Taft Love: A Participatory Design Movement

Taft Love is a participatory design movement, inspiring urban livability for Taft Avenue, Manila. Taft Love fosters community stakeholder participation in the design of innovative solutions to social changes. We see ourselves as one of the stakeholders empowered to contribute and facilitate innovation.

THE HISTORY

“Taft Avenue could never have been Manila’s Fifth Avenue. In its day, its urban feel was as if it was Manila’s more intimately and modestly scaled version of the Champs Elysees in Paris. Taft was a Grand Boulevard in every sense of the word. It had the ingredients of a great urban space: monumentality heightened by pockets of intimacy, sweeping axial views, and most of all, a collection of architecture which could only be found in Manila and in no other city of the world. It was a landmark. Thankfully, the Burnham vision for Taft Avenue was allowed to exist for a while, at least, until our generation finally choked Taft with visual and environmental pollution. The avenue could have been among the most marvelous of urban spaces that we in Manila could have proudly shared with each other and the world. Taft Avenue is no more.”
– Augusto F. Villalobo

THE DAILY COMMUTE

Jeepneys and their distinct route signs course daily through Taft Avenue, serving residents and students alike. The Taft Love logo was developed in collaboration with “Pancy Letter”, an urban-type project by Carl Graham, to create a visual familiar to Taft’s daily inhabitants. “Sign art” is a dying art form with only a few practitioners left to conduct their business on Manila’s streets.

Enough Tough Love – It's Time for Taft Love

Taft Love as featured in The Design Thinking Issue of Blu Print Magazine Philippines

Design Thinking Workshops

The De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde has spearheaded the movement by inviting facilitators from OXD Experience Design (SG) to introduce the faculty to Design Thinking, allowing us to work effectively with the residents and LGU’s of our community.