Eu Juin Toh Architecture Portfolio

Eu Juin Toh

2021

-2024 portfolio

National

University of Singapore Department of Architecture

M.Arch_B.A. Arch

Introductory Video

Strengthening the State and People in APD

I. Challenging the Implications of Reverse Brain Drain in Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP)

Since 2017, the number of returnees to China and the total number of international students has constantly been increasing. Unique to SIP, more than 70% of the residents are not from Suzhou itself. Based on several research papers and interviews, children of international ICs find SIP to be a ‘foreign’ place, even though they have spent ‘most of their lives’ there. As SIP is built out of foreign investment and involvement, it thus incubates a (de) territorialised sense of belonging that is removed from everyday life.

The reverse brain drain has called us to view SIP as a global township to cater the needs of these 3 main groups: overseas returnees, international intellectual capital (ICs), and the local Chinese community. To promote a healthy and synergetic co-existence of these 3 main stakeholders, we evaluate the effectiveness of existing spatial typologies within SIP in responding to such changes.

II. A New Planning System -- by the People, for the People

APD (Adminitsrative District) is a distinct area where governmental institutions, public services, state-owned and privately owned enterprises meet. It seeks to be a hub for effective governance and administrative node within a city. In SIP (Suzhou Industrial Park), it is no different. Planned and conceived in the early 2000s, APD was designed in a symmetrical form with strong axes. Strong western influences of linearity and symbolic gestures hoped to establish a strong perceive governing power. Large boulevards and building plots disregarded the the human scale and were largely influenced by the booming autmobile transport network.

Several years ago, the Chinese government has also begun poured money into the construction of enormous government buildings in an effort to entice investors and fuel the economy. This resulted in many lavish government buildings to crop up from Inner Mongolia to Shanghai. These structures are vast, symmetrical, and symbollic of the power that the state’s party yield in governance. Hence, this calls to challenge the centrality of using the private sector to drive the cities growth.

The “BuildMySUZHOU” App aims to not only create a new platform for feedback to be done, but really create a new ecosystem of planning. Leveraging on big data and Industry 4.0, SIPAC can be certain that data mining can be accomplished to study social behaviors of the citizens. This is not for the government to make autonomous decisions, but rather, be more informed and even postulate future trends to be prepared for the demand and supply of urban economics.

The 3 main cycles established in this new framework is namely - Participatory Planning, Data Abstraction, and Adaptation. These are in a constant feedback loop to ensure that the planning process is constantly up to date. The idea of transparency in data and information is similar to that of what the state is concerned about, as evident from the recent crackdown on tech firms in China.

Lastly, this project also postulates 3 different scenario outcomes based on possible citizenry attitudes towards governance. This aims to allow people from different backgrounds to resonate with the planning processes and implications of planning decisions, as well as to explore new ways of living, working, and playing.

Mapping spaces of confluence of overseas returnees, ICs and local community

Existing Administrative Structure of SIP

3

Scenario Outcomes of Different Citizenry Attitudes

Solar Atlas Cartographies

Towards a Communal Solar Landscape

POWER TO THE PEOPLE Energy and Territory in the Rheinland

I. Is Photovoltaics (PV) Really Renewable?

Solar power for electrical energy has been promoted by the state since the 1980 Energiewende in Germany. But the complexity of stakeholders involved in the construction of solar energy production sites as well as the existing land use legislations complicate the quick expansion. Moving between scales, we aim to identify different forms of solar energy production, their effectiveness and its repercussions (both tangible and intangible), among them solar photovoltaics, a hybrid technology which might provide alternatives scenarios for the future of German territories.

II. Case Study: Solar Energy Production in the Rheinische Revier

Increasingly frequent heat waves in Central Europe have caused the annual irradiation in Germany to increase drastically overtime. This makes it the more favourable for the use of Agrivoltaics as they could not only produce more electrical energy through greater amounts of solar energy absorbed, but also improve crop cultivation by reducing evaporation and protection against intense solar radiation.

While the technical and economic feasibility of Agri-Voltaics has been proven in many countries, the current regulatory framework is probably the greatest hurdle to exploiting its potential. In Germany, for example, the dual use of land for photovoltaics and agriculture is currently not defined in law and the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) does not provide adequate compensation. Is it that regulations should not be so precise at ‘controlling’ machines, but rather consider the typological value as a whole?

III. Towards a Communal Solar Landscape

Over the past decades, Germany has seen great potential in solar energy to manage the phase-out of nuclear energy by the end of 2022. Apart from the reduced dependence on international oil and gas imports, photovoltaics has been a tool that is economically as well as politically lucrative. However, this has led to an increase in large-scale ground mounted solar farms owned by big players. This has challenged the initial plans for decentralised modes of energy production, through small-scaled roof photovoltaic ownership. In the context of a highly industrialised agricultural landscape like Titz, should there be a direct-proportional relationship between energy transition and adoption of hybrid-photovoltaic systems such as Agrivoltaic? The imminence of the situation also asks for a new model of equitable solar development.

A SOLAR PARADOX

calling for a new solar typology

If solar can only contribute 10% of Singapore’s electricity demand by 2050 in the best-case scenario, why should we put so much effort into optimising the sector?

It bears remembering that other forms of renewable energy, such as wind, tidal and hydro, are not an option in Singapore. In this context, extracting every ounce of potential from solar becomes a more significant feature of Singapore’s net zero goal. (Reed Smith)

Despite so, the government has made clear that solar PV will not be undertaken at the expense of green spaces. Under Sustainable Singapore Blueprint, skyrise greenery goal would compete with the deployment of rooftop solar PV. (SERIS, 2020)

The very nature of land reclamation in Singapore has ironically not benifited the transition to solar development, it rather damage much of the marine biodiversity underneath it. However, coastal urbanization impacts on Singapore’s Marina Biodiversity shows the resilience and adaptability of stony corals.

Perhaps, the Photosynthetic Traits of Stylophora Pistillata (SP) could provide an alternative way to manage this challenge of limited space. Ultimately, this research seeks to debunk the false dichotomy that harnessing solar energy is not a tradeoff of usable space, but rather can spark different uses of spaces in various daylighting conditions.

Turning a Spatial Challenge Phenomenon into a Spatial Generating Potential

Right to Left

MACRO: distribution of corallite unit across branches

MESO: clusters of corallite with varying opening sizes

MICRO: mechanism of individual corallite unit

Studying the mechanism of SP

Translation of behavioural data into spatal notation

Sections

Tension on membrane members expressed in contours

1:100 Physical Model of the Energy Plant

1:20 Study Model of Mechanism

ROTARY CLIMATIC FACADE

A Dynamic Performative Design for Daylighting Optimisation year2sem2

How does one retrofit a new element unto an antiquated architype, to revitalize and give new meaning into space?

A bottom-up design exploration aims to examine fundamental forms with its relations to climatic responsiveness and thorough specular reflection. Filtering of relevant parameters and addressing the interior and external conflicts, including that of glare, optimal illumination and thermal comfort, ensued a careful balance between a piousness to nature and the needs of man. A resolved form was later mechanized to free the static frames. The gyroscopic mobility addresses the harsh climatic conditions posed by the equatorial Singapore throughout the day. By synchronizing these angles with that of solar patterns, a specific redirection is calculated for a targeted use -- private/ public space.

With an extensive set of parameters and a catalogue of types, a top-down project planning is established onto the existing abandoned carpark. The intangible form is expressed, shifting the focus of the tangible façade to the atmospheric lighting quality. The careful manipulation of light drives a dynamic use of spaces, with specific functions generating out of the scale and operations of the ROTARY CLIMATIC FACADE.

What is a door, a window, a lift core, a floor plate?

These questions are re-evaluated as the ROTARY CLIMATIC FACADE, a single entity could replace all these traditional components and synergistically achieve the building’s purpose of a programmatic office by day and a beacon of light and hope by night.

[group project with Melinda Kumala]

Section: Activation of Night Activities with Specular Reflection

Construction Details of Mechanisms

Exploded Axonometric

Unrolled Elevation

MICROCOSMIC FRAGMENTATION

year2sem1

The “societal shift from technocratic, utopian planning to increasingly privatized economic development” as mentioned by William O. Gardner has transformed a managed society as that of Tokyo Bay to control space. Likewise, Singapore is also at its crossroads when defining domestic living.

Architecture has ‘always served colonisation’ – Pier Vittorio Aureli. Hence, it also has the potential to decolonise. Microcosmic Fragmentation seeks to leverage on the spatial potentials of collaborative spaces generated as required by the users (i.e. workshops/ communal kitchen) in each designated cluster, so as to promote collaboration intra and inter-clusters. More importantly act as a firm statement to resist the limitations of space making in a highly regulated Singapore.

In light of ‘sharing’ between units by means of programmatic/ self-demarcation in collective housing, a series of explicit deconstruction and reconstruction needs to be done on both a micro and macro scale simultaneously – tectonically & typologically. First stripping the role of a house to its pure user function. Compartmentalising essential functions into discrete units of individual function-specific space and collaborative units. Upon reconstruction, ‘in-between’ void spaces are constantly exploited for an incremental spectrum of public spaces, to form a self-sufficient organism (aggregate).

A subsequent discretisation of units, through prefabrication, aims to “include inhabitants to participate in co-production” -- Mollie Claypool. Such inclusive and participatory model takes caution to maintain the integrity of the ‘home’ (Singapore’s ‘nuclear family’), whilst liberating the agency of the architect Microcosmic Fragmentation aims to resolve the dichotomy of unity and diversity, ensued through means of inhabitable, lived and even outlived voids.

THE SOUND MACHINE

year1sem2

Critical analysis of Upper Weld Road’s sounds generated an internal and external understanding of spaces. The intangible quality of sound is also made visual so as to tie in with spaces. The routine nature of activities in a postulated typology of a cafe and household and the evident site’s sounds were superimposed to create a narrative that acts as a bridge between the building and site.

The design concept- “Sound Machine” was conceived at an early stage of the project. However, forms were continuously experimented and altered to effectively achieve the goals. Material exploration as well as construction techniques tested and aided with the discovery of new languages of expressing the design intent.

Exploitation of formal languages guided the identification of unique genius loci of the site rather than pragmatic site response. Echos within the respective rooms are appropriated in the plans, while amplification of the site’s external sound is quantitatively interpreted in the sections. The planar relationship is synonymous to that of the surrounding but is playfully contoured to respond to sound.