TIME magazine labeled 1989 as “The Year That Changed the World.” Europe saw its divisions and its centrality wither, Germany finally saw the Fall of the Berlin Wall, China pushed for democracy at Tiananmen Square, South Africa’s apartheid system has started to collapse, and the world started to feel the impact of the Internet’s Big Bang. Back home, the Philippines experienced coup d’etats against the Aquino government, the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was created, and the construction industry was at one of its lowest points.
For the then optimistic visionary architect-urban planner Felino “Jun” Palafox, Jr., it was “The Year That Changed his Life.” Armed with his unquestioning faith and experiences from Ayala Corporation, AyalaLand Inc., and Dubai as planner under the guidance of his fomer employers and mentors and the international expertise of the Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, former Secretary of Public Works and Transportation David Consunji, Henry Sy, Sr. of the SM Group of Companies, and Enrique Zobel and Jaime Zobel de Ayala of Ayala Corporation, Palafox Associates opened for business in July 1, 1989.
When the firm started in 1989, it only had four employees and offered three services that Palafox excelled in: Architecture, Planning, and Consultancy. As the company grew in terms of number of projects and employees, the number of disciplines grew. It diversified and included interior design, business development planning, and even graphics design, further branching out to include engineering, project development studies, urban design, and tourism planning.
“When I founded this company in 1989, I dreamt that in 25 years we could make it number one in the Philippines,” says Principal Architect Felino Palafox, Jr. “On our tenth year, we were cited by the World Architecture Magazine of London as the first and only Filipino Architectural Firm in the top world’s top 500. We ranked 220.”
The firm received more than 200 awards since 1989. BD World Architecture Magazine from London ranked Palafox Associates as the 8th largest in Leisure Projects, and 89th in the World’s Top 100 Architectural firms in 2012. The firm has been included in the World’s top Architectural firms since 1999, the first and only Filipino and Southeast Asian firm to be included in a list dominated by American, European, Japanese, and Chinese firms. The firm also won its 9th consecutive BCI Asia Top Ten Architects in the Philippines award in 2013, as well as its 11th year ISO certification from TÜV-SÜD of Germany for the firm’s integrated Quality and Environmental Management Systems.
The success of the firm’s longevity is mainly due to the international experience, expertise, and continuing education of its founder, Jun Palafox. Parallel to the firm’s many achievements is the founder’s very own achievements. Arch. Palafox has also been a recipient of several local and international awards, most notably as Ambassador for Peace from the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace given in New York. He is also cited by Forbes Asia Magazine as one of the 48 Heroes of Philanthropy in Asia, one of four in the Philippines in 2013.
He was also the former president of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) and president of the Philippine Institute of Environmental Planners (PIEP) for 2013 and 2014.
Arch. Palafox is also one of the few architects and planners to have lectured in Harvard University, MIT, Asian Institute of Management, and in 17 other countries in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Arch. Palafox is an international associate/member of international organizations like the American Institute of Architects, U.S. Green Building Council, Urban Land Institute, Congress for the New Urbanism, American Planning Association. He was named Fellow for the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2013 (only one of two worldwide), where he also serves as the Country Representative.
The firm’s lifeblood
2014 is a monumental year for Palafox Associates as the firm celebrates 25 years benchmarking projects in the architecture, planning, and design professions. The multi-awarded and multi-disciplinary firm has done more that 1,000 projects in 38 countries. Palafox Associates hopes to continue as an agent of change: to change the prevailing pessimistic attitude into something optimistic and show the world that we Filipinos can equal what our foreign counterparts have done.
The enduring strength of Palafox Associates rests in the firm’s highly qualified key architects, planners, designers, consultants, engineers, and individuals who make up an efficient and innovative team to help Palafox Associates maintain its reputation in consistently providing multi-disciplinary service excellence for its clients worldwide. More than 800 employees have been part of the firm, and it is through these professionals that the firm has gained a reputation for delivering consistent superior service evidenced by an extremely high rate of repeat clients.
“We aim to become trailblazers in the country and the rest of the world,” says Palafox. “We are never afraid to deviate from what is considered as standard or tradition in the industry if it means adhering to our highest standards of architecture, planning, and design excellence.”
Since its inception, the firm has carried out the architecture of high-, medium-, and low-rise buildings: from mixed-use, residential, commercial, office, retail, hotels, churches, mosques, to hospitals and clubhouses, the firm has also been involved in the master planning, and/or urban design of islands, provinces, cities, municipalities and towns, golf course communities, institutional, industrial, residential, and tourism estates. The firm has been involved in the planning of more than 16 billion square meters of land area and the design and architecture of more than 12 million square meters of building floor area continues to inspire the firm to surpass previously held benchmarks and continue our leadership in the architecture, planning, and design professions.
The firm has led benchmark and innovative projects, collaborating with some of the best architects, planners, designers, and consultants in the world, and Palafox Associates is eternally grateful to the clients that have placed their trust and confidence on the firm, and the resulting experience gained from each project. The firm’s first client was J.Y. Campos of Greenfield Development Corporation for the Manila Southwoods Project and other Unilab projects which was also the firm’s first time to work with renowned golf course designer Jack Nicklaus. This paved the way for other master golf-course communities by the firm, among them, the Country Club with golf course designer Tom Weiskopf and Taliesin Architects, the Sta. Elena Golf Course Community with Robert Trent-Jones, Jr., and Splendido Taal in Tagaytay City, a premier golf course and residential mountain resort community, undertaken with renowned golf course designer Greg Norman as consultant. Prior to founding Palafox Associates, Arch. Palafox worked with international consultants in Dubai with Henry Sy, Sr for the SM Group, Ayala Group, and the DPWTC.
1989-1997 charted significant future directions for the firm: a quality of life urban planning project in the Conceptual Development Study for Roxas City; the Saipan Golf and Country Club, the Capitol Golf Townhomes, a quiant residential enclave in the neighborhood of a major golf course in Quezon City; SM Southmall, an innovative and client-friendly technology for designing commercial establishment; Jakarta’s Urban Transport Study and an Industrial Park at Serpong, Indonesia, and some projects in Dubai for Sultan Khalifa and Asia for Henry Sy, Sr.
One of the company’s earliest advocacies towards promoting a better quality of life for the Filipino people is the masterplan of Rockwell Center and the architecture of Rizal Tower, Luna Gardens, Amorsolo East and West, and Hidalgo Place, all in Makati. Rockwell Center is the first mixed-use development in the Philippines which the firm worked with Skidmore, Owings & Merill for Rockwell, the real estate arm of the Lopez family in conjunction with Benpres Holdings Corporation, Meralco and First Philippine Holdings Corporation. The firm was also involved in the first fully-residential and site-sensitive approach to the development of masterplanned communities like the Le Mariche.
During this time, the firm’s library and archival collection services also expanded, more so as a result of Architect Palafox’s penchant for reading and buying books. To date, Palafox Associates has a collection of more than 25,000 references and its library is affiliated with the Association of Special Libraries in the Philippines.
A project collaborated with New Urbanism proponent Duany, Plater-Zyberk, the Dos Rios in Laguna was the company’s first project following the new urbanism and transport-oriented concepts. During this period, the firm designed and planned world-class industrial centers and the country’s premier business park designed along global standards, the First Philippine Industrial Park.
From 1998-2010, the firm designed its first religious structure, the Shrine of Jesus near the Mall of Asia and won the design competition for the Supreme Court Centennial Building. The Bulacan Conceptual Development Plan becomes another urban planning project, the first at the provincial level. It was also during this time that the firm began the rehabilitation master plan of the Pasig River and the redevelopment masterplan of the La Mesa Eco Park with Gina Lopez of the ABS-CBN Foundation, followed by the redevelopment masterplan of Araneta Center with RTKL. This is a national recognition of its growing professional expertise in waterfront development and its sustained commitment to its advocacy for the environment and an improved quality of urban life for the Filipino people.
The success of the Rockwell Center masterplan and the architecture of its first five towers put the firm into local and international spotlight, with an array of masterplanned community projects catering to almost every market. Among them were the Ashkhabad Waterfront Development Project in Turkmenistan, Jeddah waterfront development, Al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia, the architecture of a number of SM malls and Robinsons malls, Watermart, Las Terrazas de Punta Fuego in Calatagan, Camp John Hay master plan, the plan and architecture of Malayan Colleges in Laguna, the architecture and redevelopment plan of the Manila Polo Club, the architecture of Tzu Chi schools for the earthquake-ravaged city of Bam in Iran under the Tzu Chi Foundation, the redevelopment plan and architecture of the Marikina Riverbanks and Paseo del Rio, Global Gateway Logistics City in Clark, the Philippines’ first aerotropolis development, and the Philippine Embassy and Chancery in Brunei Darusallam, the first green building in Brunei.
Other landmark projects by the firm involved in the master plan and architecture of residential areas and golf-course communities in Batangas, Laguna, Cavite, and Clark. Close to the founder’s heart, the firm has done Corporate Social Responsibility projects in Bam in Iran, Aceh in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. The firm has also designed SM’s first mall is China, and the Philippines’ largest mosque, the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque in Cotabato City.
The firm, through Principal Architect Felino “Jun” Palafox, Jr., also shared to the media and the public its advocacies in vertical urbanism, adaptive architecture, architecture for humanity, architectural activism, and green urbanism. With people first in the firm’s bottom-line, safety is one of the main considerations for every undertaking. The firm uses Adaptive Architecture to strike a balance between the people and their environment, “working with nature and not against it.” In the early 2000s, the firm submitted a study to the Asian Development Bank of a study focused on Walkable Communities, and Arch. Palafox conducted a study on the urban congestion predictions and recommendations for Metro Manila to Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
When Super Typhoon Yolanda struck the Visayas region late last year, Arch. Palafox and his staff volunteered their services to come out with architecture designs and planning guidelines to help the victims and the local governments ‘build back better, safer, smarter, and sustainable.’
The firm’s major projects in 2013 and 2014 included the development plan of Poro Point in San Fernando, Ulugan Bay, the tourism master plan of Ilocos Norte and San Vicente in Palawan, the architecture and environmental master plan of Malcapuya Island Resort in Palawan, the Architecture of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Complex and the Social Weather Stations building in Quezon City, Jestra Hills in Davao, among others. Some of the firm’s on-going and recently completed projects are: Architecture of Fishermall in Quezon City, the San Juan Comprehensive Land Use Plan and Zoning Ordinance, architecture of Laureano di Trevi Towers and Torre de Lorenzo, the expansion of the Asian Development Bank Manila Headquarters Third Atrium, the plan and architecture of Alson’s Northtown in Davao, the architecture of Donggwang Officetel Buildings in Clark, the architecture of Felcris Centrale in Davao City, Sabah Al-Ahmad Global Gateway Logistics City in Clark, and the American Battle Monuments in the Philippines, Saipan, and Solomon Islands.
Collaborations are crucial to a project’s success, and Palafox Associates has worked with more than 200 international consultants and 200 local consultants since 1989.
2015 and beyond
As the firm continues to envision a social and environmental renaissance through its innovative, sustainable, and exemplary practice of architecture, planning, engineering, and design, it also remains open to the challenges and opportunities that lends to the company’s virtue of versatility. When difficult decisions have to be made, Arch. Palafox and his staff draw their strength through prayer, core values, and life career balance.
One such challenge is the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement, which takes effect next year. The firm, especially Architect Palafox, welcomes the challenge with open arms and has taken the necessary steps towards the border-less practice with the firm’s introduction of its new Palafox Architecture Group. The newly formed group will serve as the architectural design arm of Palafox Associates.
Palafox Associates is proud to be a Filipino brand. Despite all the frustrations Arch. Palafox might have with the country, he remains a perennial optimist. He believes that there will be a paradigm shift and the country would progress in the next 15-20 years. When asked if he too would leave the country, he replies with, “If all of us smart and decent professionals left for abroad, then what would become of this country?”
“Every project must elevate the international stature of Filipino professionals, be economically and financially viable, and enhance the environment for future generations,” says the Founding Architect. “We are professionals serving the needs other professionals and the needs of clients and people all over the world, and we will continue that create value in every place, building, and community that we design backed by the firm’s quadruple bottom-line approach: People or social equity, planet earth or the environment, profit or economic goals, and finally, spirituality.”
With Palafox Associates celebrating its silver anniversary this July, how does the firm envision itself in the next 25, 50, 75, 100, 200 years? Urban planner EnP Karima Patricia “Karmi” Palafox, who is also the Managing Partner and head of the Planning Team takes a leaf out of her father’s book.
“Arch. Palafox is very goal-oriented. He sets daily to yearly goals, and taught us, his children, and the employees of the firm to map out our lives and to always have the end in mind,” shares Karmi. “His persistence and penchant toward goal-setting has helped the firm achieve many of its milestones years ahead. He made me believe that the “im” in “impossible” is a prefix that can easily be removed with enough determination, passion, and conviction.”
The company intends to live on long beyond its founder, and Arch. Palafox has already laid the foundations with his continuing vocation towards sharing his values, advocacies, and vision to the next generation.
“Life is too short to think small. This is what I learned from renowned Architect and Planner Daniel Burnham,” says Palafox. “The next 25, 50, 75, 100, 200 years is an exciting time for Palafox Associates and Palafox Architecture as we continue to plan and design sustainable futures for all.”
Palafox Associates will celebrate its first 25 years at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati on its founding date, July 1, where the firm is set to announce its mission, vision plans in the next 25 years.