It's a Jungle Out There - Narrating Urban Design for Jurong East

STUDIO TTK

IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE

JURONG EAST x CREATIVE ECONOMY

to jurong east, with love

Book 1 of 2 First edition submitted on 17 November 2016

by Studio TTK Š Second Edition - December 2016 AR4101 Design 07 | Mobility + Urbanism Undergraduate Year 4, AY16/17 Department of Architecture School of Design and Environment National University of Singapore Studio Leader: Associate Professor (A/P) Tan Teck Kiam Reviewers: Adjunct A/P Wong Chong Thai Bobby, Professor in Practice Richard Ho Guest Critics: Mok Wei Wei, Tan Szue Hann Editors: Lin Derong, Ng Chloe, Tu Wen Studio TTK: Heng Bang Hao, Paul Holmes, Kim Heewan, Lin Derong, Lee Mei Ying Shirley, Ng Chloe, Maria Tsvetkova, Tu Wen, Umar Yusof

IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE JURONG EAST x CREATIVE ECONOMY | STUDIO TTK

NOMADIC ZEITGEIST

A primary measure in designing this studio programme is whether the outcome extends the discourse of urban design beyond the generally accepted urban design parameters.

The studio program begins by questioning the role of urban design in a society; how to position urban design to benefit users in contemporary conditions inundated by technological and information advancement. It sidestepped conventional 3 dimensional urban design approaches that laid too much emphasis on plot ratio and specific land use.

The studio focused on the relationship between human + environment + context; and embarked urban design from users’ perspective. The 9 narratives developed by students have been instrumental in the defining the urban design outcome. Each narrative mapped and reflected on conditions of human living in Singapore. The narratives expressed meaning of well-being; rediscovering creative self and revealing subliminal behavioural compass. Water and ‘The Tropics’ are two elements which students introduced to weave the tapestry of human commons and the environment. Students saw intrinsic value of residual parcels of land laid bare by transportation infrastructure. / Programme With limited land area and a single mindedness to chart Singapore’s economy forward and stay relevant in the coming decades, the government through Jurong Town Corporation embarked an ambitious programme to use Jurong as a test bed in transforming this city state into an innovative smart nation. One aspect of the blue print calls for an urban planning policy that consolidates new and extant industrial facilities through intensification of land use on land, underground, above ground and automation.

Is such a planning policy relevant in the face of structural economic issues currently confronting Singapore? Information technology, robotics and automation resulted in the decline of conventional manufacturing industry in developed economies. Singapore is no exception. A new mode of thinking on knowledge creation and production spaces is necessary to cope with this structural shift. In Singapore, the industry has moved from mass production in early 1960s to value-added production the following decades. Going forward, new industries in Singapore will have to position themselves as part of the global chain of cutting edge production of innovative knowledge hubs. Living, working environments must reflect the shift.

A blueprint for future Jurong must anticipate a creative, vibrant live work play ethos to enable its economy to thrive within a knowledge creation environment. Urban design must necessitate flexible and adaptable spaces for connectivity, communication and innovation. Such spaces are amorphous and multi-layered; providing possibilities in which new practices of a creative economy unfold. This is where the studio locates its agenda.

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At Jurong, where Singapore’s industrialisation programme began, all that existed before is practically gone. The narratives of Jurong’s transformation are embedded in policy documents and the extant (buildings, infrastructure; whatever is left of greenery and a heavily modified coastline). Its physical form has undergone destruction, reconstruction, expansion (coastline) and renewal to the beats of Singapore’s economic aspiration. Its metamorphosis destroys much of its memories as it invents new economic, social and spatial narratives.

The programme aims to express plausible urban design propositions, probe inventive urban design typologies through socio-economic spatial relations between man, knowledge, technology and nature. / A/P Tan Teck Kiam Studio Leader 14 November 2016

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SYNOPSIS

In the advent of technological sophistication1, Singapore’s current service-based economy endeavours to morph into a new “creative-economy” which entails a continuum of knowledge production, sharing environment and the bespoke. As our government charts our society towards new economies2, ambitious programmes have been embarked to anticipate emerging ethos to enable a thriving economy, specifically in Jurong-East.

However, these efforts met an impasse. Challenged by current material infrastructure and building practices – isolated monolithic blocks, institutionalised working environments, air-conditioned shopping boxes – existing spaces are controlled within highly regimented clusters. These internalised environments in tropical Singapore lead to an outdoor space devoid of conviviality and walkability. Such outdated modes of physical planning is evidently insufficient to cater to the new creative economy. Furthermore, as our society face an unprecedented mobility of the nomadic creative class, our physical planning would then require an entire new mode of thinking about knowledge and spatial production, to cope with the shift.

Set amidst this backdrop, this project searches for new urban forms which respond to the changing economy. It would embody physical typologies which enables exchange of knowledge between people and our human desires to use spaces our own way.

Juxtaposing government’s vision of Jurong-East against individual desires and struggles, this urban design methodology uses narratives as a central thrust to construe the existing and becoming 3. It is a bottom-up approach to negotiate individual perceptions and meanings associated with this larger national ambition. Unpacking the conditions for a “creative” economy, the methodology investigates the “everyday banalities” in knowledge and spatial production. It delves into intimate scale activities and the outdoor leftover spaces to create a space and place for every individual in the city.

1. This project would include information analytics, robotics, and internet infrastructure.

2. Kong, Lily. Ambitions of a global city: Arts, culture and creative economy in ‘post-crisis’ Singapore. International Journal of Cultural Policy 18 (3): 279-94.

3. The existing is loosely referred to site context, while becoming anticipates the potential development.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time.

New York: Harper: 1962. Similarly this is also shared by Henri Lefebvre and Gilles Deleuze “to see the world as a ’becoming’”.

4. Much like a dérive which Guy Debord described as “a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances.

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Stretching 2km from the junction of Jurong-East Central to Sungei Pandan, an urbanroute emerges from these narratives4 which frames the multiplicity of programmes developed. Its architectural concept taps into the leftover spaces beneath elevated train tracks to form a vertebrate organisation. A set of skeletal frames would then creep inbetween the train columns to form a physical infrastructure around them. This results in three spatial divisions. The leftover spaces beneath tracks, re-established as pedestrian connectors with lofty “ceilings” from the tracks. Skeletal frames in the second division forms an outdoor follie-like condition for potential programmes. Thirdly, furthest from the tracks, the frames morph into a building envelope with a typical GFA of 20m x 30m.

Straddling between the inside and outside, programmes could spill-out into external streets.

This single set of modules are designed as new typologies of temporary dwellings, workspaces and urban sanctuaries. As they proliferate across the 2km stretch to form a bare infrastructural system and an urban connection, the design incorporates tropical sensitivity as well. Running beneath the tracks, is an artificial landscaped waterway crafted as a meaningful strategy to tie the multitude of programmes. Flowing from the heartlands, this waterway returns life to the ground and the greenery to the city. As we examine the latent connections between water infrastructure and the built environment, this waterway became an imperative offer to create an open environment that is cooling, shaded and befits us as a tropical state.

Embedded within this urban design is a robust system and infrastructure for adaptability.

As a planning parameter, these bare frames and envelopes allow for physical programmatic changes in line with changing economies. It becomes an agent to do something.

A distinctive strata of urban living rooms is thus created as a myriad of contrasting programmes nestle within these frames and envelopes; as such, resurfacing the multifaceted urban culture residing in Jurong-East.

For instance, extensive sanctuaries located along the route provides individual needs, social amenity and urban solace. Encapsulating the desire for “slow-ness” under the urban morass, the frames houses greenery and extends the ephemerality of each stay. This is juxtaposed with the “fast-ness” at existing IBP5 down the route. Pockets of decentralised workspaces latches themselves along the frames of information highway. Extending out from the main vertebrate, these are spaces to tinker, invent, make, test and generate idle-ness into production. The infrastructure thus anticipates the becoming, instead of an over-prescription.

The route’s essence is to embrace the diverse and a pluralistic society where the city becomes a place and space for every individual. In the investigation of what constitutes the “creativeness” of Singapore, it lies in optimising both public and private spaces to fulfil people’s desire to spatial appropriation. This resulting new urban form is a counternarrative which reacts to emerging spatial practices in context of tropical Singapore. As a phenomena we observed bottom-up, the design is a value-added system of typologies that has sufficient flexibilities to accommodate growth and the massive scale programmes – bringing continuity to the tropical city and stitching Jurong East through repetition of frames and envelopes. / Lin Derong 25 October 2016, 03:30

5. International Business Park

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CONTENT

6 8 16 18 20 24 30 36 38 40 58 70 72 74 82 94 104

Appended Book 2 of 2: Trials and Explorations

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Nomadic Zeitgeist Synopsis Chapter One 1. A Very Competitive Economy 2. Creative and Nomadic 3. Latent Territories Situations Chapter Two 1. Short Stories / SCALING DOWN Narrating Urbanity 2. Water | Columns | Site Chapter Three 1. Infra-Structural Typomorphology (I-IV) Studio TTK’s Guide to Jurong East 2. Tinkerbar 3. Le-park/ Bak Choy!

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Conclusion

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Appendix A - Bibliography + References

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Appendix B - Preliminary Site Studies

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Appendix C - Personal Narratives + Issue Statements

152 157 160 164 166 174 176 180 182 188 189

Epiphyllum Fields by Lin Derong Getting Organised! by Lee Mei Ying Shirley New Business Modes in Singapore - Derong + Shirley Gardens by the Business by Kim Heewan Unplug, Recharge: Sanctuaries in the Hypercity by Ng Chloe Hidden Dimension by Tu Wen Urban Sanctuaries by Heewan + Chloe + Tu Wen Urban Allotments by Maria Tsvetkova Living Streets, Dead Streets by Heng Bang Hao Sungei Pandan by Umar Yusof Arrival By Rail by Paul Holmes

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JUNGLE*

[ˈdʒʌŋɡ(ə)l ] noun.

1. an area of land overgrown with dense forest and tangled vegetation, typically in the tropics.

2. a situation or place of bewildering complexity or brutal competitiveness.

*Definition powered by Google Search

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Conclusion

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Terms

CHAPTER ONE

New Economy The transition from manufacturing-based economy to an information and service-based economy. This project will be based on a post-service economy development, coined the “creative” economy. Driven largely by technological advancement in areas of information analytics, robotics, and data infrastructure; this new economy morphs into one which entails sharing, knowledge production and the bespoke.

Commons Referring to spaces - public spaces becomes an enabler for people to do something and facilitate exchange. In light of the emerging new economy, spaces would be needed for sharing, collaborating, and exchange.

Creative Class Alluding to Richard Florida’s definition, they are the new form of workers. Broadly, they are highly skilled creative professionals, knowledge based and engaging beyond valueadded production.

Creative Nomads This specific strata of people in the society engage in new practices. They are the creative class with an observed nomadic behaviour and working culture in terms of challenging conventional spatial and programmatic boundaries. They are essentially us, the post-80s to the millennials. Driven by ubiquitous technological tools, they have different views on stay, production, consumption and mobility (distribution). They are the emerging work force with behavioural changes, changing work patterns and changing demand for spaces. It is a reflection of our live, work, play today, governed mostly by the invisible rule of the internet technology and virtual infrastructure. (Grosz 2001 , Virilio 2003, Easterling 2012).

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Chapter One

1. A Very Competitive Economy

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ONE.1 A VERY COMPETITIVE ECONOMY

“When conditions are good and the sun is shining, we should go for it, as fast as we can, as much as we can. Get the growth, put it under our belt, put it aside a little bit, so when the thunderstorm comes again, we will be ready.”

– Lee Hsien Loong’s speech at National Day Rally, 2006 It has been 51 years of relentless building. As Singapore positions herself as a strong global economic competitor, our government charts us towards new economies and rides the waves of technological advancement. Singapore wants to be a creative and smart nation. Produce, Produce Produce! In times like this, such mantra fills the mind of every Singaporean worker and enterprise. However, with every attempt to raise our labour productivity, campaigns to promote innovation, training and creativity have been met with interruptions – 1985 recession, 1997 dotcom bubble, 2003 SARS epidemic, 2008 global financial crisis et cetera. Our jobs and spaces are in perennial crisis.

Today, technology has evolved to a capacious state where jobs are gradually replaced by automation. A decade ago, it would be hard to imagine the ubiquity of digital tools as the way we work change with the internet of things. This economy is evolving and job skill requirements are changing. Albeit the world class education system, it has led to the extent where the demand for skill set cannot meet the shifting paradigm1.

However, the issue is not to be preoccupied with the tyranny of technology, but instead it should focus on humans utilising technology. If we want to survive the technological meteorite, it is paramount that we reinvest in ourselves as human capital. The emerging economy will be driven by technology and digits, but it is the unique individuals with arts and creativity who constitute it. Therefore, our mind-set must change and the way we plan physically for this economy must also change along with it.

A.

B.

1. Chia,Yan Min. “Mismatch of skills hurting labour market: MAS.” The Straits Times, October 26, 2016.

Tables A. Singapore Economic Growth Composition B. Productivity Growth Source: Singapore Department of Statistics and Manpower Research & Statistics Department, Ministry of Manpower

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Chapter One

1. A Very Competitive Economy

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ONE.2 CREATIVE AND NOMADIC

2. Jeremiah Owyang, Report: Sharing is the New Buying, Winning in the Collaborative Economy.

March 3, 2014.

3. Richard Florida, The rise of the creative class: Revisited (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 2.

L Collage: “They trudged to work, thinking they will lose themselves, but found each other connected through another dimension” - Lee Mei Ying Shirley R Collage: Epiphyllum Fields, Agora - Lin Derong

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The creative economy comprises of three main characteristics: “Sharing”, “Knowledge Production” and “Bespoke Manufacturing”.2 The aspect of “Sharing”, in particular, takes emphasis in the global economic shift. With ubiquitous platforms like Uber, AirBnB, Etsy, and Kick-Starter, we begin to usher into an economy of collaboration, exchange and self-expression beyond purely capital gains.

Within this creative economy, Within the creative economy, a creative class emerges3. In this investigation, we extend beyond the term “creative” without being too affirmative.

The creative class is not an elitist notion, it is not pre-ordained nor assumed for the privileged few. All humans need arts and creativity to survive and it applies for every job industry. The creative economy is one that drives each individual in the city towards a humanised environment in the impending technological meteorite. It is about investing the individual as capital, instead of capital for capital where the individual drives its creativity. Therefore, the definition of creative class is not to be taken as an absolute, but loosely to describe the people in this creative economy, i.e. creativity empowered in every citizen.

The composition of the creative economy is enabled by infrastructure for physical mobility and virtual connectivity. These new practices have spatial and territorial implications.

Within the economy, mobility, distribution and spatial production challenges the tradition notion of spatial boundaries. For instance, the creative class can work anywhere as long as there are power sockets and a good internet connection. The city becomes a place where people collide and disperse at break-neck speeds. People are no longer required to stay at a fixed place to perform specific actions as the society is organised by

Chapter One

virtual infrastructure, i.e. they are always physically on the move from place to place.

Such nomadic behaviours thus become characteristics of the creative class.

However, conventional physical planning cannot meet cater for such practices of the new economy. Current spaces provided are oftentimes controlled within the security of the clusters and bounded by bureaucracy. This is unfavourable to foster creativity as collaborative participation is impeded. Albeit the high demand for the “common spaces”, designing for such spaces is not one that is straight forward, especially under a neo-liberal capitalist society. Therefore, the “creativity” within the goal of a creative economy has been met with an impasse.

2. Creative and Nomadic

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Chapter One

2. Creative and Nomadic

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ONE.3 LATENT TERRITORIES

Jurong East will be the basis for investigation as it has been a test bed for development.

The project will examine the emergence of the creative class4 and its multi-layered urban cultures which are challenged by our existing material infrastructure and bureaucratic system located in Jurong East.This idea of the “creative” conjures a certain image and it is fraught with all sorts of assumptions. However, as mentioned in chapter one, it seems to be stuck in the creative doldrums as our productivity decreases. This chapter will explain the observations made during the preliminary site studies – that current building models and spatial praxes are incompatible.The site approach is thus based on a reflection Jurong East with an understanding in relation to its larger physical planning.

There have been ambitious programmes embarked upon to anticipate emerging ethos to enable a thriving and creative economy in Jurong-East. Developed from a swamp land, the site has been largely an industrial area, echoed from the 1963 UN Ring Concept Plan and the appropriated 1971 URA plan.Through time, it has gone through industrialisation and late capitalist globalisation in the 1990s. Today, the government narrative has intentions to transform it into a second Business District, dominated by large corporations and a high speed railway. Jurong-East is now caught in a transitional development period. It is big, segregated and banal. Crowds that appear to traverse ambiguously turn out to move with well-choreographed intent. The experience of the urbanscapes can almost be collapsed into a single monotonous entity as throngs of humans weave through the sky bridges and narrow pedestrian walkways towards J-Cube. While this bridge networks extensively throughout the new cluster, this “new” Jurong East gradually reveals itself to be exceptionally functional. Distances which seem vast experientially turnout to be geographically compact. One will always end up where they want to be. IMM shopping centre is now walkable via J-Walk while buses and trains arrive at precise punctuality.

This resulting spatial experience is exemplified in the Nolli plan during the preliminary site studies. Under the morass of its complex and seemingly chaotic organisation, the streets are in fact very well-organised and orchestrated within the interiors of the elevated ground. One reads a very legible sense of the street within the interior of the air-con boxes. Within these air-con boxes, it emulates outdoor spaces that are conducive for capital gains and internal cooling i.e. streets have ironically been brought into the comforts of the air-conditioned malls.

4. Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: Revisited (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 2.

Image: Cross-section of Jurong East depicting spatial sequence and elevated connectivity of J-Walk demarcated in blue.

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On the contrary, the spatial legibility on the ground is not that clear anymore. This seems to be the prevailing development model not just for Jurong East, but for other Singaporean urban projects. By lifting pedestrian spaces upwards, it leaves a ground environment devoid of conviviality and walkability, only catered for cars.

Chapter One

Therefore, instead of importing outdoor conditions into the interior, we strongly believe that cities should be experienced directly from the outside, straight off the ground – because this ground is important5. It is a continuous plane and a stable reference point for cultural life of both the residents and the urban voyageurs. It is on this very surface where urban tensions occur; the public and private, the informal and planned, the stasis and transition. Jurong East, at a postulated rate, is risking the elimination of this reference point to ground altogether with its three-dimensional connectivity.

Is Jurong East gradually becoming a city without its ground and losing its tropicality? The preliminary site studies conclude with a criticism towards a ground surface devoid of life and developments self-contained within the “bigness� of air-conditioned boxes. These building practices are outdated and insufficient to cater to the new economy in terms of facilitating exchange. Therefore, situating Jurong East back to the emerging creative economy in the topics, we begin to question our observations which are challenged by these current conditions.

5. Solomon, Jonathan et. al., Cities Without Ground, A Hong Kong Guidebook. (Oro Editions: 2012).

3. Latent Territories

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A.

B.

A. 1963 UNDP Plan - Employment Housing & Population Plan B. 1971 URA Concept Plan

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Chapter One

C.

D. C. 1991 Concept Plan - Capital Intensive D.2030 Land Use Plan - More Lands, more Homes, More Greenery

3. Latent Territories

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3. Latent Territories

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SITUATION BOXES

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Chapter One

It is big, segregated and banal.

This is an urban site in perpetual flux. As its physical plannings layer on top of its past, the people’s idiosyncrasies transgress the spatial residues. The camera becomes our primary instrument for resistance aganist any construed narratives and visions of Jurong East.

Beyond a recognition of the physical and social, This study attempts to map its tangible and intangible aspects in photographic form - of what configures the space and what constitutes the existing.

3. Latent Territories

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SITUATION RESIDUES

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Chapter One

3. Latent Territories

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SITUATION ACTIONS

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Chapter One

3. Latent Territories

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CHAPTER TWO

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Chapter Two

1. Short Stories/ Scaling Down

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TWO.1 SHORT STORIES

SCALING DOWN

Set amidst the backdrop of Jurong East and the “creative”, this project searches for new urban forms which respond to fast changing economies. We feel that the architect has inherited too much autonomy in planning and thus, taking a step back from a top-down perspective, we put ourselves into the people’s point of view. The narrative is adopted as an urban design methodology, or rather meta-methodology6 to construe the existing and becoming of Jurong East before imposing a design. Personal recounts and narratives become central thrust to our design process and a resource for human performance and actions in the social field.7 Parallel to site studies, each of the nine studio members interprets a personal narrative based on the site and identifies an issue. Urban design within a city goes beyond mere improvements. It has to transgress8 the limits and expectations which society has set.

As Jurong East heads towards a “second CBD” under the government’s directive, conventional notions and spatial boundaries are questioned within these narratives.

The nine fictions become an exposing ground for knowledge production9 and they are imbued in the embodied ways of knowing and seeing10. Mixed-media from other nonarchitectural milieu is used to seek to understand the human performance of urban design. These narratives render speculations and are manifested in words and collages.

Representational art, comics, science fiction et cetera are referenced without resorting to an existing architectural style.

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Chapter Two

Juxtaposing the state’s ambitions, nine individual narratives overlap to form a larger urban design narrative. Though each of these narratives deals with different issues, they hinge themselves on the idea of individual empowerment and return of tropical ground to its people. By tapping into narratives at an intimate scale, the city becomes both spatial and atmospheric. We begin to understand human practices before performing urban design.

The design hence suggests a dialogue between the phenomenological and physical11 as we investigate how people interact with their environment. At this intersection of people and space, we refocus on the banal “realities” of the individual and how power operates across scales.12 Covering a wide range of different practices, these narratives do not become a rhetoric.13 Instead, alluding to de Certeau, they address the everyday as a form of practice. Spaces are conceived as recording forms of action and rehearsal; of potential activities; experiments and traces of collective memories.14 Therefore, mapping the intangibles of the site, this urban design approach helps us interpret and take into account first-hand human experience of our intervention. Within the collages borne from these narratives, we feel that the fictional entity, alongside these quasi-tangible situations, captures the complexities and temporalities of the site.15 Hence, straddling between fiction and the real, we begin to explore the spatial and programmatic experiences.

Our explicit goal ultimately is to provide an alternative urbanity and usher people into a possibility of future living. In line with the emerging new economy, the design should allow for spatial flexibility, self-expressions and embrace the idiosyncrasies of each individual. Programmatic derivations from the individual narratives would then begin to distil itself onto the site.

6. Alexander R. Cuthbert, Understanding Cities (Oxfordshire: Taylor and Francis, 2011).

7. De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. pp. 184 8. Rachel Sara and Jonathan Mosley, The Architecture of Transgression (New Jersey: Wiley, 2013), 226.

9. As of Foucault and Derrida’s definition.

10. Hyndman, Jennifer, “Critical geopolitics,” Progress in Human Geography 39 (5): 666-667.

11. Borrowing Edmund Husserl’s term, we take into consideration and study the human experiences and consciousness borne out by actions performed in spaces.

12. Massaro and Jill, “Feminist Geopolitics”, 567-577 13. According to Roland Bathes, “narratives is almost coterminous” 14. De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 184 15. Naja & deOstos, Pamphlet Architecture 29: Ambiguous Spaces , 37 Collage: “...Tucked between the lines, it hides one of the most energised spaces in the city.

Trees, Tools, Chairs, Machines, Laboratories, Atelier, Storage Spaces - the travelling monkeys who carry their deployable homes on their backs could seek sanctuary before reaching the agora via the vertebral column...” - Lin Derong

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Chapter Two

NARRATING URBANISM

Instantaneous response from the screen which are irrespective of the distances and the categorisation among interlocutors, abolishes the traditional perception of distance and time.

1. Short Stories/ Scaling Down

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Roots Behind these well-choreographed movements, it lies a boundless underground territory where an immense proliferation of data servers and complicated service pipes nestle themselves. Like an army of disciplined soldiers, it is these systematic server spaces and fiber-optic cables which set the invisible rule that govern the seemingly chaotic and haptic contemporary habitat above ground.

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Chapter Two

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Events, Ghosts, Phantoms: ...an empire of signs from the towers emerged from the clouds as dawn breaks. He was in awe. This feeling soon turn into a haptic sense of lost as he could not figure out the meeting point. There was no address given except a barcode. He couldn’t ask any passersby as they all seemed to be in a rush and busy on their screens.

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Chapter Two

Bio-philia Theatre Parties were thrown night after night as it spills outside to encompass Jurong East and the surrounding landscape. People living on social fringes exposes themselves in the dark of this night, celebrating the turn of a new era. The agora occupies a drastically different world in Jurong East, forming a nocturnal agora for the young, the creative, the sleepless and the night-walkers.

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TWO.2 WATER | COLUMNS | SITE

As the site is not based on a Tabula Rasa, the narratives begin to creep into the existing.

Three elements are identified as contextual engagement to translate the narratives into tangible design: water, green and leftover spaces beneath elevated tracks.

First, water as an architectural element becomes clear with the two river bodies flanking the site – Jurong River and Sungei Pandan. Across the years, the natural river network has drastically decreased in the name of modernisation and progression. Natural streams and rivers are transformed into canals and concrete drains. The original water system was replaced with artificial draining system in the urban fabric. Although Jurong River and Sungei Pandan still remain, they are heavily manicured.

While we begin to examine the latent connections between water infrastructure and our built environment, it becomes a meaningful strategy to tie the various programmes on the site instances. This implies the potentialities of water being manifested in different ways and used within the urban route to facilitate a humanised and a creative environment.

It acts as the connecting infrastructure appearing in various forms that loops Jurong River, Sungei Pandan and the sea.Water in this context becomes a form of continuity and contextual engagement. As an architectural gesture to return the ground to the people, the waterway is then used in various guises to link the terminals, re-establish connection with the sea and also create opportunities for new public commons and promenade.

Next, as we expand the potentialities of urban leftover spaces, spaces beneath the elevated MRT tracks provide design opportunities.Taking advantage of the existing MRT columns, they double up as an urban structure and an organisational grid. These spaces also create lofty ceiling conditions which allow for spatial potentialities.

These three contexts become both a backdrop and an operational device to create another cultural reference point as a continuous planar transition on the ground. By running a waterway and having an extensive green plan beneath the tracks, it adds value to residual spaces which are awkward for current development practices. As a form of tropical sensibility, this also explicitly return a public commons and greenery back to the city – turning it into an imperative offer to create an open environment that is cooling, shaded and befits us as a tropical state.

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2. Water | Columns | Site

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CHAPTER THREE

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Chapter Three

1. Infra-Structural

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THREE.1 INFRA-STRUCTURAL

“Life is not just eating, drinking, television and cinema. The human mind must be creative, must be self-generating; it cannot depend on just gadgets to amuse itself.” – Lee Kuan Yew, First Prime Minister of Singapore Stretching two kilometres from the junction of Jurong-East Central to Sungei Pandan, an urban-route emerges from these narratives16 which frames the multiplicity of programmes developed. A set of bare skeletal frames then creep in-between the train columns to form a physical infrastructure around in a vertebrate-like organisation. This results in three spatial divisions. Firstly, the leftover spaces beneath tracks, re-established as pedestrian connectors with lofty “ceilings” from the tracks. Secondly, skeletal frames in the second division form an outdoor follie-like condition for programmes in flux.

Thirdly, furthest from the tracks, the frames morph into a building envelope with a typical GFA of 20m x 30m. Straddling between the inside and outside, programmes spill-out into external streets.

16. Much like a dérive which Guy Debord described as “a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances.

17. Easterling, Extrastatecraft, 2 18. “As much as we acknowledge the difficulties in providing a radical challenge to existing structures of power. We imply our ambitions to change the way in which the current society is being built (which is incompatible with our spatial practices). Using of action and architecture as a catalyst of change – or to facilitate change.”

Rachel Sara and Jonathan Mosley, The Architecture of Transgression (New Jersey: Wiley, 2013), 226.

19. Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus (Notes towards an Investigation)”, in On Ideology.

Verso: 2008 (1971), pp. 1-60

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This urban route emerges as an infrastructure that behaves like a spatial software. It is conceived by its users as an agent to do something. This becomes our urban design parameter17 where mobile and nomadic people are flexibly and actively appropriating spaces for their own uses. Programmed for live, work and play, the infrastructure of this route behaves as a system for Stay, Production, Consumption, Distribution and Care. This route is envisioned to be a vibrant part of the city where it extends outwards to reach Jurong East and beyond. Sitting in this transitional era, people become the capital in the new economy while infrastructure becomes an agent for appropriation and facilitates flux.

In order for architecture to remain relevant, it has to position and re-invent itself in changing times on such a latent site. The “transgression”18 is built entirely on conventions of the existing, in relation to the temporal and cultural context. Exposing the site potentialities, previous chapter discusses the three elements as contextual engagement for the narratives. From the ubiquity of technological apparatus, information surplus and changing spatial praxes, it emerge a new urban form. This alludes to Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatus19 where we investigate the cultural/socioeconomical production of emerging rituals in this collaborative shared economy. It exemplifies a transitory moment in which the paradigm shifts into a new distribution of workspaces, demand for the sublime and new forms of social connectivity.

Chapter Three

Moving beyond a construed society of factory enclosed in air-conditioned boxes, the interior spaces spill out and extend into the public spaces to allow public participation.

This treatment of the exterior space as interior is in fact nothing new – Hertzberger’s Central Baheer with their porous structure, Cedric Price’s Fun Palace with its idea of an anti-building, Bürolandschaft with their modern open plan offices today. This theme of facilitating urban commons and participation has been a constant endeavour, albeit the way we use the space and streets is different today.

In the context of Jurong East, the urban intervention postulates a nomadic dwelling/ workplace amidst the “fastness” of the new economy – an emerging architecture for a creative future. On the other hand, this is juxtaposed by the “slowness” of the sanctuaries which provide solace under this giant urban morass. Through a myriad of contrasting and fragmented programmes plugged onto the route, the multifaceted urban culture residing on site is resurfaced. The route’s imperative is to embrace the diverse and the pluralistic society where the city is a place and space for every individual. Wringing the extraordinary out of the everyday and leftover spaces, an adaptable and responsive intervention in the form of an urban route is proposed to frame all of the encounters; and whose impacts are global in scale. This proliferates across the two kilometres stretch to form a bare infrastructural system and an urban connection.

In essence, the two kilometres stretch of frames and envelopes translate narratives and issues tangibly and materially – to affect the way people live, work and play.The vertebrate organisation beneath elevated tracks makes the leftover spaces legible for traversing and create space pockets that can be appropriated by the public in unexpected ways. The resulting design is a robust system and infrastructure for adaptability where the structure performs as the programmes itself. It becomes an agent to do something. This meant that the architecture only takes form when the everyday, action and movement populates in . A distinctive strata of urban living rooms is thus created as a myriad of contrasting programmes nestle within these frames and envelopes; as such, this system of typologies would provide sufficient flexibility to accommodate growth and the massive scale of programmes – bringing continuity of the city, stitching the route through repetition of small buildings.

Therefore, in this space of flux, there exists only an infrastructure.

20. An example would be Bernard Tschumi and Peter Eisenman’s 1989 follies at Parc de la Vilette, Cedric Price’s 1961 Fun Palace and Junya Ishigami’s 2010 Kanagawa Institute of Technology.

1. Infra-Structural

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TYPO-MORPHOLOGY 1 BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE

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A. Urban Allotments at Jurong East Central B. Urban Sanctuaries Beneath Tracks C. Urban Sanctuaries by Jurong East MRT Station

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D. Urban Sanctuaries by Big Box E. Tinker Pods and Business Incubators by International Business Park (IBP) F. Maker Space by new IBP Waterfront

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TYPO-MORPHOLOGY II VOLUMETRIC ALTERATION

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A. Urban Allotments at Jurong East Central B. Urban Sanctuaries Beneath Tracks C. Urban Sanctuaries by Jurong East MRT Station

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Chapter Three

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D. Urban Sanctuaries by Big Box E. Tinker Pods and Business Incubators by International Business Park (IBP) F. Maker Space by new IBP Waterfront

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TYPO-MORPHOLOGY III STRUCTURAL EXPANSION

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A. Urban Allotments at Jurong East Central B. Urban Sanctuaries Beneath Tracks C. Urban Sanctuaries by Jurong East MRT Station

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Chapter Three

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D. Urban Sanctuaries by Big Box E. Tinker Pods and Business Incubators by International Business Park (IBP) F. Maker Space by new IBP Waterfront

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TYPO-MORPHOLOGY IV PROGRAMMATIC PROLIFERATION

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A. Urban Allotments at Jurong East Central B. Urban Sanctuaries Beneath Tracks C. Urban Sanctuaries by Jurong East MRT Station

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D. Urban Sanctuaries by Big Box E. Tinker Pods and Business Incubators by International Business Park (IBP) F. Maker Space by new IBP Waterfront

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STUDIO TTK’S GUIDE TO JURONG EAST

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Chapter Three

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1. Food Market From the frames, stalls that are transformable and flexible spill out, creating a lively and convivial atmosphere. Volunteer work in the form of social enterprise can also take place, involving students from the local community.

2.Community Kitchen A community kitchen allows for cooking workshops and a space where people can cook their meals using fresh produce from the allotments. It also provides a fun space for family outings where the entire family can cook and eat together.

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Chapter Three

3. Craft Studio Frames that extend from the massing of the buildings create spaces for a craft studio where beginners and professionals alike can make use of the facilities to sculpt, paint, mould, et cetera, thereby fostering a creative and artistic environment.

4. Venting Room Venting rooms as spaces of release allow for screaming, shouting, kicking and punching. Through these physical actions, people experience a cathartic release of anger and frustration.

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5. Water Playground Playgrounds that make use of water as an active element create a space that is more dynamic, engaging, and fun. People can have fun with water organs that involve water in creating music.

6. Performance Stage The frames create a stage for public performance that allows for small theatre groups and even school students to put on plays or skits.

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Chapter Three

7. Recording Studio Sound-proof rooms allow for budding musicians and bands to practise and jam, providing a space they need but yet are otherwise deprived of in the city.

8. Showcase Gallery The frames allow for showcase of crafted items and serve as a mini-gallery for people to share their inventions and ideas. Small enterprises or individuals can even leverage upon the space to sell their wares and promote their businesses.

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9. Urban Living Room While at ground floor, the frames create spaces that allow for a convivial and lively environment that function as urban living rooms, these same spaces higher up in the frames create more private areas that are conducive for activities like reading and writing.

10. Mass Aerobics As the programs creep into Big Box, a space is created to allow for mass aerobics or dance that allows for public impromptu participation.

Bordering this space are programs that are sports-related; e.g. muay thai, kickboxing, et cetera.

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Chapter Three

11. Skate Park With a lack of nearby spaces for skateboarding, the sanctuaries provide for an area under the elevated tracks for a skate park. This adds a certain fun and liveliness to the route.

12. Buildering The side of the massing, combined with the frames, create spaces that allow for buildering and other activities like climbing, trampolining and swings. This makes for a fun environment for the adventurous.

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13. Pet Park Pet owners and animal lovers alike can enjoy a pet park where the animals are provided a space for socialisation. This also allows for a sensorial therapeutic experience where people can interact with the animals through the provision of cat or dog cafes.

14. Outdoor Movie Screening The area under the tracks and by the water functions as a place for outdoor moving screenings where people can enjoy films with their family and friends.

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Chapter Three

15. Graffiti Under the elevated tracks, a space is provided for people to express themselves through graffiti.

Temporary exhibitions of graffiti artworks can even be held, where others can interact by even spraying over them and creating their own.

16. Nap Pod Situated between the frames, nap pods function as spaces for tired office workers to catch a nap during their lunch breaks, providing them comfort and solace in the city. Some are also temporary dwellings where people can stay over.

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17. New Tech. Testing Playground New technological innovations and inventions can be tried and tested in this space that emerges from between the frames. Tinkerers can share ideas with each other or even with potential investors and curious members of the public.

18. Bazaar From the frames and the area under the elevated track, a bazaar emerges where both original, created goods and second-hand items can be bought and sold. New inventions by tinkerers can be both showcased and bought or traded, enabling the exchange of knowledge.

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Chapter Three

19. Incubators Frames that extend from the massing create small incubator spaces that allow for short meetings and places for idea generation.

20. Tinker Spaces Situated above the water, small spaces create areas where 3D making and tinkering take place, making use of facilities like 3D printers and CNC milling machines.

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A.

C.

EC ONOMIC

EC ONOMIC

B.

SH IF T AND IT S SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION Fordism - Specialisation

SH IF T AND IT S SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION Fordism - Specialisation

EC ONOMIC SH IF T AND IT S SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION Post-Fordism - Supervision EC ONOMIC SH IF T AND IT S SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION EC ONOMIC SH IF T AND IT SLandscape SPAT IAL 1950s) EV OL UT ION Neoliberalist - Bürolandschaft (Office ONOMIC SH(Office IF T Landscape AND IT S 1950s) SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION Neoliberalist - EC Bürolandschaft Post-Fordism - Supervision

THREE.2 TINKERBAR

EC IFONOMIC T AND EV OL UT ION EC ONOMIC SH T AND ITSH SIF SPAT IAL IT EVS SPAT OL UTIALION Post-Fordism Bürolandschaft - Typical Open Plan Office with “Chaotic”- Assembly-Line and “Busy” visual elements EC ONOMIC SH IF T AND IT S SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION Bürolandschaft - Typical Open Plan Office with “Chaotic” and “Busy” visual elements

D.

EC ONOMIC

SH IF T AND IT S SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION Post-Fordism - Assembly-Line

EC ONOMIC SH IF T AND IT S SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION Fordism - Aesthetics of the Mass Ornament EC ONOMIC SH IF T AND IT S SPAT IAL EV OL UT ION EC ONOMIC IF T AND S SPAT IAL Frank EV OL Lloyd UT ION Neoliberalist, Open Plan OfficeSH- Johnson WaxIT Headquarters, J. Wright 1974 EC Office ONOMIC SH IFWax T AND IT S SPATFrank IAL Lloyd EV OLJ. Wright UT ION1974 Neoliberalist, Open Plan - Johnson Headquarters, Fordism - Aesthetics of the Mass Ornament

Through the narratives, we have an understanding of state-development from the human perspectives. As each of these instances on the two kilometres route becomes a site for individual situating themselves around the larger context of changing environment and development, each part of the route begins to morph with its programs and physical site conditions.

Setting as the core of the creative economy, the additive reuse of the desolated International Business Park (IBP) as a tinker space explores new spaces for business practices. As we anticipate increasing informal use of space given the devaluation of the physical public realm and widespread building obsolescence, the rapid development and convergence of software, businesses and consumer in the new economy will provoke a collapse of the existing strict functional typologies. This result in major shifts in both occupancy and emergence of new business spatial practices.

This part of the route is envisioned to house the new cybernetic work organisation and a spectrum of other domains such as the robotics, computer science, augment reality technologies et cetera. It has three main characteristics: structural flexibility for programmatic flux in the frames, an information highway extending to a new waterfront and an extensive underground data center.

Images: Economic Shift and Its Spatial Evolution A. Fordism and Specialisation B. Supervision C. Bürolandschaft - Typical Open Plan Office with “Chaotic” and “Busy” visual elements D. Neoliberalist, Open Plan Office - Johnson Wax Headquarters, Frank Lloyd J. Wright 1974

The infrastructure is an agent for altering space. The frames and envelopes are appropriated as a torn down decentralised work space in the advent of new knowledge economy. Whereas information resides within the invisible, activities determine how object contents are organised and circulated. Modes of distribution, production and consumption align with the practices of start-ups, makers and new generation of industrial workers. Within the frames, undifferentiated spaces result on the ground, creating a field that is open on an extensive plan and yet not functionally determined.

Temporary pods for personal activities (incubating, and tinkering) begin to grow and proliferate whereas envelopes provides spaces for SMEs and larger scale incubating and tinkering activities.

R Collage: Central Pod Station Lee Mei Ying Shirley

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Chapter Three

Extending beyond the tracks, an information highway stretches into the IBP site for laboratories, making, and testing spaces. Contrary to the frames, this information highway is a secured private space. It provides an ancillary structure for growth to meet with the demand for greater flexibility and mobility. Complementing this gesture, water floods across the existing empty field in the middle of IBP, creating an artificial waterfront for cooling and opportunities for developing public amenities.

This part of the intervention sets in mind the mobility of the new creative class and their nomadic culture; opposing the current spaces which are closed, static and clustered. It is thus an alternative to remain relevant in the current and future economy as it constantly changes and adapt to user needs.

2. Tinkerbar - International Business Park

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Tinker Pods and Business Incubators by International Business Park (IBP)

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Chapter Three

Information Highway + New IBP Waterfront

2. Tinkerbar - International Business Park

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METABOLIC GROWTH BENEATH TRACKS

2. Tinkerbar - International Business Park

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METABOLIC GROWTH ALONG INFORMATION HIGHWAY

2. Tinkerbar - International Business Park 101

D

E

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E

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D

2. Tinkerbar - International Business Park 103

THREE.3 LE-PARK/ BAK CHOYS!

Traversing forth, one would encounter a series of urban sanctuaries that are nestled within the busy spine as a space of solace and comfort. This is paramount because in the era of creative economy, we posit a future whereby live, work, play become intertwined as one. Thus the notion of rest and respite grows even more crucial.

The urban sanctuaries emerge as a subliminal space amidst the capitalist spectacle of the “big and beautiful”. Alluding to Kant, whereas such constructed “beautiful” is limited, the sublime is limitless. The bare infrastructural frames begin to create undifferentiated spaces that relates to sublimity. Through small interstitial spaces, an avenue for haptic, self-expressions emerge for people to escape and hide within Jurong East with sprouting towers.

Beyond a shelter or spectacle, the architecture of the urban sanctuaries seeks to create a creative environment to empower all citizens. Water emerges more than just a connecting tool and it begins to play a dynamic role and an agent in the spaces themselves.

They function as places of and for artistic visions and expressions. For example, water playgrounds, water for urban farming, relaxation tool in sensorial meditative spaces et cetera.

Through this multitude of programmes occurring within the frames, the intervention allows for Release, Respite, and Recharge. In spaces of Release, it allows emotional venting, screaming, shouting, smashing, kicking et cetera. Individuality is central as one gets in touch with one’s own emotions. Spaces of Respite allow for places of rest, solace, and comfort away from the city that serve as spots of self-introspection and selfreflection. Lastly, spaces of Recharge allow for individuals to refuel for the “jungle out there”.The individuals within these urban sanctuaries are almost narcissist, indulging and seek joy through actions performed in spaces.This is where its beauty to emerge – where self-joy, pleasure, and happiness take centre stage, oscillating between the sublime and narcissist.

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Chapter Three

3. Le-park/ Bak Choy! - Jurong East Central 105

Urban Allotments at Jurong East Central

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Urban Sanctuaries Beneath Tracks

3. Le-park/ Bak Choy! - Jurong East Central 107

Urban Sanctuaries by Jurong East MRT Station

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Urban Sanctuaries by Big Box

3. Le-park/ Bak Choy! - Jurong East Central 109

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3. Le-park/ Bak Choy! - Jurong East Central 111

A

B

C

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CONCLUSION

In all, this project brings about an alternative urbanity based on anthropological studies.

The intervention is a reflection of how we situate ourselves in the larger society and our ambition to traverse across the city as a new class of creative nomads. Through an analysis of the new creative urban culture, it drives us towards an interpretative and a non-prescriptive plan. Simultaneously, this is narrated through the architecture of our collages as we mediate the complexities of individual idiosyncrasies and the everyday banality. The resulting set of dynamic programmes, distilled from the nine narratives is then used to constitute a loosely configured map to anticipate the becoming of Jurong East. Essentially in Sigmund Freud’s term, it become a site of memory trace21 where memories accumulate into a language and experience, both constantly challenged by the people’s desire to transgress and penetrate into the unknown.

As Singapore moves towards an efficient productive society in the new economy, the creativity of every Singaporean is paramount. Through this 2km stretch, the route is envisioned to usher Singaporeans into a new way of living, new attitude, new thinking and a new mode of knowledge production and exchange; etched deeply in empowering people through optimising the public commons and to fulfil people’s desire for spatial appropriation. /

21. Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (London; Vienna: International Psycho-Analytical, 1920), 13.

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Conclusion 127

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Conclusion 129

APPENDIX A

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Appendix A

References 131

Selected Bibliography

REFERENCES

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus (Notes towards an Investigation)”, in On Ideology. Verso: 2008 (1971), pp. 1-60 Chang Kyung-Sup, Ben Fine and Linda Weiss. Developmental Politics in Transition. The Neoliberal Era and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan: 2012.

Coates, Nigel. “Radical Territories.” In Narrative Architecture, 25-40. New Jersey: Wiley, 2012.

Cuthbert, Alexander R. Understanding Cities. Oxfordshire: Taylor and Francis, 2011.

Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on Control Societies.” In Negotiations, 177-182.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.

De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Easterling, Keller. Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. New York: Verso, 2014.

Florida, Richard. The rise of the creative class: Revisited. New York: Basic Books, 2014.

Fischer, Ole W. “From Liquid Space to Solid Bodies, Architecture between Neoliberalism and Control Society.” In Is there (Anti) Neoliberal Architecture?, edited by Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner, 14-31. Berlin: Jovis, 2013.

Ford, Martin. Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. New York: Basic Books, 2015.

Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. London; Vienna: International Psycho-Analytical, 1920.

Grosz, E. A. Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.

Hays, Michael. “Michael Foucoult “Space Knowledge and Power” Interview with Paul Rainbow.” In Architectural Theory since 1968, 430-439. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1998.

Highmore, Ben. “Literature, Narratives, Voices.” In Michel de certeau: Analysing culture, 126-133. New York; London: Continuum, 2006.

Hyndman, Jennifer. 2015. “Critical geopolitics.” Progress in Human Geography 39 (5): 666-667.

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Appendix A

Kong, Lily. 2012. “Ambitions of a global city: Arts, culture and creative economy in ‘post-crisis’ Singapore.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 18 (3): 279-94.

Koolhaas, Rem. “Junkspace.” In Content, 162-171. Koln, London, L.A., Madrid, Paris, Tokyo: Taschen, 1995.

Koolhaas, Rem. “Singapore Songlines.” In S, M, L, XL. New York: Monacelli Press, 1995.

Krätke, Stefan. 2010. “Creative cities’ and the rise of the dealer class: A critique of Richard Florida’s approach to urban theory.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 34 (4): 835-853.

Lefebvre, Henri. “The Rights to the City.” In Writing on Cities, 147-159.

Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1999.

Lefebvre, Henri. “Production of Space.” In Space, Difference, Everyday Life: Reading Henri Lefebvre, edited by Kanishka Goonewardena. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Massaro, Vanessa A., Willians, Jill, “Feminist Geopolitics”, Geography Compass 7/8, Department of Geography, Department of Women Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Geography, Clark University: 2013, pp. 567-577 Mayer, Margit. “Post-Fordist City Politics.” In The City Reader, edited by Richard T. LeGates and Federic Stout, 229-239. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Jackowski, Nannette and Ricardo de Ostos, Pamphlet Architecture 29: Ambiguous Spaces, Princeton Architectural Press: 2008.

Ooi, Can-Seng. 2008. “Reimagining Singapore as a creative nation: The politics of place branding.” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 4 (4): 287-302.

Ooi, Can-Seng. 2010. “Political pragmatism and the creative economy: Singapore as a city for the arts.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 16 (4): 403-417.

Purcell, Mark. “Excavating Lefebvre: The Right to the City and its Urban Politics of the Inhabitant.” GeoJournal, vol. 58, no. 2/3, 2002.

Rumpfhuber, Andreas. “Framing the Possible, Cybernetic Neoliberalism and the Architectuer of Immaterial Labor.” In Is there (Anti) Neoliberal Architecture?, edited by Ana Jeinic and Anselm Wagner, 32-45. Berlin: Jovis, 2013.

Sara, Rachel, and Jonathan Mosley. The Architecture of Transgression 83 (6).

New Jersey: Wiley, 2013.

References 133

Sklair, Leslie. “Iconic architecture and urban, national, and global identities.”

In Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Politics in Urban Spaces, edited by Diane E. Davis and Nora Libertun de Duren, 179-195. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011.

Solomon, Jonathan, Clara Wong and Adam Frampton. Cities Without Ground, A Hong Kong Guidebook. (Oro Editions: 2012).

Spiezia, Vincenzo and Marco Vivarelli. “The Analysis of Technological Change and Employment”, in The Employment Impact of Innovation. Evidence and Policy. Edited by Marco Vivarelli and Mario Pianta. London: 2000, 13-25.

Vidler, Anthony. “Photourbanism: planning the city form above and from below.” In The Scenes of the Street and other Essays, 317-328. New York: Monacelli Press, 2011.

Virilio, Paul. “The Overexposed City.” In The Lost Dimension, 25-185.

Cambridge, MA: Semiotext(e), 2012.

Articles Au-Yong, Rachel. “PM Lee Hsien Loong seeks to rally youth amid slowing economy.” The Straits Times , October 25, 2016. http://www.straitstimes. com/singapore/pm-lee-seeks-to-rally-youth-amid-slowing-economy Channel NewsAsia. “Upgrading skills must become ‘a way of life’: PM Lee at G20 Summit.” November 16, 2015. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/ news/business/upgrading-skills-must/2264604.html Chia,Yan Min. “Mismatch of skills hurting labour market: MAS.” The Straits Times, October 26, 2016. http://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/ mismatch-of-skills-hurting-labour-market-mas Chia,Yan Min. “Shedding light on slowing growth: What ails Singapore’s economy?” The Straits Times , October 30, 2016. http://www.straitstimes. com/business/economy/what-ails-singapores-economy Goh, Kenneth. “Why S’pore needs to slow down to go fast.” Today, September 29, 2016. http://www.todayonline.com/commentary/why-spore-needsslow-down-go-fast Ho, Olivia. “Job woes part of transition to quality growth: Lim Swee Say.” The Straits Times, September 24, 2016. http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ manpower/job-woes-part-of-transition-to-quality-growth-swee-say

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Appendix A

Koh, Nicholas. “Higher productivity, the only option left for Singapore.”

IPS Commons, August 3, 2015. https://www.ipscommons.sg/higherproductivity-the-only-option-left-for-singapore/ Kuan, Chris. “Job mismatches in Singapore reaches highest since 2008/09 while govt initiatives continue to fail in creating the right jobs.” The Online Citizen, October 26, 2010. http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2016/10/26/ job-mismatches-in-singapore-reaches-highest-since-200809-while-govtinitiatives-continue-to-fail-in-creating-the-right-jobs/ Lim, Jessica. “Six ways to lift Singapore out of the retail doldrum.” The Straits Times, September 29, 2016. http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/sixways-to-beat-the-retail-blues Velloor, Ravi. “Shedding light on slowing growth: Trade threats and bad debts.”

The Straits Times, October 30, 2016. http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/ trade-threats-and-bad-debts

References 135

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References 137

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References 139

APPENDIX B

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Appendix B

Preliminary Site Studies 141

PRELIMINARY SITE STUDIES

Topography

Topography

Pea m m m

Pea

m

m

m m

m

m o om

m m m m m o om

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Appendix B

Nolli -Ground The interface of public and private realms at the urban scale is important. This diagramme maps public access on site.

The public-private boundaries are revealed through this nolli on the first level. Public pathways interlace through the couryards and front yards of shopping centers. However, beyond the shopping cluster, wide roads and the disjuncture between the residential estates makes spatial traversing on ground floor unorchestrated and ambiguious.

Nolli - Interior Streets These interior streets mark the walking spaces when one exits the station gantry on the elevated ground. Interestingly with the “J-Link� bridge connector, it establishes an orchestrated walking experience and brings the exteriority of streets back to the interior.

Preliminary Site Studies 143

Road Network

ain oa Secon ar

The main MRT station occupying the site is Jurong East MRT station which is an interchange because it is where the East-West and North-south line intersects.

This results in a huge density of people especially during the peak hours. A series of public buses serve the residents living in this area where all these areas are acessible to the Jurong East interchange via the prescence of a high number of bus stops. ain oa Secon ar

i wa oa s

inor oa a er o

i wa oa s

inor oa a er o

Bus Accessibility

us S a ion Train S a ion

Service to Jurong East Central: Residents living in the Toh Guan Estate - Bus 105, 990 and 41.

Residents from the Yuhua East estate - Bus 107 and 333.

Residents from Jurong East HDB flats - Bus 66 to the central area.

From International Business Park - Buses 99 & 105,

Train Trac

us S a ion Train S a ion Train Trac us ou e o uron

as

us ou e o u ua

To

uan

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Appendix B

us ou e o uron

as

us ou e o u ua

To

uan

Walking Accessibility Point 1 to 2: 1.4km Point 1 to 3: 1.2km Point 1 to 4: 1km Point 1 to 5: 700m Point 1 to 6: 1.2km

Demographics

Preliminary Site Studies 145

Informal Public Spaces They are scattered around Jurong East - both formal and informal ones. Informal public spaces are mainly defined by urban furnitures/ shared boundaries with existing grocery stores and cafes, while some act as an extension of existing bus stops. Many spaces around residential areas are observed to be unused during most part of the day. Formal spaces set aside by urban planners are also observed to be appropriated and altered by users.

Typomorphology Spatial Rhythm Observed pattern: HDBs enclose either a carpark or a green space; that is, HDB - carpark - HDB or HDB - green space. Despite the HDB blocks having different outward aesthetic appearances (e.g. different designs, heights, and even colour), the spaces between them remain homogeneous. This may provide an opportunity for some form of architecture intervention.

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Softscape

Par s

Trees

Elements are more dominant at the HDB estates and the park.

Along the roads, trees are planted in a more ordered fashion and serve as clear dividers/ space demarcators. In contrast, trees are in a more disordered manner in HDB estates and in the park.

Par s Trees

Preliminary Site Studies 147

Human Traffic Density: Day i

uil in

uil in

sa e

e ium uil in ow uil in

sa e

sa e

n ercons ruc ion

sa e

e ium uil in ow uil in

i

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Human Traffic Density: Day Traffic Flow

Traffic Flow Informal Public Spaces

Informal Public Spaces Traffic Flow Informal Public Spaces

a erin space T pe

Spor

Spor

a erin space T pe

n er ainmen

Spor

ela e

n er ainmen a erin space T pe

a erin space T pe

ela e

ela e

a erin space T pe a erin space T pe

a erin space T pe

rban Furni ure

a erin space T pe

a erin space T pe

n er ainmen

rban Furni ure

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rban Furni ure

Human Traffic Density: Night uil in

sa e

ow uil in

i

sa e

n ercons ruc ion

uil in

sa e

ow uil in

i

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Traffic Flow

Human Traffic Density: Informal Public Spaces Night

Traffic Flow

Traffic Flow

Informal Public Spaces

Informal Public Spaces

Traffic Flow Informal Public Spaces

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APPENDIX C

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Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 151

PERSONAL NARRATIVES + ISSUE STATEMENTS

Issue Statement

EPIPHYLLUM FIELDS

by Lin Derong

When the International Business Park (IBP) was set-up in 1992, it was the first cluster of buildings oriented for commercial needs. These were built upon and catered for the previous late-capitalist economy which lauded for a centralized system. However, with the advent of technology and ubiquity of cloud spaces today, a cybernetic workforce emerged.This questions the current status of IBP today as a business park, notwithstanding that it is a nocturnal barren land.

Furthermore, as our Prime Minister has repeatedly emphasized since the 2000s, we have moved towards a knowledge based economy, and knowledge is our capital. However, with the example of IBP, we have seem to reach an impasse. This is perhaps because spaces provided for are oftentimes controlled within the security of the clusters and bounded by bureaucracy. This is not favourable to brew creativity; and creativity is of paramount as it forms a continuum of knowledge production which negates the generic in the age of mechanical reproduction.

On this note, the thesis builds upon this emergence of the creative class and the new economy of technological sophistication; which is challenged by our existing material infrastructure and bureaucratic system. From the spatial perspective, how do we thus allow buildings and spaces to adapt effectively with time and changing spatial practices?

Existing monolithic blocks and institutionalized working environments is inefficient and not sustainable. How could urbanscapes like IBP regenerates itself adaptively without it growing towards decay?

In light of a city’s resilience and adaptability, Henri Lefebvre has advocated for the Rights to the City where he had astutely called for a restructuring of the relationship between the social, political and economic, whereby (spatial) power control shifts to its urban inhabitants. Similarly in his Production of Space, Lefebvre pointed out that “space is neither static nor preordained, it is a continuous production of spatial relationships, encompass multiplicity and co-existence – which is build upon an existing structure.”

With every shift in economic and business models, it has shaped the way we demand for, plan and occupy space. This is evident when the Bürolandschaft (Office Landscape, 1950s) revolutionized the workspace during with the neoliberalist movement. It broke away from its precedent of compartmentalized modes of work governed by post-fordism – walls were torn down and interior spaces became flexible and an exercise of intersurveillance.

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In this vein, the behavior of a city and our idiosyncrasies in it are intricately linked and they affect each other. With the resulting class of creative workers and decentralized workspaces, business models and practices change. Spatial requirements now demands for an even greater mobility across the city, spatial flexibility and large support infrastructure. Additionally, with systematic cloud spaces governing the way we travel, it abolishes the traditional perception of distance and time which potentially give rise to an organic urban behaviour.

In line with this new revolution of spatial praxes, it thus goes beyond paying lip attention to create a creative and conducive working environment while still adopting traditional building practices. It is even more important now to provide for this physical infrastructure to brew an environment for creative work and to facilitate its nomadic nature.

This thesis thus postulates a new form of spatial organization and planning in concurrence with the new technological savvy creative class. It imagines a flexible moving system which focuses on the material infrastructure supported by an army of data servers. It includes: nodes scattered around the site to provide a datum of ideas and knowledge exchange, making and collaboration; server, cable and cooling systems tucked away from view. This moving system borrows the visions of the Situationists and appropriates itself towards a sustainable economic model for today and the future.This would further extend its connection to the Jurong East Interchange and upcoming Singapore-KL terminus.

The Architecture would then become an operating system which facilitates the emerging economic forces towards a creative and humanized economy.

Air / Events, Ghosts & Phantoms The old train station stood still as it prepares itself to witness another day of light.

The distinctive red paints of its roof trusses are gradually fading while server modems leeches themselves onto the roof’s physical network. The magic is still there. The sounds of flipping billboards echoes through the busy terminal as drones and endless throngs of people traverse through the vast arrival hall. Under the morass of this big city, this magic has survived a long time since Jurong East’s development in 1980s. The precinct by now is a major stronghold for knowledge and business opportunities. After the recent economic bubble, the urban spaces were regenerated and new economic regulations were laid in place. Transformable ships began to invade the old office towers and tulipbulbs could be found drifting around the fields.

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 153

As Oliver’s tulip-bulb cruises down the highway at 180 km/h, he prepares his drawings and wax bars for a meeting with a group of makers and producers in Jurong East for the upcoming Singapore art festival. From his window, he could catch a glimpse of the city through the retina of the hurried eye. Upon his arrival at the train station, an empire of signs from the towers emerged from the clouds as dawn breaks. He was in awe.

This feeling soon turn into a haptic sense of lost as he could not figure out the meeting point. There was no address given except a barcode. He couldn’t ask any passersby as they all seemed to be in a rush and busy on their screens. The meeting place is located at a specific power-point in the agora. As he hovers his bulb and wonders around, he saw drones cruising at break-neck along the old train tracks, fascinating ships dock and transform on the office towers and many tulip-bulbs like his in various colours, converge and diverge as they shimmer in the glorious luminance of the morning sun.

Ground / Field of Field Agents The agora embraces every sort of the idiosyncrasies and anomalies. No one else in this space appear the same, not even their tulip-bulbs. Once Oliver’s tulip-bulb entered the busy agora space, Siri promoted Oliver to set his bulb into auto-pilot mode. This would then automatically lead him to the specific power-point within the shortest time. Amidst all the other vehicles, his tulip-bulb, which also doubles as his atelier and office, deploys once it is plugged into the power-point. The corolla opens and unfolds to reveal the bud of his vehicle. His other two collaborators were already discussing except for the wax maker, who met a little accident coming by the Pandan River.

Within this agora, it was bustling with activities. No one stays at a permanent place for long. This would be the first and last time which Oliver’s blub deploys and blooms at that power-point – which changes location itself from time to time. Upon the wax maker’s arrival, the 4 bulbs forms a mega-bulb by a specific form of connection in the bud and their corellas. This would enclose them to prevent distractions from the haptic world outside while other innumerable ships and tulip-bulbs hover everywhere.

As the design team goes deep into their long discussions and drawings, they would then travel to a nearby prototyping center to test out their ideas. The mega-bulb then latches itself onto a track which brings them automatically to their set location. This series of tracks transports these tulip-bulbs from one node to another and up to the office towers.

As the team nears the prototyping center located within one of transformable ships

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docked in the office towers, the large bulb splits back into 4 to travel back on wheels.

As Oliver enters the prototyping center, he could smell a mélange of scents diffusing through the air; combined with the heavy dusts from the outside. He was excited to test out how these machines could stretch the materiality of wax. Being born in a family of candle makers, Oliver is always fascinated by how wax could turn into other forms of objects and complex art works. Once the testing were in order and documents sent over Google Drive, the 4 of them parted the tower in different directions.

For Oliver, he still had some refinements to do. He then parked his tulip at the nearest power-point and grabbed his copy of Difference and Repetition. He needed to recharge and purchase more data space at a nearby café. Soon, it began to rain. From the window, Oliver witnessed water collected from the various ships cascade onto the tower’s glass panels. All the tulip-bulbs appear to teem ambiguously, but they turned to move in a well-orchestrated way to seek refuge under the protection of the agora. These murky columns of streams from the towers juxtaposed to the cosmic sky is almost a celestial and a surreal sight. Oliver sketched the scene on his moleskin and perhaps somewhere it might spark a new inspiration. He then decided to stay for one more hour to explore city, or perhaps for a moment he felt like he could settle here forever.

Roots / Rule & Control Beneath the complexities and seemingly chaotic organization of the ground surface, is a drastic new wonderland. Expanded from the towers’ old car parks and Jurong Caves, these underground chambers networks across the entire city. While Oliver enjoys his coffee on the ground, his drawings and materials dive deep underground via satellites which coat the atmospheric surface of the Earth. Behind these well-choreographed movements, it lies a boundless underground territory where an immense proliferation of data servers and complicated service pipes nestle themselves. Like an army of disciplined soldiers, it is these systematic server spaces and fiber-optic cables which set the invisible rule that govern the seemingly chaotic and haptic contemporary habitat above ground.

Nocturnal Bloom / Biophilic Theatre In the day, the agora and towers bustles with activities and transactions for people like Oliver and his team. When dusk falls, this scene disappears. The ships decked between the building frames detaches and leaves behind a skeletal tower with its lofty core. No one knows where they would go. Perhaps they are all parked in the underground chambers, or maybe on their way to the next precinct.

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 155

In its nocturnal existence, this precinct takes on another role. The new young urban creatives would creep into the tower and bulb-tracks as a retreat from the day’s work.

These are the only places in town where there are no surveillance cameras. Parties were thrown night after night as it spills outside to encompass Jurong East and the surrounding landscape. People living on social fringes exposes themselves in the dark of this night, celebrating the turn of a new era. The agora occupies a drastically different world in Jurong East, forming a nocturnal agora for the young, the creative, the sleepless and the night-walkers. / Postscript Working primarily with Foucault’s controlled society and Henri Lefebvre’s writings on Production of Space and Right to the City, the narrative enquires into the urban regeneration and infrastructure in concurrence with new modes of and business models and spatial praxes. It is interested in the behaviours of a city, how it adapts with time and how buildings negates itself towards decay. Where architecture emerge. Epiphyllum personifies a certain temporality during bloom, whereas Fields spatializes the narrative set in Jurong East. Throughout the narrative, it suggests an architecture of urban infrastructure which emerge from the economy and the people themselves. /

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Appendix C

Jurong’s Historical Context

GETTING ORGANISED!

When Jurong was constructed as an industrial estate in the 60s and 70s, social and labour activists saw the importance of the area and recognised that they need to monitor the workers. They offered their help to organise these workers who were bused into the area every morning. Even religious groups got involved - they set up Jurong Industrial Mission administered by a Community Organiser called Ron Fujiyoshi from Chicago.

by Lee Mei Ying Shirley

These activists were organising these workers together to campaign for their rights, including for public bus routes to come in. These activities incited the ire of the government, who was afraid that these activities would undermine their power over the workers and worse still, promote an nexus between labour rights movement and religious groups.

After the clamp down in the 1970s, Jurong continued to become the powerhouse for manufacturing and industrial activities, which required a compliant, skilled, workforce that was measured by its ability to produce homogenous products for the global market.

But now, as we approach the third decade of the 21st century, the government recognises that they need an adaptable, flexible workforce that has the capacity to innovate and see new opportunities in global trends and new technologies.Yet there has been little effort to embrace any form of infrastructure that will attract creative minds and individuals with great initiative to work, play and live in this area. Ironically, what the new economy requires harkens back to the early years where the community was organising themselves, considering their own needs, and making it known to the government.

Chapter 1_ Regulation/ Isolation It is morning at exactly 8am. Charlie drowsily looked out his HDB window at the sprawl of monolithic blocks, like tombstones set before him, beckoning him to another banal day of work. His days melted into each other in their similarity, just as the reinforced concrete buildings outside melted into each other in their modularity. The repetitive rows of tinted glass wrapped in the same aluminium frames shone in the glaring sunlight, mocking him.

He knows his schedule - he will walk to the MRT, change stations and then walk again to the office - all the time alongside a crowd, but not speaking to a soul.

The train is packed, but everyone’s eyes are half glazed, averted.

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He walks to work, like a drone, well-timed to reach the office block punctually, floating along the other drones around him. They reach the grid of square office cubicles, two by two metres, like prison cells, but smaller. The grey grid is padded, to stifle conversation carrying across for more than a few metres, any bright colours only poorly camouflaging the sameness and isolation that has descended on their lives. He wants to maybe start talking to his colleague to his right about life, but they are separated by a padded wall that just covers his line of sight. In this grid, he is truly alone. He looks down and starts work, receiving by email his To-Do list for the day. He switches off and becomes a gear in the system, clicking away on the ‘office-provided’ desktop, away from any the outdoors and people, until right before nightfall when he is released.

The drinks stall Elderly in the eatery downstairs wants to tell someone of a time when he hand-made the flute, but he cannot think of anyone who would listen.

He knows everyone from the office blocks have a To-Do list for the day - what he says has no relevance. He continues robotically to brew the drinks, as he has done for the last few decades.

Over time, Charlie settles into the rhythm of doing To-Do lists, and giving cursory nods to his colleagues. He forgets who he is sometimes. He has flashes of a time long ago when he yearned to create, reminders of those yearnings taunting him when they come, but he has received and delivered tasks for so long that he does not know what else to do.

Chapter 2_The New Age The sun rises, rays licking red steel beams in the light. A tower of bare infrastructure stands out like the spine of the city, holding on to the silver threads that run to it. These silver threads cross the horizon of monolithic buildings dotting the skyline, connecting two areas where they did not meet before. Up further north, those who live, those who play, and those who come into the area just for work. The infrastructure starts at the old industrial area, spreading out to the areas near by, an unafraid army, each following the flame of his heart in the darkness, pushing further the silver web. They write the rules that governs their day, living by the vision of their creation. Others echo the rhythm of another city far away, sleeping when others are awake and awake when the night falls.

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This army they live in small, highly personalised pods, the steel cocoon that encases them concaving and protruding to their needs. They courageously push against the society that has pressured them to conformity, and finally the government has heard them. Taping on a screen, they give their earnest suggestions to the government.

“A new bridge connection to the elderly residences” (many ‘Likes’ for this one), “let us have access to hospital resources” (the reply: possibly too much paperwork involved but we can direct you to hospital experts), “more pop-up areas to test-sell our products to the locals” (most popular request post with a few thousand “Likes”).

These requests have driven the map of connectivity nodes across the city the industrial area to the residential, schools and hospitals where there was none before. The government has installed the inconspicuous electrical plugs and ‘cocoon hangers’ around; in nooks and crannies, the heartlands. One can walk to a mall and see a plug at the entrance, protruding off the adjacent wall. Others fall into cracks of disused space, or the middle of a pulsating heartland. Some cocoons move from plug to plug, riding waves of change and trends, changing the space it inhabits overnight. Others are built to be fixed, organically and fluidly filling up spaces others have once shunned.

These cocoons they beckon towards metamorphosis; inviting the Sleeping ones around to reach towards them. The Sleeping ones, initially going around in their daily lives suddenly stop - sometimes in curiosity, sometimes in bewilderment, sometimes in loneliness - and there they watch and talk to the army busying in their cocoons as they furiously create; and the Sleeping ones themselves awake from the Sleep, entering the cocoons and making new cocoons as they undergo the process of creation, excitement and self discovery.

Charlie drifts into a cocoon parked in the green of his office one lunch time.

He see what others are doing, his dreams of creation not the faraway longing he has thought it was. There, others just like him busily work on their vision, unchained and free. His eyes open, and he takes one hesitant step forward… and Charlie awakens from his slumber. /

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 159

NEW BUSINESS MODES IN SINGAPORE

by Lin Derong + Lee Mei Ying Shirley

Sustainable Living Lab - 111 Middle Road NEW BUSINESS MODES IN SINGAPORE Sustainable Living Lab - 111 Middle Road

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Sustainable Living Lab - 111 Middle Road NEW BUSINESS MODES IN SINGAPORE Sustainable Living Lab - 111 Middle Road

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 161

Mettle Work - 50 Lorong 17 Geylang NEW BUSINESS MODES IN SINGAPORE Mettle Work - 50 Lorong 17 Geylang

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Blk 71 - 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent NEW BUSINESS MODES IN SINGAPORE BLK71 - 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 163

GARDENS BY THE BUSINESS

by Kim Heewan

Issue Statement The CBD in Jurong East will take the role to lead the economy of Singapore in the future.

Therefore I focused on designing not a conventional, comfortable working space, but a totally new concept of working space, which is a park of business, not a concrete jungle. To imagine the buildings in the future when people work in virtual world, I focused on what cannot be virtualized for humans so that I can concentrate on making space for those activities when I design the CBD for users. Firstly, some examples that will be virtualized in the future (actually already started to be virtual) are bank, department store, and book (information). In the future, there will be no need to go to the ‘physical’ bank or library since every tasks can be done and all the information can be easily found via online system. However, there are thing that cannot be virtualized even in the far future. Those are clothes, food, taking a shower, bed, nature, exercise, and meeting, and these activities are usually the most essential ones for humans living in a society. For these reasons, I decided to design a CBD that helps people make balance of ‘work’ and ‘life’.

To describe the concept of my project, I will explain 4 keywords of it. First, it is multi-purpose. In Jurong East, there are various functions around MRT station; residential area, business district, leisure space, nature and big commercial shops. I want the newly designed area be the center of the site that combines all other functions around it. Secondly, to be relevant for the space in the future, it should have flexible and adaptable space. The building itself should be interactive with users, not being fixed for fixed tasks. The walls will be light, movable and foldable. Third, it will have multi-layered space, which means there will be space in different levels; inside the buildings, outside (park), underground. It will make the place used 24/7 by not only workers, but also residents and tourists and richen the experience of users in the site.

Finally, by providing various space for various purpose, it will increase the opportunity for people to communicate with other people. There will be a community of enterprisers, innovators, artists and engineers. #ANarrativeOfCreativeNomad I just arrived at Changi airport in Singapore from Korea, for a project meeting in ‘Business Town’ in Jurong East. I took a train from the airport to the town. It took less than a half hour to get to the destination. It was very crowded at the station with so many people from all over the world. With my suitcase, I went upstairs to find the room in the town which I will stay for a week.

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After check in my room, I came out to look around the town. Unique buildings were sparsely located in the town around the MRT station. At first, this area looked like a park or a garden, not a business district. The thick forest around me made me feel the fresh air, so I took a rest lying down in a hammock. I could see the sky and trees and felt so comfortable and relaxed so I slept in it. After taking a short nap, I walked around and found out that the buildings were deeply embedded in the ground and harmonized well with the tall trees around them.

I got a message that the first meeting would be held in ‘multi-purpose room #1’. There was no fixed rooms or seats for workers in Business Town. One should book a room which is very flexible and ‘smart’. The users could move the walls in the room as they wanted as the walls were all designed movable and transformable. We also could adjust the colour of lightings, so we made the lighting blue white which helps us concentrate on the work when we were having a deep discussion.

There was also a food restaurant in another building in the Business Town. While I was walking along the path to that building, I could see many impromptu events and activities on the grass in the town. Both the people working in business town and residents looked like they were enjoying their time there. Families were playing badminton, couples were talking to each other sitting on the benches that looked unique. The atmosphere here was so peaceful, relaxing and active as well. On the other side of the town, there were big shopping malls which were crowded with many young people. I could see that the residents love this area and routinely visit this place. This site was for not only working space, but also living and relaxing, so that it was utilized actively by for 24 hours every day.

After having dinner at food court, I went outside again and sat on the bench near the flower garden. The view from this seat was really good, I could see a big space with small trees naturally made below the railroad. Lighting from the railway made this space look visionary and fantastic.There were some posters and paintings on the columns and young children were playing around them. The short time I spend in the park helped me relieve stress and recover from fatigue of a far trip.

The first day in Business town was never boring or tiring for me. Rather, the way the town was designed made me feel relaxed and hospitalized. Most of all, it was not a ‘concrete jungle’ at all, surrounded by the garden and park. Tomorrow, I have to attend a big conference here, and it is planned to be held on the highest floor in Business town. I am looking forward to going there and seeing the view from the place. /

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 165

UNPLUG, RECHARGE: SANCTUARIES IN THE HYPERCITY

Unplug: Disconnect (an electrical device) by removing its plug from a socket.

Recharge: Restore electrical energy by connecting a battery to a power supply.

Sanctuary: Refuge or safety from pursuit, or other danger.

Hyper-: Over; beyond; above. Excessively, above normal.

by Ng Chloe

Issue Statement

The following texts place the City in the viewpoints of three different protagonists: • 33 year old female who does administrative work in an office, and is married with no children; • 24 year old single male who works in retail; • 51 year old male divorcee with two children, who serves as a regional manager in an MNC, respectively.

The hypothetical Singapore of 2065 is explored wherein work, live, and play have converged as one. Architecture serves as both a vehicle to express the struggles of the people, and an intervention to help them attempt to negotiate this new future.The future is envisaged as one where uncontrolled consumerism and capitalism have dominated the landscape. When land is exceedingly scarce and resources finite, there comes a critical point in the population balance where immigration and the importing of new talent is no longer seen as a viable solution. Rather, the only way to survive is by increasing the productivity of the existing working population, already overburdened by a large segment of elderly, and taxed by a dangerously low birth rate. Society is thus ruled by a brutal efficiency and efficacy in everything people do, almost as a throwback to Taylorism in the Industrial Revolution era. People work hard, and play hard, and literally live life to the fullest, demanding unwavering productivity and efficacy in everything they do.

The project is thus concerned about how people can navigate these new spaces and in turn, carve out spaces of their own in the urban fabric, places termed as ‘Sanctuaries’ where mentally exhausted workers can disconnect from the hypercity and engage in activities that heal the body, and mind. The three protagonists were specifically chosen to reflect a broader take on the future society (different ages and different occupations), to hopefully provide some possibilities for architectural intervention in their lives by taking on their varied personas. These Sanctuaries provide a range of spaces that vary programmatically, but all have a common goal in letting people have a space where they can destress and disconnect from the city: spaces that serve to heal and reinvigorate, spaces that heal the body and the mind.

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I She leans back on her chair and closes her eyes. It’s 11.37. She’s still in the office. When she realises she can see the numbers running in the dark, as if embossed on the insides of her lids, she knows she’s been at the spreadsheet for way too long. She takes another sip of her coffee, now cold, and buries her head in her hands.

It isn’t until she actually gets up from her desk and sees the black of the night does she realise exactly how many hours she’s lost, engrossed in repetitive administration work. The glass is foggy, water condensed, distorting the outside image. Lights from the outside flicker, the streets empty, the gardens at the far right deserted in the middle of the night. Like beacons in the dark the Spaces are there, they always are, but until now she’s never ever stepped foot into one. It’s as if she’s afraid of what her colleagues will think. But when she sees a door open, light fanning out, she finds she’s drawn to it like the inevitability of a moth drawn to the flame.

She’s determined to take a break. She think she’s had enough for today. She removes her glasses, sweeps her phone and charger into her bag, slips on her shoes and pads quietly out. The office is empty, and dark, save for a light at the end. The wait at the lift lobby is surprisingly long given the timing, and she clicks her heels in frustration.

It’s a quick walk in the cool night air.The Space grows bigger and bigger, and unconsciously her heart pounds as she nears. What will they think? She’s snubbed them for so long, having passed the place countless times in her months since working here. She’s afraid they’ll judge.

The door opens again, light fanning out, and it’s suddenly too late to back out. She’s been caught in the light, too near to the door for anyone to assume she’s just a mere passerby – as they always are – and not far enough to feign disinterest. She’s wandered wittingly into a trap and she almost welcomes it as she’s led in, and any misgivings she’s had are now shelved aside. The Place is welcoming, lively in a way the malls aren’t, filled with people in a way the trains aren’t; the people are happy, smiling, and waiting. They welcome her like one of their own.

She quickens her pace, mortified that she’s actually made her way into one of the Spaces.

She’s frightened of meeting her colleagues here. The walls are shaking, and she doesn’t have to look inside to figure out what’s going on. The screams and yelling are enough.

She’s starting to regret entering the Space; maybe she could back out now?

Too late; her traitor feet have taken her to the room at the very far end of the hallway. It’s the room she’s heard about for first timers like her. She pushes the door open slowly. She

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 167

wants to leave. But her traitor feet don’t want to; she’s done so much and suffered for so long, she desperately needs release.

Fine, she thinks, and closes the door behind her. She doesn’t know how to start, embarrassed as if afraid of being observed by some invisible eye. She takes a deep breath, and another. She’s definitely not ready for this, but - maybe this is what she needs, after all. Emotions are not a weakness here in the way they are at work, but a cathartic outlet for her to vent. The straight facade she’s kept at work, the walls she’s put up around herself can all come down now, in the privacy of the room. Yes, maybe this is what she needs.

She lets out a tentative yell that comes out more like a croak than anything else. Again, she shakes her head, and breathes. Another yell - much better, she decides.

She tries to reconnect with her emotions, so long lost from her that when she finally does recollect her repressed anger, she realises it’s her emotions she’s feeling. She’s always thought of herself as a third person, somebody that’s not her, but in the bright lights of the room she finally realises that the gamut of emotions running through her are hers and uniquely hers alone.

Anger. Frustration.

The room is suddenly blindingly white and bright, and she screams. She pounds against the wall; it’s not a cry for help but a shout of relief, not a yell of hopelessness but one of optimism. She yells, louder and more forceful and more natural this time around, and slams her fists against the wall, anger manifest as physical form.

She lets out another yell. Her voice echoes back hollowly in the empty room. She clenches her fists, now hurting from when she had slammed them against the wall, and screams as loud as she can, frightening even herself. She’s angry at the world, frustrated at her situation in life, and most of all she finally feels like she’s in contact with her emotions, so long repressed she’s forgotten she even had emotions.

She screams until her energy is spent; and stumbles, staggers, and sits on the ground.

Her vision blurs as her eyes mist. She writhes, tears streaming down her cheeks, and pulls her knees to her, energy spent. She’s shaking, trembling like a leaf as she tries to collect herself. She curls there for a while, as she lets the situation sink in. She can’t leave now with her puffy eyes; she doesn’t want nor need the people outside to judge. She blinks, and composes herself. Now she almost regrets coming in; this Space has reminded her that she has emotions and that those are her own. She doesn’t want nor need that reminder; life is tough enough without having her feelings in the way.

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She purses her lips, and opens the door. She makes her way out brusquely, feet carrying her as quickly away as possible from the one room she just wants to dwell in. She leaves without as much greeting the very people that welcomed her in; they don’t seem to mind.

Her stone mask is back, wall erected back in place, emotions safely locked up and out of touch and out of mind. She walks away from the Space and calls a cab. In the darkness she has time to think. Her mask is still there, and she’s composed, but inside, her emotions are roiling. She hates the Space, and she regrets looking out her office window in the first place. She regrets leaving her spreadsheet behind. She regrets even being promoted to a cubicle with a window view in the first place.

A pair of bright lights illuminate her. The cab is here, efficient and like clockwork. But as she sets her lips back into a thin line and enters the car, she’s loathe to admit to herself that the reason she hates the Space is simply because it’s allowed her to be human once more, when all along she’s always felt like she was playing the part of a robot.

But she loves it - the Space has been liberating in a way she has never experienced for a very, very long time. Maybe her anger has been misplaced. Maybe the Space is exactly what she needs. And so she makes up her mind: she’s definitely coming back tomorrow.

II He’s like a robot. “Hi, how may I help you?” “Thank you. Happy to serve” are the only words in his vocabulary (and in that order). Day in and day out, the customers are tiresome, and mean. One lady, buying several of the flagship phones, tosses the money in his face. He manages a smile, and only breaks down when he’s hidden in the storage room. Work can’t end soon enough.

Like a drone he makes his way out of the microclimate that people refer to as ‘shopping centres’, and into the blistering heat. The heat is searing even at this time, people scurrying for shelter wherever possible, but yet he relishes the feel of the sun on his skin, the touch of the heat on his face. At least here, in the sun, he feels finally away from the dullness that has threatened to tighten its grip on him. He wants to go to the Space – his Space – today, but to a different one. He doesn’t want to go to his usual spot.

The directions he gets are contradictory; the young man clutches his phone closer to him as he jostles through the crowd. The Space doesn’t take long to find, only because he’s been wandering in circles around the wrong places. The city is a maze to him, tall

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 169

buildings and glass bridges and high ceilings and sunken recesses in an endless labyrinth of noise and sound and sights; he feels tiny, dwarfed by steel monoliths and behemoths that look the same old, same old.

He is a nomad in the truest sense of the word, lost in the city he’s called home for his entire life, out of place among the power-suit wearers and briefcase-totters that rush past him in streams. He wants to slow down but he can’t, for fear of somebody knocking into him from behind. He wants to slow down in life but he can’t, afraid of falling off the treadmill. The stick is right behind him, prodding him in the back when he falters, and yet the carrot seems infinitesimally far away, as though the treadmill is extending two metres for every extra metre he runs.

Eventually he stumbles upon the Space, a tiny nook tucked into a dark recess somewhere out of sight, out of mind. For all the values of the Space people extol, having to admit reliance on them is almost a weakness in today’s society of constructed facades and double faces. Everybody he knows visits them, but yet they all vehemently deny it. It’s an open secret and one of the most, yet least, guarded secrets of modern society.

He enters, and takes in the sights and sounds as easily as he breathes. He’s surrounded on all sides, senses assailed by all manners of sight, sound and touch. His senses are in overdrive. The place is positively pounding with music, and flooded with people, but in a good way, none of the grey ones he’s used to. It’s dynamic and energising, but yet relaxing and destressing.

He weaves his way in past the drunks at the entrance heading out, and declines the alcohol. He doesn’t need the excuse of drink to let his hair down; he’s a veteran, now, only the newbies need the extra help and prodding.

He’s here with a purpose, and his singular focus leads him to the crowd at the dance floor.

They move as One, a sinuous Body, limbs synchronised and movements coordinated, step by step to the music. He finds himself getting deeper and deeper into the crowd, but he relishes it: the neon lights, the pounding music, the sweaty mass of people. Rhythmic, heart pounding, he looks about at the blinding, blinking neon lights that cast shades of cyan, magenta and yellow across the crowd.

One particular woman steps up to the dias. She bursts into unsynchronised dancing, almost as a protest to the Space. Almost immediately the crowd follows, a thrill rippling through the mass of people as they stumble awkwardly to the new moves the woman has just created, doing the very thing she wants to respond against. The woman leaves, exasperated, to a Space he knows will accept her for who she is. She departs without much fanfare; the crowd parts to let her leave, and closes back almost immediately as the dancing continues.

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He breathes. The strob light finds him today, washing him in its neon colours. He’s suddenly the centre of attention. While at work he’ll have hated the extra attention, hated the spotlight on him, here he welcomes it. He dances, body swaying to the crowd and the music, and begins to execute a move of his own. He’s sure the crowd will follow, and it gives him a thrill to realise that his actions here actually mean something, actually count for something.

In this Space, he’s actually somebody, defined not by what he is but by who he is. As expected the crowd follows him, imitating his moves uncannily. He lets out a yell, all pumped up, and the crowd cheers with him. The lights leave him and shine on another, but he’s had his fun. His head throbs, colours interplaying across skin as he breaks from the crowd and stumbles to the side of the room where he stands in the shadow of the dark.

He leaves late that night. The moon is full and bright, casting her soft glow all over the land. He walks in his shadow, playfully stepping on himself, spirits lifted by the sheer exhilaration and liberation he’s felt in the space. Under the moonlight, his heart sings.

III He leaves the office on time today, although that messes up his time management. As he walks to his car in the basement he’s mentally calculating the time he needs to reach there, and the time he needs to get home, to figure out the time he has available to spend there. The basement is empty, and quiet, as he thinks. His footsteps are the only sound he hears. Under the harsh fluorescent lights he finally figures out an answer, and, satisfied with himself, continues on his way to his car. He locates it soon enough, slides in, and closes the door. He’s ready to go. He pulls out of the carpark, sighing softly as he settles into the short drive.

A long stretch of road straight, and then a right turn down the street. Take another two lefts. A pause at the intersection where he knows people love to jaywalk. Jaywalkers safely across, he steps on the pedal and proceeds, orange glow from the streetlights alternating in bands of shadow and light.

Light, dark, light, dark, light, dark. It’s rhythmic, calming, and for him the journey to his Space is almost as soothing as the actual experience itself, serving as a form of primer for what’s to come. This path is routine to him, the seasoned city traveller, the veteran of the concrete jungle as he ploughs straight through. The road is smooth, as always. As usual.

A right turn, and straight down till the third intersection. Light, dark, dark, dark, light.

He frowns, annoyed by the spoilt streetlight. It’s broken his rhythm, soured his mood.

He continues anyway. This is but a preamble. He’s deeper into the city now, buildings

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 171

increasingly homogeneous as he leaves the older precinct behind. He’s grown up on these very streets, played in these very fields, but they are but remnants and fragments of a distant past that people would sooner like to forget.

Another right turn, and two streets down, straight. He’s guilty of that too, but he’s not ashamed to say he doesn’t wish to look back. Life now is better: it’s perfect and efficient, clockwork like the way the train from Malaysia always pulls into the station at 8:35:10 every single day without fail, and departs at 12:48:04. Nobody misses the train because nobody is late.

A left turn. He’s nearly at his destination. He checks his watches. Satisfied, he begins to slow down. He doesn’t want to be late, but he doesn’t want to be early. He’ll stay at the Space for exactly an hour, and then head home: his children are waiting.

He reaches the Space, parking his car in the exact same spot: nobody here fights with him for lots, everybody has settled into a non-verbal agreement. He likes this Space because the people remind him of himself. He pushes through the door with practiced ease. He loosens his tie, removes his coat and drapes it over his arm. He’s never felt more at ease the entire day. It’s here where he finally feels he can let loose, lifting away the burden on his shoulders. It’s here where he feels he can be himself. Even home is starting to feel artificial to him.

He unbuttons his shirt, fingers picking at the stiff buttons as he disrobes, and hangs it neatly in the locker. He removes his watches and places them on the shelf within. He unbuckles his belt and hangs it with his shirt. He locks the cabinet and tucks the keys into his pocket.

He pads out softly to the main hallway. It is long, and dim, and in the glow of the lights from the recesses of the ceiling, he looks out for his room. 172. The number is familiar to him, etched in his mind; he comes to the place like clockwork anyway. And so when he stops before his door, he removes the keys from his pocket and unlocks it more by muscle memory than anything else.

He enters, bare skin tingling in the dim light as his body prepares himself physiologically for what is to come. He closes the door behind him, locks it in place, and carefully lies down in the centre of the room. The wood against his body is still warm; the previous occupant had left just since. He settles in, arms stretched and legs relaxed, and steadies his breathing. The silence is deafening, but in a good way, the type that numbs his senses.

He lies there, and the quiet gives him plenty of time to think. Deep, calming breaths. In, out, in and out. He feels his chest rise and fall with each breath, heartbeat rhythmic and loud in the small, quiet room.

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He is finally alone with his thoughts. He closes his eyes, and in his semi-conscious state and like a lucid dream the day he’s just experienced floats back to mind. He’s started out with breakfast, he thinks, as he listens to his breathing. Breakfast was a quick affair on the road while fetching his kids to school. The morning was spent stuck in an interdepartment meeting; he hates being stuck and he hates wasting time, he’s surprised the other departments are so good at doing the things he loathes the most. He runs his workers like clockwork.

Lunch was burnt arguing with the Ex over the kids. He doesn’t want to dwell on that; it’ll spoil his meditative, almost peaceful mood. Post-lunch was meeting clients. That went fairly well. He was sure he exceeded his 120% productivity goal. Dinner unfortunately turned out to be fairly long; the HR head didn’t quite know when to shut up. Mentally he composed a list of people most likely to be sacked next. Post-dinner was alright, he decided. He managed to clear quite a bit of work, so that was okay.

He’ll rate his day a solid 7 out of 10, deducting a point for the stupid meeting, a point for that endless hour-long phone call with the Ex saying stuff that had already been said before, and lastly, a point for the talkative HR executive that made him 4 minutes and 9 seconds off his personal schedule. He breathed. The day had been tiresome, even by his standards. He really needs less distractions, and he really needs to focus more. The floor is getting cold. It’s time to leave soon, he’s spent almost an hour here; he doesn’t need his watches to tell time, he’s gotten so used to the passing of time he can estimate it well enough.

Alright. He’s been here long enough. He gets up, and dusts his pants down more from habit than anything else. He leaves the room and makes his way back to his locker. He shrugs on his shirt, buckles back his belt, puts his watches back on his left wrist, and drapes his blazer over an arm.

Feeling energised, having ruminated about his day long enough, he returns the key and makes his way to his car. He drives away into the dead of the night, light bands still alternating: light, dark, light, dark. The pattern continues, and he knows it will, even as he filters away from it and onto the slip road that’ll take him home.

Light, dark, light, dark. The world stops for no one and for nothing. /

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 173

HIDDEN DIMENSION

by TuWen

复前行，欲穷其林。林尽水源，便得一山，山有小口，仿佛 若有光。便舍船，从口入。初极狭，才通人。复行数十步， 豁然开朗。土地平旷，屋舍俨 然，有良田美池桑竹之属。 阡陌交通，鸡犬相闻。其中往来种作，男女衣着，悉如外 人。黄发垂髫，并怡然自乐。-----陶渊明 《桃 花源记》 I wake up in front of my office table.

In the first glimmer of dawn, the entire city is still sleeping. I press down the alarm clock with numbed hand and turned to window side. The outline of group of skyscrapers is enshrouded in mist.

The computer continuously works during my sleep. Since the project is almost finished, I eventually feel relieved. After packing my massy documents up, I wave to my zombie fellows who still staring at their screens, and drag myself out of this office building slowly.

Where am I going now? Oh yeah, I should go home. What I urgently need now is the bread I froze in my fridge yesterday, as well as a comfortable bed.

There are few cars running on the street silently. Some of them even keep their headlights on. And I am the only one walking across the mirror image of this city. Everything around quiets down. However, it is not the complete silence. The air mixed with dryness- heat and the smell of petrol has been replaced by fresh moist air stream in my body. I guess it might just drizzled before I started on this journey. Pedestrian ways are matted with magenta shrubs and dotted by tiny flowers with shining drops of dew. There are longan trees planted by residents, standing behind those bushes. It must be an abundant harvest season and I am attracted by clusters of longan on branches as well as those fallen ripened fruits on the ground. Gradually, I am able to hear the sound of radios. Warbling birds bringing faint fragrance of fried bread stick arrives with no trace, lead me to somewhere further.

The mist melts quietly as I walk. People start to gather as small groups for morning exercises. Chat even goes among strangers. An uncle who happens to pass by me on his jogging route, smiles and allows me to pet his doggy. Simultaneously, several handmade bamboo steamers in street-side kiosks are opened. The entire street is fulfilled with appetizing smell and pleasant atmosphere. I feel I could just sit down by a small table with several new friends, waiting for my order and sipping a bowl of soybean milk in no rush.

I did not notice the timing when cats started to be evolved my journey. They have little fear of humans. One of them would even ask for food by pulling my pants. I follow it at a distance, After passing through several screens and doors, I realize that I just arrived at

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a much wider space all of a sudden. Pigeons gather at a small square besides me. Some of them just fly overhead and aim at adjoining islands --- there are numbers of colorful islands floating around at a variety of altitudes, and at the same time, new lands keep being created in a further distance.

All these experiences from a wonderful scroll painting. I am not only the one who record, but also been involved in to it as a part. This is exactly my dream city, isn’t it? Is it still the reality which I entered three years ago?

I stroll to the boundary of the island and step into the water instead of ferries berthing along the coast.Te coldness catches me and pull me towards those light spots underwater.

I realized that I am stepping on the ceramic tiles in my hallway and facing bright incandescent lamp. The security door shuts with noisy alarm behind me.

I close my eyes once again. /

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 175

URBAN SANCTUARIES

Dora the Explorer

by Kim Heewan + Ng Chloe + TuWen

In the maze of a city the young girl crawls in a maze of her own. The insides of the tubes and ducts are big and yet small, unpredictable and colourful; occasionally portholes open out onto the world of adults outside. But here in her world, she’s an explorer in the truest sense of the word.

She’s covered in orange light as she stumbles into a tangerine-coloured tube, hands scrabbling for the way forward, back bent, and legs following behind. Knees scraping against the surface, she makes her way into an intersection. To the left she knows the purple duct leads her back to the swings; to the right she hears laughter and cries of joy echoing through the green tube. She takes the road more travelled, and recalibrates herself, and picks her way through the green tube. Her mental map is clear, now, as she charts a new course.

The green tube is narrower than the orange, and the curves of the tube brush against her shoulders; she’s broad-shouldered enough anyway, she can’t imagine what it’ll be like if she were larger. She crawls forward, feeling as if she is an explorer mapping out a new cave for the first time; despite the fact that she knows that there have been many children before here, and there will be many more after her.

Some tubes are darker than others, others brighter; some more transparent, and others more opaque. Occasionally the tubes open up to allow her a glimpse of the world outside: bustling, busy, vibrant, adults rushing their separate ways. As she sticks her head out of an opening, she waves to everybody and anybody downstairs.

Her mother, busy on the phone, and standing just below, manages a quick wave. The adults are curious, they always are, as they try to peer in, eyes wide as they stare in wonderment at the maze of ducts and tubes, slides and ladders, swings and bars, amazed that the city actually has so much to offer for its children.

Satisfied, she turns away from the sights outside and crawl away into another tube, onward on her journey of boundless exploration and limitless adventure.

Hypersense It’s been a long, sweaty day at work. The moment she enters she heads straight for the showers. The water is cold against her skin, and she shivers. When she’s done she towels herself dry, and she drapes the cloth over herself, silky fabric sliding over soft skin as she shivers, and, wrapping her arms around herself protectively, walks to the door.

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One tentative footstep later and through the threshold of the entrance, she finds herself in a bright green room. She wriggles her toes against the carpet, soft and lush against her skin as she sits down and tries to make herself comfortable. The room is quiet, save for the sound of water somewhere nearby. She can’t see the water source, but she knows it’s close from the sound it makes; it’s not entirely unwelcome, either, the silence can sometimes be deafening. She leans against the curved wall of the room, and the tension in her seemingly drains out.

The air is clean, freshest oxygen from the purest reaches of the earth pumped into the room. The green on the walls is slowly changing, morphing into a turquoise which she knows will turn into a teal blue and then a shade of aquamarine, and so on... But for now the green on the wall bathes her in its glow. She feels immersed in the colours, reality blurring into fantasy as she closes her eyes.

A bowl of delectable fruits rest nearby. She picks up an orange; it is cold, wet, smooth against her palms. There are other fruits in the bowl as well; oranges and apples, peaches and pears, bananas and grapes. A slight sheen of water envelops the fruits; and they look fresh and moist, as if just plucked and delivered to her. She takes a bite of the orange; it squelches, juice splattering over her cheeks, but she doesn’t care. Another bite, and it’s like manna from the heavens. The sleeve of the cloth slides down as she lifts a hand to push her hair out from her face; she’s suddenly vaguely aware of the luxuriant feel of the soft silk against her skin, her sense of touch in overdrive.

The room is a treat for her, a luxury to pamper her senses, long dulled and numbed by the dreariness of the city. The air is a delight for her to breathe in, so used to the petrolridden smell of the city that never seems to go away. The fruits are refreshing; food has gotten so bland and mass-produced that the chicken rice is starting to taste even like carbonara pasta. The silk against her skin is a welcome respite for her; a break away from her usual sweat-drenched self – such are the small luxuries in life. The colours of the room help her relax, and allow her to hide from reality and seek a whimsical fantasy; but that’s what the room is, isn’t it?

The freshest fruits, the finest silk, the purest oxygen, the glow of the colours – she feels as if she is in a world apart from her own. It’s unlike anything she has ever seen, heard, felt, tasted or touched before, and in this oasis of meditative calm in the urban city, her heart sings.

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 177

Urban Adventurer It’s been a gruelling day; his legs hurt from the walking, and his boots – newly bought for the trip – are giving him blisters. He wipes his neck with the towel as, as a group, they plod to the site. The day has been long and busy; dynamic and active. He’s rediscovered the city he’s grown up in his entire life; what he thinks he knows about the dull, grey buildings is different from what he’s realised tonight.

His escape from the city has actually led him back to the city itself, and he now knows the city has more to offer. His questions about the city are answered by the city itself.The tall grey buildings hide secrets of their own, and the people that inhabit these buildings have their own stories to tell. Unspoken, unexpressed, unrepresented; the trip today has allowed him new revelations. He sees the city in a new light now.

He drags his bag to a sheltered corner, and manages a quick wave at his new friends for the night. The tents are everywhere, above the voids and between the dull grey buildings.

He stumbles onto the ground, and crashes to the grass. It is moist and dewy, lush against his tired body; he wriggles his toes, and breathes in the fresh scent.

Around him, people are chatting; his neighbour sits up and strikes a conversation with him.The air is buzzing with excitement, hype rippling through the small groups of seated people. Music is coming from somewhere, and the sound of a guitar floats through the air. Almost in unspoken unison, the people gather, expectant, and a sense of calm and yet, anticipation, permeate the atmosphere. Now everyone is silent as the first stars begin to twinkle in the dark night sky, rivalling the brightness of the urban city lights. The city is in a glass heaven, spots of light dotting the insides as they grow brighter, and dimmer, and brighter, and dimmer, and brighter...

The Old Man and the Bowl It’s a short walk to the Space. The old man hobbles slowly past the mass of adults rushing on their way to work. In his singlet and slippers and the worn buttoned shirt he hangs like a badge of pride on his gaunt shoulders, he shuffles forward in his slippers, the plastic bag with the pottery pieces inside banging against his right leg with each alternate step.

He reaches the Space soon enough, and leaves the sweltering heat and into the cool of the room. He finds a seat at the corner, and carefully digs the pieces out from the plastic bag and lays them on the table. It’s not his first day here today, so he’s at least somewhat familiar with what to do. The pottery was a gift, he remembers, as he examines one of the larger pieces, a plain motif on the surface that feels like ridges against his calloused fingers, hardened by years of rough work.

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Broken in a moment of carelessness, he now has an opportunity to piece it back together.

The bowl is more than just a bowl; it represents him, and what he stands for, a lone old man in the city of the young seemingly for the young. The bowl encapsulates who he is as a person, broken, spent, beyond repair.

But in this space both he and his bowl find new purpose. He was sceptical, at first, but as he examines the pieces one by one, cradling them in his hands as if they were precious pearls, he begins to feel enlightened. The old man’s hands tremble as he tries to put the pieces together. The moment hangs in the air as his surroundings seem to still, his heartbeat and his breathing the only sounds he can hear. He holds his breath as he joins the pieces – but his hand slips, and the pieces fall to the table, shattering the silence that has enveloped him.

But he’s not frustrated; around him his companions continue with their own pieces, and as he looks out the window and onto the world beyond, his heart seemingly grows lighter. For through the glass, and through the hanging pieces of pottery that hang from the ceilings and windows, the city is ethereal. The old pottery stands in sharp contrast to the sleek steel-and-glass facades, light refracting through in an unearthly manner that is in relief to the bright light reflecting off the glass of the buildings. It stains the floor and table a brown, earthly glow, shadows interplaying with light.

His heart rises, and he picks up the pieces once more. /

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 179

Issue Statement

URBAN ALLOTMENTS

by Maria Tsvetkova

Healthy lifestyle is a very hot topic nowadays. People usually eat in a hurry, skip meals, eat meat three times a day or do not even look at what they eat. Food is processed to a stage where one is not really sure what exactly is on his plate. Fruits and vegetables are GMO, imported from foreign countries and travelled thousands kilometres. In the same time the food waste is so much and yet so many people in the world are starving.

Urban Allotments is facing current world problems such as globalization, urbanism, food and mass production as creating a sustainable and self-sufficient neighbourhood.

Furthermore, it is facing local issues such as community separation and lack of personal outdoor/green space. Through the project individuals will have the opportunity to own a personal garden space close to their HDB flats, also the opportunity for community integration through different activities and education for students from local schools.

The scheme is looking at Jurong East from the perspective of the residents in the area and from the perspective of the consumer who is tired of the fast peace and fast food lifestyle and dreams about going back closer to nature to experience a different, better and natural life through producing food. Living in nature the people of Jurong East will enjoy edible gardens full of vegetables, fruits, herbs. In between the plant clusters there will be places to gather and celebrate everyday life, the return of nature, harvesting.

Furthermore, there will be education sessions, veggie market, herbarium, opportunity for small local business. Designing such a productive landscape scheme integrated in the HDB area will bring life back to the streets there and make Jurong East Singapore Central Residential District.

Narrative I woke up this morning with the first sun rays lighting up my room. I looked outside the window and smiled. It was such a beautiful morning, the sky was clear and the only thing I could hear was the wind blowing the plants on my balcony. I made a fresh fig and kale smoothie and went to have it on the balcony. From my flat on the 22nd floor I could see all the way from the Chinese Gardens to the new High Speed Rail station that connects Jurong East with Kuala Lumpur. Oh, just how much did this view changed for the last fifteen years. I remember all the concrete “fields”, dirty carparks, industrial roofs, traffic jams and noise pollution and today there is barely a track of that. Instead of these, there are gardens everywhere now, the roof tops look more like fields with green, yellow, red

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patches of crops just like you are flying over the countryside with an airplane. Instead of the road lanes now I can observe bicycle tracks and corridors of trees interlocking their branches to provide shade and passageways for the people hurrying to catch the public transport and go to work.

I looked at the clock and it was 07:00 already. Got ready quickly and left my flat in few minutes. In the elevator I met Calvin from the 16th floor who usually comes to help us with the food market after work. We talked about the new elevators and how great it is that they use magnetic fields now which make them very fast and environmental friendly.

We walked together to the parking and then I went up to my garden to water the plants.

I picked one mango off the tree and cut it for for an afternoon snack.

I reached at the Shūcài Community Centre before 8:00. Some of my colleagues and neighbours were already upstairs in the gardens taking care of the plants and crops we are growing there. In the the Shūcài Community Garden there are more than 50 edible plants, including fruits, vegetables and herbs such as pomelo, longan, durian, green peppers, tomatoes, bok choy, spinach and even less common plants such as arugula and rocket leaves.

At 9 o’clock students from the local secondary school came to learn about producing food locally and what we do there. I gave them a lecture on productive landscape and after that we walked around the Centre and the neighborhood to show them the allotments, the gardens and pathways we have created and familiarize them with the plants. Some of students were very surprised that they haven’t noticed all these edible vegetables and fruits around the area and around the pathways they take every day to school and to the mall. We gathered all the ripe fruits and veggies and took them to the market. After that we went to the food court to experience some locally produced organic food for lunch. /

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 181

LIVING STREETS, DEAD STREETS

by Heng Bang Hao

Issue Statement I feel that the main issue for pedestrians on the subject of walking is that streets (linkways and walkways) seem to be designed as mere utilitarian transitional spaces, resulting in the lack of a pleasant street experience in Singapore. Streets which do not inspire a desire to be used, cannot fulfil its maximum potential. Without dealing with this missing fundamental aspect of walking, streets will always remain in a state of undead (living dead) condition.

Factors causing street unpleasantness A.

monotonous spatial rhythm

The lack of a variety of street elements along one street often contributes to a lack of human activities and dull walking experience. Link ways in HDB estates seem to worsen the problem of homogeneity of street experience, similarly to sheltered walkways connecting various buildings and transportation facilities to one another.

This causes a dull and mundane walking experience due to the homogeneity of spatial rhythm.

B.

weather and climate conditions (tropics)

The daily high average temperatures, high humidity level, and high rainfall level is one of the major causes of the dissatisfaction and unwillingness to walk on streets among pedestrians. This hinders the likelihood of streets being used, especially during daytime, since nobody enjoys being drenched in one’s own perspiration or the rain.

This leads to uncomfortable / undesirable walking conditions, hence discouraging street usage.

C.

vehicular traffic prioritising urban design

Vehicles and roads have so far, been prioritised over pedestrians and walkable streets, in both residential and commercial areas. Pedestrians seem to be classified as “second-class citizens”, as roads are constantly being widened, or added to increase connectivity for vehicle users. Roads also result in pedestrians having to cross roads with no shelter from the elements, and is a source of life endangerment.

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D.

street connectivity

Due to roads, walkability is also hampered by breaks in park connectors and street continuity, so pedestrians have to wait for traffic lights to cross over roads and are exposed to the elements.

This resulting in delays, personal safety risks and inconvenience, in addition to disrupting the street experience flow.

Transitional / Utilitarian Nature of Streets All the factors have caused streets to be treated as mere last resort mobility tools, for one to get from one point to another point, especially when no other modes of transportation are available or feasible. Streets encourage constant movement, and offers little motivation for social- environmental interaction.

This nature of spatial treatment aggravates spatial homogeneity as people are no longer interested in their surrounding environment. Daily lives seem to revolve solely around travelling to and fro work place and home, feeling mechanical and robotic. Even society itself feel result-focused, and there is no incentive to engage in casual conversation with neighbours. Eventually, since spaces feel tasteless and anonymous, it results in the “same everywhere” sensation.

This transitional nature of streets culminates in the anonymity of people and spaces, leading to the unpleasantness of the street experience.

Living Streets People used to farm, or tailor, or teach, and do all sorts of things, but they never “work”.

Nowadays, society seems to have fallen in love with “work”, since everyone goes to work, and even exercising is considered a “work-out”. I don’t like work. I always feel mentally drained and physically worn out after working. I look forward to the walk back home to recharge my will power, refresh my mind, and regain my energy.

The moment i stepped out of my work place, I am greeted by the street entrance, demarcated by the rough grey stone gateway and a pair of rustic trees, which bids me goodbye (morning) and welcome (evening) almost daily. I stepped through onto the ramp and began my journey home, deciding to use the elevated path instead of the

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ground path, since it was no longer that hot and the trees provided ample shade against the glare of the setting sun. Wind on the elevated platform always seems a notch more cooling, and I appreciated the elevation which stretched my view further.

Fellow office workers also use this street frequently to reach the transport facilities located nearby. I saw people sitting on the benches by the side, using their phones while resting. There were people talking on their phones, while leaning against the railings, and enjoying the light breeze. I was almost tempted to sit down and just chill for a moment, when I realised there was the familiar smell of incoming rain as a tiny drop of drizzle hit my spectacles. Signing, I went down to the ground floor, and resumed the rest of the journey under the sheltered walkway.

Continuing, I passed by a couple of runners, no doubt intent to return home asap. I retained my pace, knowing that I can make it back home largely dry, even as the rustling of the leaves on the trees rose and fell with the wind. Before long, I reached the midway mark, which is enclosed by a plaza that is semi-indoors, sheltered on its edges but open in the middle. Not surprisingly, more people than usual were gathered around near the central courtyard, some glancing up at the sky. Not all were worried though, as I could see a few groups of students seated on the smoothly tiled plaza floor, happily enjoying their games and conversation .

The plaza edge was lined by an arcade, with multiple link ways connected to it. I walked towards the one which opening framed a portrait of the residential blocks, and resumed my way home. Along the way, I still saw people sitting idly on benches out in the landscaped open space. The mood here seemed to be slightly more relaxing, with less people and more greeneries that were planted to encapsulate small pockets of more private spaces for people to “hide� in.

Moving on, I reached a stretch of street where bulbous shaped pavilions dotted the side of the link way. People liked to us their laptops to do work in there, isolated from the prying eyes of people on the street. More than once, I had taken refuge inside one of these pavilions and finished a report before leaving.

Finally, I reached the last landmark, which is actually a mini tower like structure, with a small portal carved out at the bottom. The smooth concrete was pleasantly warm to the touch, as I bid farewell to the portal . . .

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Appendix C

Dead Steets Infiltration – A spy’s typical day o f wo rk

House – 7:00 AM Another weekday morning comes and I brace myself once again for my act of pretence, as I don my infiltration suit and prepared my briefcase. I always feel that the battle starts once I leave the respite of my hideout and take the lift down to the ground floor. Few people here communicate with others, and I will not attempt to raise unnecessary awareness of myself, not if I can help it. I hardly know any of my neighbours, but it probably does not matter.

Ground Zero – 7:30 AM Before I could even prepare my mind for the day, I found myself stepping out of the elevator onto the ground floor. The surrounding void deck is the eerie calm before the storm, and I know not to let down my guard. The many pillars always seem to make perfect ambush hideouts for my enemies. I have to resist the urge to keep looking back when walking through the long corridors and link ways, for fears of blowing my disguise or arousing suspicion. I almost feel as if enemies are surveying my every step and breathe.

I will not lose my composure, not so early . . .

The more privileged have their own personal vehicles parked in the nearby no man’s land.

They hurry into their personal vehicles, along with their family members, disappearing into nothingness within seconds. I pretended not to be aware of them, swallowed my envy and walked on.

As I walk, more enemies filtered into the path I am taking, which is of course the path that is the shortest distance to the nearby mobilisation centre. There is not much reason to take a longer path. Some are hurrying about with an air of impatience and importance, while some are barely able to camouflage the dejectedness of having to report to camp.

I kept my eyes straight-ahead and my mouth shut as I continued rather quickly down my path. The faster I reach the mobilisation centre, the better.

The transition from block to block is a seamless one, flawless to the point that a stranger would probably easily lose their way and sense of placement. Oh well, not that it matters to me. I already know where are the distinguishing “landmarks” to find my way with absolute ease. The smell of Chinese incense, the spot where pigeons stain the ground, the local grocery shop, are just a few of the examples of the personal knowledge I have accumulated to help me find my bearings.

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The Crossing – 7:33 AM Before I noticed it, I reached the traffic light junction. The crossing is a tiny point on the vehicular paths that the enemies converge and wait impatiently for their turn to cross the road. I mingled in, blending in superbly among the small cluster of people. Sometimes, I steal glances at the privileged, looking at them through the windscreens of their vehicles, and see blank, empty looks. Again, I know not who they are, where they are from, or where they are headed to.

Yet, I entrusted my life to the privileged, praying none of them lose their focus while driving, as I stood there on the naked platform breathing in exhaust fumes while vehicles streamed by in a blur. I wonder how many among us truly realises the threat they are constantly in while attempting to bypass the privileged people’s property . . .

Towards the MRT station – 7:36 AM Before I realised it, I made it past the road crossing. By now, more and more people have converged onto one of a few common paths towards the mobilisation hub. Almost everyone walks in silence, throwing furtive glances at others now and then. I ignore them all as I put on a straight face, infiltrated into the enemy ranks, and filed into the fast march towards the depot.

The route to the transfer hub is an unsheltered, utilitarian, narrow, concrete pathway almost right next to the roads. There were a few identical looking trees which unfortunately did not offer much shading from the rising morning sun. Not that I would be so stupid to be standing under any tree for long anyway, given the obvious evidence on the floor of the existence of broods of identical looking, mischievous birds nesting on the trees. I walked along, casting sceptical wayward glances towards the tree canopy once in a while, hoping no bird decides to take a dump at me.

Adding to my inconvenience and displeasure, irritating cyclists keep attempting to weave their way around the pedestrian file. The pathway is narrow enough as it, without those pesky bicycles darting around here and there, now and then. Nonetheless, I looked up and kept alert at all times, not intending to be on the painful end of any impending collision.

Here, there is nothing else for me to be looking at anyway, unless one could count the blades of grass poking through the soil surface, or the un-identifiable human and vehicle movement surrounding me, or perhaps the clusters of homogenous buildings towering the district. In other words, there was nothing to draw mine or anyone’s attention. I wonder if we looked like zombies from the side-line, not that anyone was looking at us anyway.

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Appendix C

Beads of perspiration are starting to surface on me. Is it the misdoings of the hot and humid weather or the presence of hostilities emitted by the plentiful, anonymous sources around me, or the upholding of my pretentious, uncaring façade?

MRT station Platform – 7:41 AM Before I knew it, I ended up at the transfer facility platform. The crowded swarm of muted, unfamiliar faces always discomforts me. The buzzing sound of human traffic distracts me. The smell of liquor, coffee and food remnants in some’s breathe absolutely throws me off. But I will ignore them all. I know I will pull through the suffocation, as I have done always. I braced myself for the upcoming “sardines in a can” act, knowing that before long, I will end up at my destination, if only I can just “not-notice” the journey for a while . . .

Main Points 1.

2.

3.

4.

Streets have become nothing more than mere transitional spaces.

People and cars seem anonymous, as one travels through streets.

Streets (especially within HDB estates) feel largely homogenous.

Streets (especially outside HDB estates) feel largely dull and lifeless. /

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 187

SUNGEI PANDAN

by UmarYusof

In discovering the genius loci of a Jurong East, it is pivotal to study the various layers of urban typology which give a place its sense of place and meaning. As Jurong East undergoes rapid developments in its bid to become Singapore’s second Central business district, there is an inevitable loss of culture and heritage. One of the profound layers in the study of Jurong East’s urban typology is the role of the rivers in the pre industrial landscape of Jurong. The role of water was once central to the lives of these people.

Water and its source of the river, together with its tributaries were seen as both a means of transportation and a source of livelihood. With references made to the Jurong River in particular, it gave the landscape its character as it served to divide Jurong into two-the East & West. In order to transverse through the various swamps, boats were the utilized and to cross the rivers, eventually bridges were constructed. The river also served as a source of livelihood as the banks were filled with fish farms and coupled with the vast agricultural land inland, allowed the people to sustain their basic living.

In order to address two pivotal issues brought forth earlier which is the loss of culture and heritage and the negated role of the river, the following solutions are being proposed.

There is a need to rethink urban mobility and the various means of transportation around this island. Taking Singapore’s Canal and reservoir system which either stores or directs water into the ocean, we propose a closed network of local transportation system via the canals through the means of water taxis and buses. This would increase connectivity to all areas in Singapore and at the same time, reduce the pressure on the public transport and roads. Travelling by water would serve as the new means of transportation in the new economy and at the same time, it will be reliving the role of the river in the past as means of travel. The second part if the proposal deals with the creation of a melting pot of culture in the regional. This is carried out to not only allow for the creation of an exchange of culture at a regional scale to occur but to also give Jurong East a new sense of identity.

The proposal involves the waterfront development of the existing Pandan River canal system which is located beside the International Business Park. A stretch of commercial buildings line the banks of the canal and they are catered to the research and development for science and machinery. We propose that the Pandan river canal be extended in a rather organic manner into the spaces and gaps between the buildings to allow for it to be used as a district cooling platform to be utilised by the occupants of the building as means of cooling their machinery. A water terminal will then be built directly in front of the building as a series of piers would allow boats to be parked and people to arrive at the International Business Park. The existing park would also be developed to house recreational activities along the waters. Opposite the banks of the river, a cultural and performance space would be created to facilitate an exchange of culture and knowledge regarding performance and theatre in the region.The presence of a podium and a floating

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Appendix C

platform allows for such performances to be executed. In addition, the presence of gallery, workshop and library spaces would promote this exchange of culture which will give Jurong its sense of place and identity. /

Construction of the city out of wilderness is a spectacle. One is led out of the woods or from the sea, then from arrival along a series scripted moments. It is not usually the architect that invents this spectacle; those in power has broadcasted it to the world before he even arrives. But, it is often him that must play it out, choreograph the script given in such a way that appeases the client. Along the way, it is his duty to give something extra to the public as well.

ARRIVAL BY RAIL

by Paul Holmes

What I want to give to the public it what is most important to me. I’ve explored the forest, canyons and peaks of the American Southwest. There, I saw amazing beauty, a beauty cities strive for. I believe that this exist in nature and that man cannot easily construct it. Anything we make only achieves a fraction of the amazement of the natural world. As an architect, my goal is to reveal this natural beauty sometimes intentionally, often intentionally.

Any major train station serving high volume traffic from Malaysia is already an act of branding. The establishment of a high speed train between the two nation’s capitals signals a major step in their relationship. It also gives Singapore the ultimate another marketing tool. Now, visitors are forced to corral in long lines at the border or succumb to the miserable experience of air travel. Both offer an unfortunate first impression of Singapore: cold, dimly lit, bureaucracy. While it is no secret that a nation this orderly requires many bureaucrats, there is no need that this be what one first meets on hour 1 of their Singapore visit.

I propose instead a choreographed, natural entry. Singapore is a garden city, is it not?

Then let the garden welcome them. Like mountain peaks signal arrival to new and exciting places, this terminus should signal entry to Singapore. Let it be the new Hanging Gardens of Babel. State of the art trains mixing with a pristine image of Wilderness.

Impossible travel met with an improbable green beauty. It took no time at all for the diamond island to become a world city. Now let’s make it a wonder of the world. /

Personal Narratives + Issue Statements 189

SHIOK SHIOK!

AR4101 DESIGN 07 | MOBILITY + URBANISM DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL OF DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENT