Fashion Design Graduate Crowned the Winner of Sony Channel’s The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition

Wazzup Pilipinas!


Aleksandra Flasz out-designed her competitors to walk away with the grand prize of $100,000.


Without any professional background in interior design, Aleksandra Flasz, a Polish fashion design graduate and model was crowned the winner of Sony Channel’s first original production, The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition.

In a grueling 40-hour design challenge, Aleksandra faced off with Malaysian architect, Winston See, to fight for the Rising Star crown and the grand prize of $100,000. It was a dramatic and close race to the finish, but ultimately Aleksandra won the winning vote against Winston, leaving him wondering where he went wrong.

“The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition was created to inspire young designers and Sony Channel’s viewers to enhance their living spaces using tips from the experts.

The series featured some of the world’s top designers including Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Genevieve Gordor and Jamie Durie, who provided incredible insights and design advice in each episode, and all against a backdrop of gripping drama,” said Ms. Virginia Lim, Senior Vice President and Head of Content, Production and Marketing, Sony Pictures Television Networks, Asia.

“I would like to congratulate Aleksandra and Winston for making it to the finish and I hope that The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition will help further launch their careers on a global scale.”

The ultimate and deciding challenge for the two finalists was to design and furnish an apartment from scratch with only the help of two previous contestants, Ally and Andres.

At the finale design court, Aleksandra and Winston had to defend their designs in front of a judging panel of nine, with esteemed members including Andrea Savage, Jeremy Rowe from Dulux and Genie Tay from UMLand.

While there was praise for both finalists, there were some questionable design choices that displeased the judges. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen described Aleksandra’s bedroom as “Hugh Hefner, done atrociously.” To Winston, he said that the floor design looked like it had “been hit by an earthquake.”

Despite the criticism, the judges commented that both of them had shown vast improvement from their first challenge, and applauded them for their effort and hard work. In a tense reveal, Aleksandra won the 5-4 vote against Winston to take the title of The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition.

The intense 10-episode journey drew Sony Channel viewers into the cut-throat world of interior design where 12 up-and-coming designers competed to become the next style superstar.

The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition featured a formidable and glamorous judging panel, including world-renowned interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen as the head judge and Jamie Durie, the award-winning designer and author, who doubled as series host and mentor. Vivacious media personality and home product designer, Genevieve Gorder also joined the judging panel this season, injecting her clever wit and colorful commentary into the series.



For more information, visit SonyChannel.com/TheApartment or @TheApartmentTV on Facebook and Twitter.

Cover photo: L to R :The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition winner.Aleksandra Flasz and first runner up Winston See.

Recto/Verso: New Collages and Paintings by Gerardo Tan

Wazzup Pilipinas!

ARCHIVO 1984 GALLERY proudly presents RECTO/VERSO: New Collages And Paintings by Gerardo Tan, opening at 5 PM on Friday, June 2, 2017.

Gerardo Tan (born 1960) works across media from painting, collage and artist books to video and found objects in room-sized installations. His materials range from traditional ones like oil, acrylic to commonplace ones found like found photographs, dust, mirrors, and bundy clocks. Tan’s works deals with issues of representation and conceptual plays. He recreates images culled from the world of art and mass media using a variety of mediums. Gerardo Tan has had one solo exhibit with Archivo 1984 titled “Nothing Is More Real Than Nothing”.

In Recto/Verso: New Collages and Paintings, Gerardo Tan continues his ongoing series of constructed pictures consisting of images mined from the world of art and the commonplace. In doing so, Tan recontextualizes and empties them of their erstwhile significance while infusing them with new itinerant meanings. In these new series, Tan takes a look at the back of collages and paints them, revealing what is normally hidden. This objective treatment of the collage considers it as an object and anthropological specimen, and implying that the gallery is an archive of assembled relics.

ARCHIVO 1984 GALLERY is located at Level 2, Warehouse 1, #2135 Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City, Philippines.

STI to Build New Academic Centers in Sta. Mesa and San Jose del Monte

Wazzup Pilipinas!
 

The STI Education Services Group, Inc. (STI ESG) gears up for the influx of college freshmen in school year 2018-19 by continuing the network’s expansion plan of putting up new campuses in key locations nationwide.  

Adding to the roster of soon-to-rise prime hubs for academic excellence, STI broke ground for two Academic Centers in Sta. Mesa, Manila and San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan on May 23, 2017 in its goal to make real life education more accessible to the Filipino youth.

With an estimated value of P655M, the 10-storey STI Academic Center Sta. Mesa will stand on a 4,252-square-meter property along P. Sanchez Street, Sta. Mesa in Metro Manila and can accommodate 10,000 senior high school and college students.   

On the other hand, the nine-storey STI Academic Center San Jose del Monte can house 6,000 students and has an allotted budget of P518M. It will rise on a 4,178-square-meter lot area at the Altaraza Town Center, a 109-hectare master planned urban community of the Ayala Land, located in Quirino Highway, San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan.

“Our expansion strategy reflects our strong commitment to education. Just like what we have done in the past, we are building new academic centers to transfer existing schools to bigger and better facilities as part of our approach to holistic education,” said STI President and COO Peter K. Fernandez.