th e start e rs
Architecture
Without Ego
A budding Manila-based
architectural practice seeks to
create places not just spaces
I nterv ie w Kanto Journal
What’s the story behind the name?
Adrian Tumang, partner: We wanted a name
that sticks. (If this is your first question, I think we just
succeeded!) Naming the firm after the partners is lazy
and unimaginative. The name itself should capture our
philosophy as architects.
As a starting point, we asked ourselves what kind
of architecture we want to create, and it's “architecture
with empathy”. And we just happened to like the
accidental acronym it formed—AWE. Without the
acronym, it's hardly memorable. We played with other
words to replace 'empathy', but nothing else would fit.
Then one night at a coffee shop, we thought, “Hey, [all
this time] we’ve been asking what architectur