This Secluded New Hub in Makati is Home to a Growing Community of Creative Spaces

(SPOT.ph) Entering Comuna in Pablo Ocampo Sr. Street in Makati City is a lot like going into an adventure game where you unlock characters as you play along. From outside, the blocky building seems like the last place you'd look to for imagination to flourish, but make your way to the stairs on the right and the journey into discovering a burgeoning creative community begins. 

We spent a day getting to know Comuna's cast of characters and collection of spaces recently, and each one has a story to tell. The first character we met was Maya Katigbak-Colayco, Comuna’s developer, who told us the building was once a taxi terminal. The property is her mother's final real estate-slash-building purchase before the pandemic. The Katigbak matriarch wanted to create something different but whatever it was, during that stage, Maya and her siblings weren’t quite sure of yet.

Nevertheless, Maya called up the only architect she knew, Sylvester Wong of Hong Kong, and explained what her mother was looking to build. The brief was to give her idea of a space room to breathe, and immediately Wong understood the assignment and came up with the concept. He sketched out a structure that accommodated greenery, open spaces, and opportunities for tenants to meet and engage in meaningful conversation. To others, all that space Wong devoted to just nothing and greenery is a waste of possible income, but it is those pockets of space that foster human connection that Maya and her mother were really after.

To get the ball rolling, Maya called in designer friend Felipe Diaz de Miranda of Studio Arkipelago from Spain who looked to his home country's grid-like communes as inspiration, and from there, Comuna was born.

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Table of Contents

• Smile Lounge Sydney
• RiseSpace Art Gallery
• Good Intentions Books
• Manila Middle Ground
• Space63
• Ani Cafe
• Sense of Community
• The Future

Here are the spaces that make Comuna 

Smile Lounge Sydney

Our first stop was Ground Zero, or Smile Lounge Sydney on the second floor, a teeth whitening business from Arsenio “Butts” Solinap who also happens to be Maya's fitness trainer. Solinap was quick to clarify they don’t offer dental service here but rather what they have is an aesthetic clinic. He thinks Pinoys are still secretive when it comes to seeking teeth whitening options—the situation is different in Australia where the brand has its roots—but he’s hoping more people will open up to it and engage his services. An aesthetic clinic set-up may sound like the odd one out in Comuna's group of designers and chefs and writers, but one look at Smile Lounge Sydney's retro-futuristic space will convince the visitor that it fits right in.

RiseSpace Art Gallery

Siblings Erwin and Isabella Canlas make up the E and I of RISE in RiseSpace Art Gallery, located in Comuna's second level. Their parents, Rene and Susan, represent the R and S. It’s a family operation but RISE is more than anything an endeavor by artists for artists. The family helps both veteran and newbie artists to showcase their work to a viewing public, starting with curation all the way to handling potential buyers who walk into the gallery. Artists can also rent the space for extended periods, use the gallery to display their work and meet clients. The Canlases believe in helping artists find their identity and their market, uplifting others who may not have the means and connections usually needed to put up an art show.

Though the older Canlases couldn’t join us on the day of our visit, they were very much present in the gallery. Isabella pointed us to a wooden bench she and her dad made by hand at home. Erwin said her sister and dad have always liked creating with tactile materials, while his mother has taken on the role of reining in all the wild ideas the three artists in the family come up with. Erwin, also a photographer, calls Susan the “momager,” an important pillar holding RISE together and keeping things in check.

Good Intentions Books

Good Intentions Books is the brainchild of award-winning writers Sarge Lacuesta and Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta. It's the physical space of their publishing company as well as the showroom for the books they publish. It's a cozy, well-lit room with seating areas conducive to reading and conversations. They also launch books here, like their reprint of Happy Endings, the collection of short fiction by the late Luis Katigbak.

In case you don't catch either Sarge or Mookie on your visit, Mookie, the poet, has attached to each book a personal note in her own handwriting. “In case you want to look and don’t want anybody disturbing you!” she says. It's a dream for introverted book fiends, for sure, and just the kind of thoughtful gesture one hopes for in small independent spaces like this.

Outside, you’ll spot a wooden house-shaped bookshelf where you can pick up a book after you’ve left one of your own. 

Manila Middle Ground

Manila Middle Ground is bad news for wallets in all the best ways. This source of lovely anik-anik for keeping and giving to friends—totes, shirts, stickers, zines, among others—is an actual, ahem, middle ground for local artists and customers in search of something unique and distinctly Filipino to find each other. It's a creative retail space for art and design merch as well as a space for workshops, talks, and pop-up events. 

Lining one of its walls is a gigantic modular pegboard with all kinds of wares from local artists. Makers choose their spot and can arrange their display however they like. “Mas personal siya,” said artist and Manila Middle Ground co-founder Jeth Torres. This way, the art and merchandise are presented exactly how the artist intended.

Space63

Behind Space63 and Comuna's branding is famed illustrator and graphic designer Dan Matutina, organizer of Manila Illustration Fair 2023 and co-founder of Plus63 Design Studio. Maya refers to him as the “Maker,” and it seems he’s enabling other artists and creatives to make stuff within Comuna, too. Space63, stylized as __63, is in the corner room on Comuna's second floor, right by the staircase. It’s a space that transforms every month, where budding entrepreneurs and emerging brands can experiment and test their ideas. It also provides a space where creatives can exhibit and market their work to reach a wider audience.

This month’s offering, for example, is FUD & FRIENDS, a community gathering centered on food, crafts, and the environment. It had a pop-up restaurant as well as talks on food heritage, food systems, and community development. It was an initiative of Sofia Padilla who we met downstairs at Ani Cafe.

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Also read: First-Ever Manila Illustration Fair Attracts Young Audience

Ani Cafe

Ani Cafe finds itself on the building's ground floor area, surrounded by a small garden of fresh herbs, plants, and an assortment of chicken figurines. Co-owners Sofia Padilla and Chewi Crisologo are no strangers to making food and making friends while making food, but it is their first time running a brick-and-mortar store. Fiasfud, a once purely online service peddling poke bowls during the pandemic, eventually ran pop-ups as COVID-19 restrictions eased. While Ani Cafe is not Fiasfud, its beginnings stem from Sofia and Chewi's philosophies, which is serving honest, homey, delicious food and brews from a simple, comforting setting.

Sense of community

Maya has long transcended the title of Comuna's developer or building owner. The best way to label her role these days is “community manager," although Comuna is a place where formal job descriptions seem unnecessary. Here, everyone talks to everyone like longtime neighbors, and you’ll often find the tenants hanging out with each other on a slow day. Some even jokingly call Maya “Mayor,” while younger tenants refer to her as the “cool Tita” (though there are still those who call her by her lovely first name).

We would have loved to talk to the architectural designer JJ Acuña about his space JJ Acuña/Bespoke Studio, also on the second floor, but he was back in Hong Kong where he spends half of each month, designing and looking after the making of beautiful private and commercial spaces, images of which are displayed in postcards that lean on his studio walls at Comuna. 

We told the tenants and artists of Comuna that their hood seems meant to attract the cool crowd regardless of age. They laughed, but it's true: nothing is cooler than people welcoming you into their unique spaces and hearing them openly talk about what sets their hearts on fire. It's not a put-on brand of cool, or an intimidating one. Comuna is cool because its a space that lets its people be themselves.

The future

There’s still a lot more in store for the halls of Comuna, if the construction tarps and board-ups are anything to go by. One that we’re excited about is a distillery right across Ani Cafe where you can sit back and watch your beer being brewed right in front of you. It's called Palm Tree Abbey, and Joel Darwin, partner and brewer, also a design guy, unveiled his tanks for us during our visit. On cue, Maya arrived and handed us mugs of beer, as if she had been preparing them all day. We're not beer drinkers but this one's good. We'll let you make of that what you will.

While formal announcements are yet to be made, just know that more food options will be available at Comuna soon. We're talking breads and pastries, an ice cream stall, and the chefs behind the well-loved restaurant Cafe Aurora, Nicco Santos and Quenee Vilar, are opening another gem of a place. There's also a space on the third floor where popular food content-creating outfit Pepper.ph is setting up a studio. Indeed, it looks like there are more exciting adventures to look forward to from this community. And it looks like you'll never visit Comuna and have the same experience twice, unlike your fixed computer games with their set storylines and characters. Comuna will be ever-changing and—it might be early but we're already calling it—a gift that will keep on giving. 

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Comuna is at 238 Pablo Ocampo Sr. Ext, Makati, Metro Manila.