The units owned by a group of friends in this Poblacion building all happen to be on the same side: west where the sun sets. We spent half a day chasing sunlight as it rains down on their uniform floor plan units’ big windows, flooding each of their own spaces with warmth—both light and humidity. Thank god for air conditioning.
They are all creatives, one way or another, not bound just by an impulse to create but also to revel in life’s moments. All have moved into the building in the last two years—in the pandemic, nonetheless—from another buzzy neighborhood or from the comfort of their family homes. Either way, there seems to be a force that caused them to gravitate towards this address: in most cases, materialized as a friend or peers who used to live there, or shared memories of the neighborhood previously from a detached perspective.
Despite differing reasons, Mano Gonzales (artist and stylist), Jan Pineda (creative manager), Bea Te (DJ), Judd Figuerres (advertising director), Ipe Cervantes (sales manager), and Carla Villanueva (stylist, production designer, and creative director) all share a similar longing to have and carve out a physical and proverbial space for themselves in proximity to each other.
Long-time common friend Denise San Jose describes the group as
And they are at peace with that. They’ve made amends with the fact that someone has lived in the house before them and someone will probably usurp them—and are better off for it. But how do you make a space “yours” when on paper it is not and nothing is assured?
You make do and make moments in spaces lived in but never fully anyone’s.
For these friends, these moments manifest in dinners, intimate parties, precious and mundane pieces exchanged, time and energy reciprocated.
Creative direction by Nimu Muallam
Art direction by Levenspeil Sangalang
Video by Samantha Ong
Produced by Christian San Jose
With interviews by Pauline Miranda and Andrei Yuvallos
Special thanks to Some Love Wines
Read more related stories
Neil Felipp’s minaudière creations tell galaxies of stories held in one hand- Patricia Evangelista tells stories as a record and ‘some sort of reckoning’
- At this design studio, capiz goes out the window and becomes covetable art-like pieces
- Sarah Geronimo shines brighter in her Empowered Woman era
- If not Erwin Romulo, who?
- This couple is helping preserve Filipino heritage cooking, one TikTok at a time
