Bio:

Bianca Weeko Martin is a great writer and researcher with a Master of Architecture from the University of Waterloo. Her body of published work includes the sold-out Architectural Guide Manila (2024, DOM Publishers, Berlin) and contributions to international platforms such as the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) and Azure Magazine, where she is a contributor. In architectural practice, Bianca is a design consultant and strategist translating complex user requirements for major infrastructure projects.​

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How did you first learn about architecture and when did you decide that built environment profession was an area of interest for you?

 My cooler older cousin in Los Angeles was studying architecture before me and put me on when I was 16 and staying at his Little Tokyo loft. I didn't know it was the profession for me until I researched my ancestral house in the Philippines.

 

What do you do?

I write stories (editorial and literary) about architecture, consult within the experience design layer of large infrastructure projects like airports and hospitals with DEXD, and recently curated an exhibition with recent architecture grads.

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What excites you in the work you do?

Being able to "be" in the physical world with more knowledge, joy, and appreciation for how it has come to be.

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Who or what inspires you professionally?

I've had many mentors throughout my life and collaborators and inspiring co-conspirators but my largest source of inspiration remains my ancestry and my ancestral lands.

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What is your proudest professional accomplishment or achievement?

My first book, Architectural Guide Manila, which took me from Toronto to Berlin to Manila to Naples and opened up a world of international friendships!

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Featured Project Name: 

A Room of One's Home

 

Featured Project Location: 

Design at Riverside

 

Featured Project Completion Date: 

2026

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Role in Featured Project: 

Curator 

 

Featured Project Description:

In partnership with the University of Waterloo School of Architecture, this exhibition reframes the gallery as a site of international exchange. Each exhibitor invites visitors to a “room” shaped by their thesis work, with a view to Albania, The Philippines, Italy, Syria, Lebanon, the Caribbean Sea and the Indus River Basin. Just as Virginia Woolf posited that the writing woman needs a room of one’s own, the diasporic student needs a space to gaze from a distance and to root them back home.

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Photography Credit:

Harminder Phull Camille Rojas