are certain types of HPV that are resilient to the body’s immune system. These are the ones that could pose health problems to the individual later on.

In the Philippines, Gardasil, which comes in three shots ideally administered within a six-month period, is given to boys and men 9-26 years old, and girls and women 9-45 years old.

Age disparity

Why is there a need to give the vaccine early, and why the age disparity between men and women?

The immune system Gardasil brings about is better on a young person, even though he or she may not yet be sexually active. It’s just the way the body’s immune system works, said Dr. Ina Crisologo, an obstetrician-gynecologist and one of Merck’s medical advisers in the Philippines.

“In the Philippines, we have approval to make Gardasil available to girls as young as nine,” said Crisologo. “I’m not aware of any vocal opposition to giving the vaccine at such a young age.”

“As you age, you become less responsive to vaccines,” Casimiro added. “It has been shown for HPV, but I think it can apply generally.”

Certain consequences of HPV on males, particularly genital warts, can be acquired at any age. But studies Merck conducted are limited to the 9-26 age group.

“There may be some doctors who dispense Gardasil to male patients older than 26, but this is considered off-label,” said Crisologo. “Patients can just be informed that scientific evidence was based only on a specific population belonging to a specific age group.”

In other words, because of the absence of additional tests, it hasn’t been proven to be beneficial to people beyond certain ages. The same condition applies to women. Gardasil’s full efficacy has also been proven with the completion of three shots.

The way Casimiro sees it, Gardasil has revolutionized the market in more ways than one.

“Now you have adolescent and a young adult market, which before wasn’t very robust for vaccinemanufacturers,” he said.

No stumbling block

As for his being a Filipino, it never became an issue or a stumbling block in his 15 years at Merck.

“One thing good about Merck is that they provide you with opportunities regardless of your racial origins,” he said. “Diversity as well as ethics and integrity are integral parts of the company’s core values. As long as you dedicate yourself to your work, the rewards and recognition will come.”

But his being Filipino does come into play with his work. This can be seen in the latest studies he and his colleagues are working on.

“I think my being a Filipino ties me to what’s important in the [Asia-Pacific] region,” he said. “For example, I was involved in the initial part of formulating the team for the dengue vaccine Merck is publicly working on. I feel passionate about vaccines not only on what’s relevant to the developed market, but also for the emerging markets.”