Hello.
Hello again, I’m Juaquin Pineda. Half Hungarian, Half Sausage
You can call me Wax! :)
I was born and raised in Batangas City, where everything is barako—except me. I’ve lived multiple lives: muralist, young diplomat, occasional reality TV star. In the immortal words of Nicole Cordovez: “What can’t he do?” Everything.
I took up Architecture at Benilde and somehow made it everyone’s problem that birds deserve urban planning. My thesis, Batangas Avian City, asked a very simple question: what if we take crap and turn it into something that’s not crap? Turns out analyzing crap is harder than it sounds, especially when you’re negotiating between humans, barn swallows, and electrical posts that don’t talk.
While working on my thesis, I volunteered in City Planning, where I learned three things: Infrastructure is political, Budgets are theoretical, and Sidewalks are on Ozempic.
I later joined the YSEALI Academic Fellowship on Natural Resources at California State University, Chico, where I confirmed that, yes, I will fly across the world just to passionately yap about Architecture and Urban Design.
I also co-founded Young Urbanists Philippines and now serve as Creatives and Culture Director—which is a formal way of saying I care deeply about fonts in billboards, urban chismis, and affordable kwek-kwek.
I move between Architecture, Art, Performance, and Visual Culture because I refuse to be architecturally domesticated. I believe design is not neutral. It either reinforces neglect or cultivates care.
Also, it should look good. (I mean… look at the material.)
Thank you for reading this overdesigned About Me page. I promise I am not this narcissistic—I just believe in good branding.