This body of work investigates how Filipino syncretic belief can serve as a method of epistemic disobedience in the decolonisation of domestic interiors in Metro Manila. It responds to the persistence of coloniality in Philippine design, where Western frameworks continue to shape standards of modernity while local cultural knowledge is often reduced to decorative representation (Cabalfin, 2020). Driven from Mignolo’s (2009) concept of epistemic disobedience, the study positions superstition, devotion, and inherited cultural practices as active sources of spatial knowledge.

The research combines the documentation of Filipino building superstitions, autoethnographic mapping of a family home, and the computational deconstruction of Baybayin and selected cultural motifs. These findings are synthesised through a speculative domestic design focused on shared spaces that ultimately investigates how syncretic belief dictates orientation, adjacency, spatial mediation, objects, materials, and form. Syncretism is treated beyond the superficial relationship inhabitants have with it through objects, as it becomes materialised within a space.

The study demonstrates that Filipino domestic identity emerges through relationships among inhabitants, objects, beliefs, and space. As the dialogue between these elements becomes embedded within the home, it reveals a broader relational understanding that resonates with the Filipino concept of kapwa, or shared self, as discussed by Pe-Pua and Protacio-Marcelino (2000). By translating intangible cultural knowledge into tangible spatial consequences, the project challenges inherited hierarchies of design authority and re-centres the agency of Filipino culture by positioning Filipino syncretic belief as a legitimate source of design language and identity for Filipino contemporary interior design.

Introduction:

Beyond the comforts that a Filipino home can provide, it is a mirror of identity, shaped by the rich colonial history, the inherited ideals that proliferate in modern post-colonial culture, and the grappling with ancient indigenous practices, all of which define what a Filipino should be. Metro Manila, the country’s capital region, is the heart of it all. A trading and economic power in the indigenous period, and the seat of government during both the prominent colonial periods of Spain and the United States, Metro Manila has been the melting pot of regional, post-colonial, and international cultures. It then leaves the capital region in a state of confusion about how to identify Filipino culture and lifestyle.

The Spanish and American colonisation transformed Filipino identity in different ways. Spain institutionalised Christianity; however, indigenous beliefs were not completely eradicated. Through several translations and adaptations, beliefs concerning protection, fortune, prosperity, and sacred presence became entangled with Christian devotion, creating a form of syncretism that remains relevant today (Rafael, 1993).  American rule introduced another cultural shift through “Benevolent Assimilation”, using education, hygiene, and planning as domestic reform to position the American lifestyle as a model of modernity (Anderson, 2006). These interventions affected not only architecture and interiors but also Filipinos’ understanding of refinement, aspiration, lifestyle, and cultural value.

Following post-war independence, architects sought to articulate a nationalist design identity. However, early efforts primarily translated vernacular forms (bahay kubo, capiz, rattan) into Western structural frameworks (Cabalfin, 2020). In contemporary Metro Manila, neoliberalization has exacerbated this tension. Filipino design becomes a superficial motif where high-end projects sought to have vernacular materials and even tropical design layouts while still using the foundation of western design styles like brutalism, international style, etc. making Philippine motif seem to be part of marketability for “authenticity” (Cabalfin, 2018) These precedents reveal an ongoing epistemic gap, Philippine interior design and architecture does not lack engagement with culture, but local knowledge is consistently treated as a decorative layer over western design styles rather than becoming the primary source for design knowledge.

This thesis approaches that tension through Aníbal Quijano’s (2000) concept of the coloniality of power and Walter Mignolo’s (2009) epistemic disobedience. Quijano identifies coloniality as a system that continues beyond formal colonial rule by maintaining hierarchies of knowledge and cultural authority. In the conversation on coloniality and the subsequent argument between postcoloniality and decolonisation stemming from Quijano’s concept, Mignolo then challenges the assumption that the Western framework provides the universal standard by which other forms of knowledge must be judged. In the case of the Philippine interior design, epistemic disobedience questions the inherited preference for Western design frameworks while also looking into cultural knowledge that has been marginalised throughout colonisation.

The research does not attempt to reconstruct an untouched precolonial Philippines. Centuries of colonisation permanently transformed Filipino religion, language, material culture, and domestic life, making the Filipino culture inseparable from its colonial past. The study, however, turns to syncretic belief because it records survival through change. Some indigenous beliefs persisted through its entanglement with Catholicism and later continued within American modernity and contemporary globalisation. Syncretism is thus treated not as cultural contamination, but as evidence of adaptation and continuity (Stewart and Shaw, 1994).

Within everyday domesticity, these beliefs actively structure space. Superstitions dictate thresholds, stair runs, and openings to regulate fortune, while household altars and devotional objects intersect with family heirlooms to establish relational networks of protection and memory. Whether consciously or subconsciously observed, these practices alter layouts that were otherwise designed for pure efficiency.

The thesis argues that Filipino syncretic belief can operate as a method of epistemic disobedience by positioning superstition, ritual, and Indigenous-derived spatial logics as active design parameters. Rather than applying identity to the surface of a building, this research allows syncretic relationships to generate spatial adjacencies, orientation, thresholds, and form, testing how cultural knowledge can regain spatial agency in the contemporary Filipino home.