Baseco Housing Proposal Explained: Manila’s New Housing Paradigm describes a 2018 student design for Baseco, a dense community on a manmade island in Manila. The proposal combines incremental, in-place housing improvements with water management, waste processing, shared courtyards and carefully limited vertical construction.
It is important to read the project as a design proposal, not as a completed development. The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) award entry documents the team’s research, intentions and award recognition; it does not establish construction, permitting, adoption or measured outcomes.
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What the Baseco proposal is
“Baseco: A New Housing Paradigm” was a Harvard University Graduate School of Design student project by Julio F. Torres Santana, Yinan Liu and Aime Vailes-Macarie. ASLA listed it as a 2018 Student Award of Excellence in Residential Design. The designers presented a landscape-and-housing strategy for Baseco in Manila, Philippines, rather than a conventional building plan for a single apartment block.
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstall| Item | What the 2018 award entry reports | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Place | Baseco, Manila, Philippines | A site-specific response to a low-income coastal community |
| Reported site size | 52 hectares | Figure from the designers’ narrative; the underlying measurement year is unspecified |
| Reported population | Over 60,000 residents | Figure from the designers’ 2018 narrative; it is not a current, independently verified census |
| Design team | Julio F. Torres Santana, Yinan Liu and Aime Vailes-Macarie | Students affiliated with Harvard GSD |
| Recognition | 2018 ASLA Student Award of Excellence in Residential Design | Evidence of an award-winning submission, not proof of implementation |
The project’s central idea is that housing, infrastructure and landscape should be designed together. Instead of clearing the settlement and moving residents elsewhere, the proposal works with existing homes, livelihoods and social networks. It uses modest-height buildings, connected open space and local water and organic-waste systems to make incremental change possible.
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Why Baseco required more than a housing block
The project narrative describes Baseco as a community shaped by rural migration and a wide range of livelihoods. It names fishing, vending, pedicab driving, construction work and scavenging among the activities supporting residents. Those activities depend on proximity, informal networks and access to streets and waterfront areas, so a housing strategy that ignored daily movement or employment could damage the very systems that help households survive.
During their research and site visit, the designers described unreliable access to potable water, poor sanitation, unpaved roads, hazardous electrical wiring and vulnerable building structures. These observations belong to the team’s project documentation; they should not be read as a present-day infrastructure audit. They nevertheless explain why the proposal treats drainage, sanitation, circulation, electrical safety and public space as housing questions rather than separate engineering packages.
Baseco’s coastal and artificial-island setting also creates environmental exposure. The designers considered climate response, vegetation, material reuse and sea-level-rise concerns alongside building form. The result is a framework intended to improve resilience without erasing the community’s existing spatial and cultural patterns.
How the designers developed the concept
The team says its initial research examined community history, population diversity, ecological systems, culture, commerce and economics. That broad scope matters: the proposal was not based only on counting rooms or arranging apartment footprints.
The designers also describe a site visit, workshops with community members and a forum with civic leaders. These activities were intended to identify local strengths and constraints before deciding how buildings and infrastructure should change. The stated approach was to preserve what worked in Baseco while improving basic systems and connecting architecture, landscape, climate response and material cycles.
For a construction audience, this engagement model signals an early sequencing decision: understand how residents use streets, courtyards, water points and work spaces before fixing a final plan. The award entry does not provide attendance figures, survey methods or a formal consent process, so the depth and representativeness of the engagement cannot be independently assessed from that source.
The proposal’s connected infrastructure systems
Household rainwater collection linked to shared treatment
The water concept starts at individual homes. Roof runoff would be captured through household rainwater harvesting, then connected to distribution and cleaning systems. A central bioswale would form part of the wider network, slowing and filtering stormwater while contributing to landscape and public-space performance.
This is a deliberately layered arrangement. Household capture can reduce the volume reaching streets during heavy rain, shared distribution can address uneven access between plots, and a bioswale can provide a visible landscape route for water. The source does not state tank sizes, treatment technology, water-quality targets, maintenance schedules or whether collected water would be potable. Those details would have to be engineered and approved before construction.
Biodigesting chambers and composting
The proposal includes biodigesting chambers and composting as a local organic-waste system. The designers describe the system as supporting energy and food production, linking waste handling to productive landscape rather than treating refuse as an external problem.
In practice, such a system would require decisions about feedstock separation, chamber capacity, gas handling, compost maturation, contamination control, worker safety and ownership. None of those technical parameters is supplied in the award entry. The proposal should therefore be understood as a circular-infrastructure direction, not a validated performance specification.
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Small-group temporary relocation during construction
Rather than displacing the entire community, the team proposes moving small groups temporarily within Baseco while work proceeds. The intention is to keep residents near jobs, schools, family networks and familiar services. Existing home footprints would be preserved where possible, reducing the social and logistical shock of a wholesale clearance.
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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →This approach makes phasing central to the design. A workable construction sequence would need safe temporary dwellings, clear move-in and move-out dates, compensation or rent arrangements, storage, utility continuity and a transparent method for deciding which homes move first. The award narrative establishes the principle of small-group relocation, but it does not provide a phasing schedule or a relocation-management plan.
Reorganized housing with a three-storey maximum
The designers combine reorganization with vertical construction, setting three stories as the proposal’s maximum. They cite soil conditions and the limited affordability of surveying as reasons for this restrained height. The choice is a compromise: additional floors can house more people without consuming more ground area, but heavier or taller structures would demand more detailed geotechnical information, structural design and construction cost.
Three stories is a proposal limit, not a universal rule for Baseco. Actual height, foundation type, fire egress, accessibility and structural system would depend on site investigations, building regulations and household budgets. The source does not report soil-bearing values, flood levels, structural calculations or a cost plan.
Connected courtyards and public pathways
The plan uses linked courtyards and public pathways to maintain porous blocks and shared space. This is more than an aesthetic gesture. Open routes can support ventilation, daylight, play, social contact, emergency access and movement between homes and livelihood areas.
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The designers’ stated goal is to retain a pattern in which public space remains available for collective use rather than being privatized by each building. The ASLA jury summarized that quality by saying, “It’s serious, respectful, and leaves the public space so the people can own it.” The quotation is attributed to the Awards Jury, not to a named individual juror.
Four ways to read the design decisions
The award entry presents one proposal, not a controlled comparison with other housing models. The following lenses help explain its choices without claiming that any option has been tested against another.
| Design question | Direction taken by the proposal | Decision still requiring evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Upgrade in place or relocate? | Move small groups temporarily within Baseco and preserve existing footprints where feasible. | Whether phasing can maintain safety, affordability, services and livelihood access for every household. |
| Household or shared water infrastructure? | Combine rainwater capture at homes with distribution, cleaning systems and a central bioswale. | How treatment, storage, ownership, water quality and maintenance would work at community scale. |
| More density or more ground-level openness? | Use housing up to three stories while retaining connected courtyards and pathways. | Whether the proposed density, structural costs and open-space network fit actual plots and regulations. |
| Centralized or locally managed services? | Use biodigestion and composting as local organic-waste systems linked to energy and food production. | Who would operate the facilities, pay for upkeep and manage health and environmental risks. |
What construction would have to resolve
Turning the concept into a buildable program would require a technical and institutional layer that the student submission does not supply. A responsible delivery team would need to work through at least the following sequence:
- Survey and map existing conditions. Establish legal plot boundaries, current footprints, access routes, drainage paths, utility lines, flood elevations and household occupancy. The proposal’s reference to limited surveying affordability makes this an especially important first step.
- Investigate ground and water conditions. Carry out geotechnical testing for foundations, settlement and lateral stability, and hydrological studies for rainfall, tides, flooding and outfalls. A manmade island cannot be assigned a foundation or drainage detail from a conceptual diagram alone.
- Set service standards. Define potable-water quality, non-potable uses, wastewater treatment, solid-waste separation, electrical protection, fire safety, accessibility and emergency access. Rainwater and biodigestion systems need operating rules, not only physical components.
- Design a resident-protection plan. Identify households affected by each phase, provide temporary accommodation inside the community where promised, protect belongings, maintain utility connections and publish grievance and appeal procedures.
- Test the three-storey housing prototypes. Compare foundation options, structural frames, fire egress, daylight, ventilation, thermal comfort, construction speed and lifecycle cost. The result should be a repeatable module that can adapt to irregular existing plots.
- Build and maintain the landscape network. Size bioswales, paths and courtyards for intense rain, daily circulation, cleaning access and long-term planting care. A drainage feature that cannot be desilted or safely crossed will not deliver its intended public benefit.
- Assign long-term management. Decide whether resident groups, a local authority, a cooperative or a contracted operator will run water treatment, biodigesters, composting, lighting and public-space maintenance. Capital funding without an operating model would leave the systems vulnerable.
These steps are implementation requirements inferred from the proposal’s systems and constraints; they are not evidence that the student project completed engineering validation or received permission to build.
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How to understand the rainwater-harvesting idea
“Rainwater harvesting system” is a useful descriptive term for the proposal’s household collection element, but the award entry does not name a brand, model, installation specification or product recommendation. A community-scale scheme would need coordinated gutters, first-flush management, covered storage, treatment, overflow routes, inspection points and a clear separation between potable and non-potable supply.
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That distinction matters for builders and readers comparing the concept with off-the-shelf equipment. A domestic tank may be one component of a larger network, but it cannot by itself solve Baseco’s distribution, sanitation, flooding or governance challenges. The proposal’s value lies in connecting household capture to shared systems and public landscape.
What the award proves—and what it does not
The ASLA page is strong evidence that the project was submitted by the named Harvard GSD designers and received a 2018 Student Award of Excellence in Residential Design. It also records the team’s stated research methods, design intentions and the jury’s comment.
It does not establish that homes, bioswales, biodigesters, composting facilities or pathways were built. It does not report construction costs, engineering certification, permits, resident adoption, water-quality results, flood performance, energy production, health outcomes or present-day population and infrastructure conditions. The reported 52-hectare area and population of over 60,000 should therefore retain their source qualification: both figures come from the 2018 project narrative, and the underlying measurement year is unspecified.
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Readers seeking current conditions should consult recent official Philippine or Manila sources separately. The award entry should be used to understand the proposal itself, not as a substitute for a current site assessment.
Why the proposal remains relevant to housing practice
The project’s lasting contribution is methodological. It treats housing as a network of rooms, streets, water flows, waste cycles, vegetation, livelihoods and shared spaces. That perspective is useful wherever a settlement must improve without losing the social infrastructure already embedded in it.
- Start with resident patterns. Mapping work, family ties and daily routes can prevent a technically efficient plan from becoming socially destructive.
- Phase instead of clear-and-rebuild. Small-group moves can reduce disruption, provided temporary housing and decision rules are real and funded.
- Use height selectively. A modest vertical limit can increase capacity while keeping structural and surveying demands within reach, but only verified site data can set the final limit.
- Make infrastructure visible and shared. Bioswales, courtyards and pathways can perform practical functions while strengthening public life.
- Design for operation, not only installation. Water treatment, biodigestion and composting succeed only when residents and institutions can maintain them safely.
- Protect public ownership. Keeping porous blocks and connected open space gives residents room to gather, move, work and adapt buildings over time.
Baseco is therefore best understood as an award-winning framework for community-led upgrading under difficult environmental and economic conditions. Its significance is not that it supplies a ready-made housing product, but that it links density, infrastructure and public space while insisting that residents remain part of the place being improved.
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