AT A TIME when systemic challenges like poor infrastructure planning and chronic urban flooding plague the Philippines, this year’s Anthology ASEAN Architecture Festival is turning the spotlight on care, culture, and collective futures.

This October, in the walled city of Intramuros, Anthology aims to explore how architecture shapes places and communities in the Philippines. It will also bring in voices from across Southeast Asia.

Under the theme “Shared Ground: Architecture of Care, Culture, and Collective Futures,” the festival will feature various programs, exhibitions, talks, and dialogues. Its founder and curator, WTA Architecture and Design Studio principal architect William Ti, Jr., is positive that the gathering will help Filipino architects work towards a better future for the industry and for the country.

“Buildings are always measured in terms of economics and structures. The social aspect of buildings — we have to be able to measure this, too,” Mr. Ti said in a press conference for the architecture festival in Makati on Sept. 8.

“Architecture does not stop at design and construction. It has to go beyond that, to the lifecycle of a building, how it affects the activities done in a building,” he added. “Your authorship extends there, to the everyday lives of people who live there. That’s something we wanted to push for with the theme.”

The Anthology Architecture and Design Festival has been running since 2016, attracting more than 2,000 guests in its pilot year. At the time, the festival was held inside the Plaza de Roma, just in front of the centuries old Manila Cathedral.

This year marks the first time its events will extend beyond Fort Santiago to encompass the entirety of Intramuros, which their official event partners, Intramuros Administration (IA) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), have helped develop over the years. Intramuros will basically serve as both as the festival’s setting as well as its proof of concept for what design can do.

Mr. Ti pointed to the new museums, the pedestrianization of streets, and the improved Pasig River Esplanade as examples that the place is perfect for a big event. “My hope really is that by doing the festival there, we keep shining a light on it,” he said, especially with public spaces and third spaces being an important topic.

For Rebecca Plaza Ti, co-organizer and WTA Architecture and Design Studio managing director, they hope to reach even more people than they have in the past.

“Anthology started 10 years ago with 2,000 people and it was very informal. Architects would hang out and celebrate architecture. It just grew bigger and bigger until we reached the height of 6,000 attendees just before the pandemic,” she said.

Beyond conversations among architects learning from each other, the festival opened up and diversified to include developers, government officials, and architecture students.

“That’s why we partnered with IA, the City of Manila, and NCCA, to strengthen the thrust of Anthology,” Ms. Plaza Ti explained. “It’s really about all of us coming together and learning from each other, with an emphasis on architecture.”

This year, the festival will challenge Filipino architects to ask how care, culture, and collective futures can shape the communities and physical spaces that we inhabit. It will have 128 speakers from across Southeast Asia, alongside 10 Filipino and ASEAN installations, regional dialogues, and public forums.

Mr. Ti added that discussions on the collective future will entail architecture’s use of technology amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

“We have to figure out new ways of how we will build and how our spaces, especially our public spaces, will turn out in this new digital age. That’s what the collective future is about,” he said.

The festival will run from Oct. 2 to 4 in Intramuros, Manila. For more information, visit anthologyfest.com. — Brontë H. Lacsamana