Recto awardee granted Columbia U fellowship

MANILA, Philippines - Now based in Australia, Ligaya Maceda, the first Philip Recto awardee to be trained abroad (in 2000), was recently awarded the highly esteemed 2012 Westfield Fellowship through the American Australian Association (AAA) for her post-graduate studies in architecture at the Columbia University in New York.

She is pursuing a degree in MS Advanced Architectural Design with emphasis on new housing typologies for future global cities, as well as sustaianable design and innovative building envelopes.

A record 20 fellowships were awarded by the AAA this year marking their 10th year of promoting intellectual alliances and groundbreaking research collaboration between Australia and the US. Showcasing Australia’s leadership in global sustainable development, the AAA supports outstanding scholars who are advancing their careers in such field as engineering, sustainability and healthcare.

The Philip Recto Design Excellence Award was instituted by the University of the Philippines College of Architecture in year 2000. The award gives recognition to best theses in both the architecture and landscape architecture programs, and also nominates the awardees for intensive oversea training programs at prestigious architectural firms in Singapore, Hong Kong and China. To date, there’s a total of 137 awardees, 31 of whom have been trained abroad.

This year’s awardees include Georgiana Diane Go, Celine Alyanna Santos, Maria Greta Belo, Niño Angeliko Ricardo, Carla Michelle Cruz and Carlos Raphael Torrijos for the architecture category; and Angelo Paulo Mogul, Maria Liselle Custodio and Gregory Cesar Balondo for the landscape architecture category.     

Of this batch, Carla Cruz and Carlos Torrijos have been selected to undergo a two-year training at Architects 61, one of the leading architectural firms in Singapore.