The homegrown festival will bring together architects, designers, cultural practitioners, government leaders, students and the public under the theme, “Shared Ground: Architecture of Care, Culture and Collective Futures,” which calls for architecture to be appreciated beyond its economic and structural value and for the social impact it creates.

“For Anthology, we want to produce a declaration … to make social impact measurable,” said Ar. William Ti Jr., festival curator and founder, during a media briefing held earlier this week.

Ti, also the principal architect of WTA Architecture and Design Studio, said Anthology wanted to measure social value and eventually make such measurement an industry norm.

Architecture is shared

The festival is anchored on a simple proposition: “Buildings only become architecture once they are shared.” Across three days, speakers will explore the statement through the lenses of care, culture and collective futures.

Coinciding with the Philippines’ hosting of ASEAN 2026, Anthology will feature practitioners from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia alongside Filipino and other Asian talents. Filipino practitioners will engage with their regional counterparts through Anthology Talks, Shelter Dialogues, Ground Works and Living Anthology.

According to Ti, the regional focus captured shared conditions, ideas and possibilities.

“We cannot keep looking to the West for answers,” added Rebecca Plaza-Ti, WTA managing director and one of the festival’s keynote speakers, during the media briefing’s panel discussion, “Shared Ground Conversation.”

The panel featured Benjee Mendoza of BAAD Studio, Bong Recio of RCHITECTS Inc., AJ Javier of Javier Design Studio Manila and Paulo Alcazaren of PGAA Creative Design, all among the 128 festival speakers.

Not spectacles nor heroics

Plaza-Ti and the others touched on the importance of care or “malasakit,” research, local expertise and respect for cultures without reducing them to stereotypes. Those ideas reinforced Anthology’s call to see architecture not as spectacle or heroics, but as a practice that positively affects people and communities.

Since 2016, Anthology has drawn more than 20,000 participants. Ti said the festival began with a simple observation: “Only architects talk about architecture,” even though it affects everyone.

“Before you can want good architecture, you have to understand what actually makes good architecture,” he said.

For Anthology, that understanding begins by making architecture part of a wider public conversation, and by asking not only what buildings produce, but what they give back to the people and communities that share them.

WTA is organizing the festival with the City of Manila, Intramuros Administration and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

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