Architecture in the post-emergency phase. Processes of conservation and transformation in the Philippine archipelago

The paper presents the research results of the International Agreement signed between the UP Diliman College of Architecture at the University of the Philippines and the Department of Architecture at the University of Naples Federico II. The scientific collaboration focuses on the post-disaster reconstruction in Bohol Island. The cultural value of the Bohol’s architectural heritage has a strategic role in recovery and regeneration actions: the abandonment amplifies and extends the effect of natural disasters, with a powerful influence on the collective memory. The scale of damage has profoundly altered the typological, morphological and pre-existing urban relationships. The necessity to integrate physical, economic and social values into a general urban regeneration strategy, highlights the importance to define a new system of rules to guide transformations into a coherent design. Project choices involve psychological, perceptual and behavioural aspects of users, in a process that requires local community involvement, with the aim to define new rules of the project for a renewed cultural heritage. The examined cases allowed to develop design processes and solutions to extend to the general religious heritage of Bohol and to other areas of the Philippines.