2014 National Architectural Thesis Competition - Entry No. 13

The concept of governance is not new and has already been practiced since the inception of the human civilization. The term governance simply means the processes for making and implementing decisions. Good governance does not necessarily mean making the correct decisions, but about how one can make these
decisions through the best possible process.

Governance can be used in several contexts such as corporate governance, international governance, national governance and local governance. One of the easily identified agents of governance is the government. The government defines our society in the same manner that architecture shapes the society through the design of the built environment. As this research paper is not a public administration thesis but an architectural, the proponent will focus on the architectural strategies in attaining the city’s vision.

City government complexes and city governance are correlated in a way that the design and planning of complex relatively affects the goverment’s efficiency. The degree of conduciveness of the workplace is very important on the proficiency of work the users produce. If not designed to be responsive on the needs of its users, the quality of service of the city government will be deficient which will result to poor governance, thus failing to attain its purpose.

Being one of the highly urbanized cities located in south-eastern portion of Metro Manila,Taguig city is already among the top cities of the Philippines. The city aims to be a world class city. The city’s vision is

to become one of the premiere cities in Asia over the next quarter-century. It aims to focus on international businesses, offer superior residential environment and become a national recreational attraction. Withpolitical will and cooperation of the citizens, the proponent believes that the city’s vision

could be achieved.

Taguig City’s remarkable growth and continuing progress shows that their vision to become the Philippine’s Premier City in the year 2020 is not far from reality. Midst the advancement of the city, the need for the government to step forward arises  to serve the current needs of their people. This project aims to provide Taguigeños a design of a city government complex that will strengthen the bond between the  community and the government as well as enhance the efficiency of city government related activities and civic facilities which in turn would result to good governance.

The design is guided by this philosophy:  “Unity can be achieved by giving importance to the domain as a whole and the interdependence of its parts”. By design translation, this philosophy means that by uniting the government offices and connecting the lowest to highest sectors of the government to the community , unity could be attained. And in this case, the proponent’s concept is centralization,a strategy to unify community and government sectors such as the sports and recreation, education, health, recreation and law enforcement sectors by assembling into one place thus making the community and government interactive and cooperative with one another.

The concept implies the importance of the complex as a whole and the interdependence of its parts. Like the one-stop-shop concept, it offers user’s needs in one place, which in this case is thatmost of the government offices could be found in the complex. Along with centralization, the government complex will also incorporate Electronic Government (e-Government) System where in information and communications technology (ICT) and other web-based technologies is usedto enhance access of information and improve delivery, efficiency and effectiveness ofservice to the public. An ICT-enabled government allows the citizens to easily access information and services anytime and anywhere as well as creates transparency and accountability in government operations. E-Government also enables anyone visiting a city website to communicate and interact with city employees via the Internet with graphical user interfaces (GUI), instant-messaging (IM), audio/video presentations, and in any way more sophisticated than a simple email letter to the address providedat the site” and “the use of technology to enhance the access to and delivery of government services to benefit citizens, business partners and employees”.

The Taguig City Hall had gone through series of facelifts for the improvement of their service and even had several revisions in order to attain the needs of the users. But as the proponent researched and observed, the government of Taguig can still improve through the use of the strategies mentioned above. Also by the results of the survey conducted which showed 86% of the sample are computer literate, centralization of the government through the use of e-government system is possible to be realized. Other possible solution includes the allocation of more space for other activities such as areas for sports, wellness, education, socialization, recreation and environmental awareness, rescue and evacuation center, and center for development (for livelihood programs), thus making the complex a holistic central for community activities.

 

Posted in: Thesis 2014