Just literally a stone’s throw from where I reside on Ayala Avenue stands The Estate Makati, and so I’ve watched the property develop from when it was a deep hole in the ground. In fact, even back to when it was the only empty lot on Apartment Ridge Road that’s parallel to Ayala Avenue, to today, as the Norman Foster + Partners-designed building that is steadily reaching its’ top-off stage, and structural completion – set to happen within the year.
If one is traveling on EDSA and turns into Ayala Avenue, the right side is that Ayala Avenue-Apartment Ridge Road stretch that’s always been regarded as the ‘most prime of prime’ Makati real estate for residential and non-commercial structures, from the EDSA corner to Makati Avenue. There are only seven properties that exist on this row, and The Estate Makati is destined to be the eighth and last! Apartment Ridge Road does curve to extend along Makati Avenue, but that’s not Ayala Avenue anymore.
As such, The Estate Makati, the very first project here in the Philippines of the British design firm founded by the esteemed Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, stands to be one of our architectural landmarks of the future, a heritage site in the making. A flagship project of SM Residences and Federal Land, one need only look up Foster + Partners on any search engine, and then be astounded by the number of iconic global structures that are modernist and exemplify high-tech architecture, and are linked to the firm.