The Philippines faces the highest disaster risk in the world, making it crucial for the country to strengthen its ability to respond to and recover from climate-related impacts. This effort is a priority for the entire nation and requires everyone's participation.

“Any program that aims to build climate resilience requires strong partnerships and working together across all sectors,” said World-Wide Fund for Nature Philippines (WWF-PH) Executive Director, Katherine Custodio at the breakout session of the 7th Annual Conference of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities – Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Conference and Student Symposium 2024 (APRU-SCL 2024).

“There is definite opportunity for platforms or networks to come together and bring to life our national policies and our commitments, but for these to succeed, there needs to be sincere effort and openness to work across different sectors and disciplines,” said Custodio. The session on creating connections and partnerships was hosted by Jonas Marie Dumdum, Senior Consultant and Sustainability Service Lead of Nomura Research Institute (NRI) Manila Branch.

Are you one of those people who wonder how SM was able to address the problem in Marikina? Read  more and find out. 

Floods and rising water levels brought about by typhoons are perennial problems in Marikina city, which is considered as one of the low-lying areas of Metro Manila. During typhoons, Marikina River’s water can rise up to 23 meters compared to its normal average level of 13 meters. While this causes the communities surrounding the Marikina Watershed to be underwater, SM Marikina stands tall, serving as a safe haven to its neighboring communities.

The secret? It is sitting on 246 stilts.

SM City Marikina is uniquely designed. The 6-hectare mall property which is located within the Marikina River Watershed is an elevated mall built on top of 246 stilts.

“A critical part of building climate resilient structures is to understand weather patterns and how it affects the environment where your city or building will be,” explained Architect Fides Garcia-Hsu, Vice President of SM Engineering Design and Development (SM EDD). “During the design phase of SM City Marikina, we considered the long-term flood cycles of the Marikina Watershed, which was identified to be a high-risk area by the World Bank in 1977.”

Building on stilts traces back to ancient civilization from different parts of the world. The answer lies in its powerful functionality. Elevated construction had been the way earliest people groups would protect themselves from flooding, moisture and surface organisms. It also gives them provision for open space storage or cultural activities. Lastly, it reduces cost in modifying natural terrain. While building on stilts have been adopted by modern architects through the years, people had lost interest in it during the rise of urbanization.

SM revisited the functionality of ‘building on stilts’ and reinvented the concept as a climate resilient feature. This design was complemented with other disaster preparedness considerations to help reduce the risk of damages during extreme flooding. As such, SM City Marikina was built an additional 20 meters farther than the suggested 90-meter distance from the Marikina River centerline. Moreover, the ground floor parking was purposely laid out as an open-design, without walls to allow water to flow, while the second floor was elevated at 20.5 meters, which is higher than the maximum recorded flood levels.