MINDANAOAN architecture student Ejhey L. Durias, 23, made history after becoming the first Filipino to be named Global Designer of the Year in the architectural category for a design that preserves the Bajau community’s cultural identity while creating spaces that support sustainable livelihoods.
Durias received the top honor at the AYDA International Awards (formerly the Asia Young Designer Awards) held in Bangkok, Thailand. His winning entry, ‘Banuas Lawod’ (Aquaculture community Hub), was selected from more than 9,000 submissions from architecture and interior design students across 17 countries and regions.
The title combines the words banuwa, meaning ‘community,’ and lawod, which refers to the deeper part of the sea.
Speaking to the BusinessMirror during a victory celebration in Makati City on Monday, Durias said the concept was shaped by extensive research and conversations with members of the Sama-Bajau (Sea Nomads), locally known as the Badjao, in Davao, including those who had been displaced from their coastal communities and were later forced to beg in urban areas after losing their traditional livelihoods.
Those stories became the foundation of his proposal, which seeks to strengthen the community’s traditional livelihoods, encourage displaced Badjao families to reconnect with their communities, and create opportunities for long-term economic and cultural resilience.
‘I don’t belong to any indigenous group, but I’ve always loved visiting the sea with my family,’ Durias said.
He said that during those visits, he interacted with community members and came to admire their way of life, though he admitted he did not fully understand the hardships they faced until he conducted research for the project.
‘That realization has kind of inspired me to design with greater empathy,’ he noted.
During his final presentation, Durias told the story of Badol Kati Amilgani, a Sama-Bajau fisherman who now travels across cities in the Davao region with his son, performing with improvised drums to earn a living after losing his traditional source of income.
‘To take a Bajau home is to take their life,’ Durias told the judges. ‘For them, home was never land. Home was the rhythm of tides beneath their feet.’
He said many Sama-Bajau communities have been displaced not only by environmental pressures but also by armed conflict and social exclusion, forcing many families into poverty and leaving them disconnected from their traditional way of life.
To address these challenges, Banuas Lawod is anchored on five design principles: preserving marine cultural identity, climate-adaptive architecture, aquaculture-based livelihoods, sustainable construction materials and a closed-loop environmental system. Inspired by the layered structure of scallop shells, the design integrates resilient homes, shared community spaces, aquaculture facilities and ecological infrastructure into a single coastal settlement.
The housing draws from the traditional lepa houseboat and the Filipino bahay kubo, while incorporating flood-resilient construction, passive cooling, rainwater harvesting and gravity-fed water systems.
Complementing the residential clusters are an aquaculture hub, seafood processing and trading facilities, shellfish and seaweed cultivation areas, community gardens, bamboo nurseries and reef-inspired foundations that restore marine ecosystems while helping protect the settlement from storm surges.
‘Banuas Lawod is not just a housing intervention, but a regenerative coastal ecosystem,’ Durias said.
‘It is not just architecture by the sea. But an architecture by the sea, where aquaculture is not extractive but sustaining, where housing is dignified and identity is strengthened,’ he noted.
Asked whether he hopes to see the project realized, Durias said he would welcome the opportunity if given the chance.
‘But I hope that my project is more than just a place to meet. It’s something that strengthens their livelihood, preserves their culture, and gives the community a greater sense of security and belonging. So if all of this meets my project, I think that it has done its job,’ he said.
Chen Lee Siong, general manager of Nippon Paint (Coatings) Philippines Inc., said Durias’s victory demonstrates that Filipino design talent can compete on the global stage but must continue improving how local stories are communicated to international audiences.
‘For the last 10 years, we’ve fallen short-not because our ideas weren’t good, but because we weren’t always able to translate them into a language that resonates globally,’ Lee Siong told the BusinessMirror.
‘In Ejhey’s case, he was able to explain not only the solution but also the story behind the Sama-Bajau community. Once people understand the problem and connect with it emotionally, they can appreciate the value of the design,’ he said.
As part of his victory, Durias received a fully funded fellowship to the Design Discovery Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts, valued at up to $10,000.
The country’s strong showing was further highlighted by Patria Danielle Malijan, an interior design student from De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, who received the International Nippon Paint Colour Award for a proposal that reimagines playgrounds as spaces for Filipino traditional games and cultural learning.