FA Magazine

Davaoeño Architects Shine at Frankfurt’s SULOG Exhibition

Frankfurt, Germany – Two architects from Davao City are bringing a slice of Mindanao’s creative energy to Europe, as Neil Bersabe and Laurence Angeles showcase their work in “SULOG: Filipino Architecture at the Cross-Currents,” an international exhibition at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM). The exhibition, which runs from September 20, 2025 to January 18, 2026, is part of the Philippines’ Guest of Honour cultural program at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2025. It was inaugurated on September 19 with opening events including a press preview and an evening reception, signaling the start of a landmark showcase of contemporary Filipino architecture on the world stage.

SULOG: Filipino Architecture at the Cross-Currents

Co-curated by Edson Cabalfin and Patrick Kasingsing alongside DAM director Peter Cachola Schmal, SULOG offers a sweeping overview of the Philippines’ dynamic architectural scene. The word “sulog” – a Cebuano term for “water currents” – captures the exhibition’s main idea of flow and exchange. As the curatorial note explains, Philippine architecture today can be “recast as the continuous flow of people, places, and processes” beyond the archipelago’s borders. In other words, design in the Philippines is not isolated by geography; it ebbs and surges with influences from diaspora communities, global ideas, local traditions, and cutting-edge technologies. SULOG highlights these cross-currents of culture and modernity, drawing inspiration from anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s concept of “global cultural flows” – the intersecting networks of people, goods, and ideas that shape our world.

The exhibition is organized into three interwoven themes that reflect those flows. “People as Network,” the first section, spotlights the human connections in design – from overseas Filipino architects to local communities – showing how the Filipino diaspora and collaborations enrich the country’s built environment. “Places as Flow,” the second theme, examines how locations and landscapes inform architecture, encompassing everything from tropical climate and geology to history and cultural context. Finally, “Process as Streams” delves into how buildings are brought to life, honoring the construction materials, techniques, and participatory or socio-political processes that drive Filipino projects. Together, these themes portray Philippine architecture as sulog – a convergence of currents rather than a static, monolithic tradition. “Contemporary Filipino Architecture is at the nexus of interconnected and intersecting forces,” the curators note, and SULOG aims to make those forces visible.

Davaoeño Talent in the Spotlight

Amid the 20+ architects and design studios featured in SULOG, Davao City’s own Neil John Bersabe and Laurence L. Angeles stand out as representatives of Mindanao’s burgeoning design scene. Their participation underscores the exhibition’s inclusive spirit – extending the narrative of Filipino architecture beyond Metro Manila to the country’s southern regions. For observers back home, seeing Davaoeños on a platform in Frankfurt is a point of pride. It also reflects a broader trend: designers from outside the capital breaking into the global conversation. In fact, Bersabe’s firm BER Sab Arc Design Studio was the first-ever from Davao to be shortlisted at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in 2022, a sign that talent from Mindanao is increasingly gaining international recognition.

Both architects bring distinct visions to SULOG. Neil Bersabe, 32, is known for pushing futuristic and technologically driven ideas. In 2017 he founded BER Sab Arc in Davao, and by 2021–2022 he was making waves with a boldly imaginative proposal for a Martian city. His concept, called “The Hexarion,” envisioned a self-sustaining colony on planet Mars – a modular growth system powered by AI and automation. This audacious design, essentially an urban plan for Mars, earned Bersabe international accolades, including a Special Mention in Monaco and a coveted spot on the WAF shortlist. While Mars is far from Mindanao, the project’s success illustrates how a young Filipino firm can operate at the cutting edge of global architectural innovation. In SULOG, Bersabe channels that same forward-looking energy. His exhibited work reflects themes of innovation and adaptive design – how new technology and bold imagination can address real-world challenges. By applying computation and machine learning to generate design schemes, for instance, he exemplifies the “Process as Streams” theme, showing how digital tools and transnational ideas flow into Philippine practice. From concept houses perched in Davao’s hills to speculative extraterrestrial habitats, Bersabe’s portfolio blurs boundaries between local and global, present and future.

Laurence Angeles, by contrast, grounds his architecture in intimate dialogue with place and culture. As principal of MLA at Home, a Davao-based design studio, Angeles has built a reputation for finely crafted residential and community projects. One of his recent works, the Furtive House in Davao, is a meditation on privacy and openness in tropical living. The house “opens dramatically to the rear, where a lush forest vista unfolds… turning its back on the public realm to embrace privacy, tranquility, and the sublime” (kanto.ph). This delicate balancing act – shielding the occupants from the street while embracing nature out back – reflects Angeles’s broader theme of harmonizing modern design with the natural environment. In another venture, Angeles turned to the needs of indigenous communities in Mindanao’s highlands. His “Microhomes for Ancestral Domains” project proposes sustainable, high-elevation housing tailored for local tribes, integrating native knowledge with contemporary techniques. That project became a finalist at WAF 2023 in the Completed Buildings – Housing category, notably “representing Davao” among the Philippine entrieswazzup.ph. By designing for and with an often marginalized community, Angeles embodies the “Places as Flow” principle – acknowledging how vernacular traditions and specific locales can drive architecture. His work also resonates with “People as Network,” since it emerged from engaging with community and heritage.

At the Frankfurt exhibition, Bersabe and Angeles each present models, images or installations of their work, offering European audiences a rare glimpse of architecture from Davao. Museum-goers can see how a Mindanaon perspective enriches the Filipino architectural tapestry – from Bersabe’s boundary-pushing digital explorations to Angeles’s contextually rooted designs. It’s a chance to appreciate the diversity within Filipino architecture: one moment a visitor might marvel at a high-tech concept born of Davao ingenuity, the next moment absorb the contemplative space of a Davao forest house.

Cross-Currents of Culture and Innovation

The presence of these Davaoeño architects in SULOG carries significant cultural weight. It signals that Filipino architecture is not only Manila-centric but a polyphonic story with voices from across the archipelago. Mindanao, often underrepresented in national showcases, is being heard loud and clear in Frankfurt’s museum halls. SULOG’s international platform amplifies this message. As part of the Frankfurt Book Fair’s Guest of Honour program – where the Philippines is highlighting its arts, literature, and heritage – the exhibition asserts that architecture is also a form of cultural expression worth celebrating on the global stage.

Visitors and critics have noted that SULOG is more than just a display of buildings; it’s a statement on how architecture intertwines with identity and change. By framing projects within themes of networks, flows, and processes, the curators encourage a reading of Filipino architecture as something fluid and evolving. The works of Bersabe and Angeles exemplify this evolution. One projects Filipino creativity into the future – even into outer space – while the other draws deeply from Philippine soil and soul. Both approaches, futurist and vernacular, are part of the same current moving Filipino architecture forward.

Though speaking from different angles, Bersabe and Angeles share a sense of optimism about design’s role in society. Their participation in SULOG hints at larger implications for the Philippines: the rise of a new generation of architects who are globally attuned yet locally rooted. In bringing their Davao-born ideas to Frankfurt, they reinforce the notion that innovation can emerge from any corner of the country and still resonate worldwide. “We have to design on as small a footprint as possible,” Bersabe reflected after developing his Mars concept – an insight that made him rethink resources on Earth and respect the environment (sunstar.com.ph). That kind of forward-thinking, coupled with Angeles’s sensitivity to culture and nature, illustrates the balance Filipino architects are striving for in the 21st century.

SULOG: Filipino Architecture at the Cross-Currents remains on view at DAM in Frankfurt until January 18, 2026 (dam-online.de). For the Filipino community and supporters, the exhibition is a proud moment – a chance to see homegrown talent like Bersabe and Angeles shine abroad, and to witness Philippine architecture ride the surging currents of global discourse. As the Philippines’ Guest of Honour stint in Frankfurt continues to unfold through various cultural events, SULOG stands out as a vibrant confluence of heritage and innovation, one that affirms architecture’s power to tell our stories to the world.

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