Mervin Loh
ADS9
Left: A busy weekday afternoon at Hong Lim Market in Chinatown, SIngapore
Eating together in Singapore: Hawker Centres as an extension of the domestic spaces of HDB1 0900hrs A woman with specks of grey in her hair sits at a table, her hands busy peeling bean sprouts, her smile breaks into a crackle of delight as her companion gestures widely, her knife forgotten on the chopping board as she regales her with tales of her errant neighbours. An old man stirs his coffee, black with no sugar. It sits prettily in a saucer stained with split coffee. He smiles a toothless smile, nodding in acknowledgement as another elderly man walks past, helped along by his domestic helper. They see each other every morning, him sipping his morning coffee leisurely, while the other goes on his morning walks. But no, he does not know his name. This is a space where people meet friends and strangers.2
1 Housing and Development Board (HDB) is a statutory board of the Singapore government responsible for public housing in the city-state. They are credited with clearing of the squatters and slums, and resettling residents into low-cost state-built housing in the 1960s. 2 Chan, Randy, Lee, Jolene, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia - Hawker Centres: Siting/Sighting Singapore’s food heritage’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p.93 – 94 3 Koolhaas, Rem, ‘S M L XL Singapore Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis’, The Monacelli Press (1995), p.1031-37 4 Lim, William, ‘Architecture, Art, Identity in Singapore: Is there Life after Tabula Rasa?’, Asian Urban Lab (2004) 5 Chan, Randy, Lee, Jolene, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia - Hawker Centres: Siting/Sighting Singapore’s food heritage’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p.91
The different types of housing in Singapore derive from the different racial groups lived, and the result of the food and eating habits through spatial and practical necessities was developed. Sharing of food was a necessarily way of live and thus the idea of eating together became adapted and accepted into Singapore’s current understanding of cultural norms. Singapore is a multi-cultural country, a city-state that incorporates different cultural aspects of people into one huge melting pot. Sixty years ago the British Colony became a self-governing city, and from there she prepares to represent the ideological production and progression of surviving contextual remnants of a city not bound by its colonial past. The rapid urbanisation of the city means everything is remade by the government, which excluded the accident and randomness of the context - Singapore represents a unique ecology of the contemporary.3 In search for a utilitarian approach towards a Singaporean identity, the government embarked on a series of programme of urban renewal and housing development to reinforce the ideology of a ‘National Identity’.4 The term ‘Hawker’ is defined as a peddler who travels about to sell easily transportable goods, with no fixed location and ‘Centre’ in architectural term associates with an infrastructure where activities gather. Putting these two different words together as ‘Hawker Centre’ is an ironic and strange marriage for situating these once nomadic trades.5 The construction of a national identity in Singapore represented different unique architectural infrastructures that rearrange the city-state typology – one of which is the Hawker Centres. What used to be street side hawking of low-cost and convenient meals in the 1960s were seen as a threat to the public health and sanitary conditions within the rapid urbanisation of Singapore. It was the compromises between the food as an integral aspect of Singaporean lifestyle and the government’s movement to upkeep its sanitary conditions that lead to its eventual integration into the formal market system. Randy and Jolene described how a typical day would be in a hawker centre, and using these narrative anecdotes to construct a spatial metaphor
Left: Different typology of Hawker Centre but the principles remains the same Top Left: Kallang Old Airport road Hawker center Top Right: Chinaown Complex Hawker Centre Bottom Left: Toa Payoh West Hawker Centre Bottom Right: Tekka Market Hawker Centre
6 Chan, Randy, Lee, Jolene, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia - Hawker Centres: Siting/Sighting Singapore’s food heritage’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p.93 – 94 7 National Heritage Board (NHB), ‘Hawker Culture in Singapore’, Our SG Heritage (2020) [Online] https:// www.oursgheritage.sg/hawker-culture-in-singapore [accessed 15 March 2020] 8 Asian family values see the family unit as highly valued and emphasised throughout the life cycle. Asians are taught to embrace a ‘we’ identity and is seen as the product of all the generations of his or her family is therefore held in relation to them. The centrality of the family unit is reinforced by child-rearing practices, rituals, family celebration, meals, passing down of cultural metaphors and sacredness of genealogy records. See Monica McGoldrick, Joe Giordano, Nydia Garcia-Preto, ‘Ethnicity & Family Therapy – Asian Families’, The Guilford Press (2005) p.271
of the life within the hawker centre throughout the day.6 Hawker culture in Singapore is part of that lifestyle of Singaporeans, a unique physical representation of the favourite past-time and cultural melting pot of the city-state. In 2019 the government uses the hawker culture as an intangible cultural heritage element of Singapore and nominated it for the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural heritage of Humanity, a movement highlighted by the National Heritage Board (NHB) as the city-state’s national identity is the hawker’s food heritage culture.7 However even with its unique identity status that was given by the government and Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the hawker centre is still seen as an infrastructure which provides shelter for the most basic need of Singaporean – a space for community dining. The dogma of community dining could mean a lot of things in different context and thus to establish it within the Singaporean context, it means where Singaporeans dine together sharing the same table but are strangers. To emphasis the position of dining together with strangers, we will have to look at the typical ‘Asian family values'8 culture where only the family members would then dines together. It is not strange to say that within the Asian dining culture, you would normally not share the same table with strangers due to the food you order as well as the conversation you hold as a family – An Asian saying goes when a family conversation takes place, it will always stay within the family. The extension of the domestic space from the home to the hawker centre can be seen as a paradigm shift in social production of families – whose father and mother of the family are require to participate in the productive labour hence spending less time in the domestic space with the children. The shift have constructed a scene of which the mother is feeding the child at the hawker centre while waiting for the father to get off from work and join them for dinner. The hawker centre table is then seen as an narrative extension of the dining table within the domestic space located in an infrastructure called hawker centre, while the hawkers that provide the food becomes the amplification of the production of cooking – which to say they become the in-charge of the meals for the family. What seems to be a family time within the table is joined by a couple who shares the same table as the family having their dinner. An unusual but interesting situation appears as the couple engage in conversation with the family on the same table, eating together as fellow Singaporeans but not as a family.
1960s - 1980s 2 Room Flats
Malay Kampung House (Rumah Panggung
1960s - 1980s Matchbox Flats Indian Farm House
Chinese Shophouse
1980s - 2000s Point Block Apartments
Britsih Colonial House
1990s - 2010s Executive Apartments
Far Left: Layout of traditional houses found in Singapore before 1930s
Eating together in a cultural neutrality Home
Left: Layout of HDB flats designed without any cultural references, but retained the spaces influence of 'Kampung spirit'
1200hrs The queue snakes out as it encircles a table and then into the walkway next to the corner stall. Standing at the back of the queue as the space heaves with people, one wonders just what these people are lining up for. Nobody seems harried that they have to wait in line for 30minsutes. Packets of tissue paper sit strategically at the edge of an empty table, an umbrella perched almost in the middle of one. People in starched office wear mill around, eyes trained on those seated at the tables, expertly swooping in just as they stand to leave. Yet no one claims these empty tables and seats. This is a space where people have cultivated a unique culture.9
9 Chan, Randy, Lee, Jolene, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia - Hawker Centres: Siting/Sighting Singapore’s food heritage’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p. 94 10 Wiktionary, ‘Kampong Spirit’ [Online] en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kampong_spirit, (2020) [accessed 10 Jan 2020] 11 Bin Tajudeen, Imran, ‘Beyond Racialized Representation: Architectural Linguae Francae and Urban Histories in the Kampung Houses and Shophouses of Melaka and Singapore’, Ashgate Publishing Ltd. (2012) 12 Ibid.
Before the urbanisation of Singapore, the city-state was littered with traditional houses that are unique to South East Asian architecture. The Malay ‘Kampung’ houses were common in most part of rural Singapore before 1960s, a traditional Malay house that was constructed out of locally sourced timber. The layout was simple which consist of a front porch which served as a cooking area as well as a family dining area and the main house which serve as a living and sleeping area – demarcated by the various timber structure columns that prop the roof up. The simple arrangement of activities plays a part as the ‘Kampung spirit’10 within the village, ‘Kampung’ denotes an urban district which is also denotes as a cluster of buildings in which eventually glossed as a ‘Village’.11 The tool of the architecture is to promote the interaction between the families and the neighbours and eventually the village through sharing of food and interaction on the front porch. The usage of the spaces enables exchanges between the family as well as anyone that pass by. The Indian Farm house came about from the same layout as the ‘Kampung’ house, except for a smaller scale. It shares the same ideology of the front porch which allows for cooking and dining to happen, as well as interaction between the neighbours and the village. As Indian families are relatively smaller then Malay families, the requirement for a smaller living and sleeping space is more suitable as it less labour intensive to build a house this way. The Chinese shophouse differ from how the traditional ‘Kampung’ house was designed. The birth of Chinese shophouse were affected by the introduction of two colonial building regulations – those concerning fire safety and those regularising property lines which lead to the usage of brick ‘party wall’ to separate units into regular terraced rows.12 The width of the house is determined by the span the timber support could go, and the front porch is consisting of a five-foot way that allows for sheltered walkway along the rows of shophouses. The main dining area is close to the living area at the front of the house, with windows and door that allows airflow and light into the house or partially close for privacy. An inner courtyard that is open to the sky separates the living and dining space from the back of house – which houses the kitchen, toilet and storeroom. Although the separations of these two areas are to demarcate between the wet and dry areas of the house, the family gathering spaces are always at the front of the house. Similar to the ‘Kampung’ houses, the living and dining spaces are always connected to the open area for interaction between neighbours.
Left Top: Utilitarian blocks of the new Satellite town, Queenstown Left Bottom: Current utilitarian blocks with upgrades of Queenstown with point blocks behind it
13 Channel News Asia, ‘Singapore Kampung Spirit’ [Online] www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/ singapore-kampung-spirit-not-awish-to-revert-to-the-past-10592846 (2018) [accessed 20 March 2020] 14 Goldfield, David, ‘Encyclopedia of American Urban History’, SAGE Publications (2007), p.705 15 Wikipedia, ‘Housing and Development Board’ [Online] www.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDB, (2019) [accessed 5 Feburary 2020] 16 Yuen, Belinda, ‘Squatters no more: Singapore social housing’, Global Urban Development Magazine. 3 (2007) 17 Yeung, Yue-man., Drakakis-Smith, DW, ‘Comparative Perspectives on Public Housing in Singapore and Hong Kong’, University of California Press (1974), Asian Survey, Vol.14, No.8 18 Lopez, Guillermo & Puigjaner, Anna, ‘Home’, AA Files 76 (2019), p. 92
The British Colonial house was a much larger and private development from the layout of the Chinese shophouse. Architecturally similar in concept to the previous housing typologies, they were built additionally to combat the tropical weather in Singapore. It borrows the elevated style of the ‘Kampung’ house and cross ventilation of the Chinese shophouse as it structural layout. Similar to the Chinese shophouse the living and dining area are within the house but towards the front where the front porch is. It also allows for interaction with the neighbours when the doors and windows are open and able to close partially to allow for much privacy. The kitchen is separated by a wet kitchen which is located at the back of the house, and a dry kitchen which is within the house. The Malay ‘Kampung’ house, Indian Farm house, Chinese shophouse and British Colonial house were all traditionally unique to South East Asian region and Singapore is part of this traditional architecture association. These houses always allow for the cooking, dining and living happen within the household, as well as always allowing for interaction between neighbours engaging in conversation and food exchanges apparent to the ‘Kampung spirit’.13 The ‘home’ in this sense becomes the collective sharing of dining and living within the space, that allows for interaction to others. The architecture then becomes a tool that allows for these interactions to happen within the home, through the arrangement of spaces and its typological placement allowing its relationship with adjacent similar houses. Satellite towns are smaller municipalities that are adjacent to a major 14 city which is the core of a metropolitan area. Its functioning ties with the development of the larger metropolis, acting as a cross-commuting district. This approach gave Singapore a very practical direction on the perspective of a national identity in a form of Housing typologies. The work of HDB15 did not just stop in design and development of affordable housing unit in Singapore; it extends more than just that. Supporting many policies of nation building that were developed and passed in the government, research and development together with design and construction works are being carried out within the departments.16 Queenstown is the first fully functional and developed satellite town plan urban design and conceived by the Housing committee of SIT in 1950s. The ideology behind the new town away from the city center was borrowed from a British writer Ebenezer Howard, who is well known for his publication ‘To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898)’ on the garden city movement. The apartments in Queenstown are generally made up of simple one, two or three room flats, which are typically low-rise from 14 to 16 levels at most and walk-up blocks. The starkly utilitarian blocks also enables easy spatial planning and interior occupancy due to its ‘matchbox’ style elevation and plan, which is also replicated in volumes around Queenstown. Due to the volume of replication for such utilitarian blocks across all new towns in Singapore, if becomes a relatively homogenous suburban landscape and created the national identity through social housing typologies.17 The notion of home stretches beyond what is tangible within the built environment. The specific hierarchy that stands within the home established a series of macrostructure, from the psychological to the social dimensions of control within the spatial context of the home.18 The construction of home can be trace from the development of Henry Roberts’ ‘The Dwellings of the Labouring Classes’ in 1850 – The model which was later used by many cities as a way to design and manage housing within the metropolitan area. It comes as no surprise that this model was the most effective and efficient in constructing
Left: Satellite town in central Singapore, Toa Payoh - mapping the vicinity of hawker centres to the HDB estates
literally a culturally neutral space, which holds no affiliation to any contextual references and identity except for its location in Singapore. The organisation of the spaces can be seen through the plans of the HDB housing – The stress of the Asian family values are placed much more importance in the society and thus the living is the most important space.19 The Dining area would be the second biggest, a domestic sphere that place a certain level of hierarchy within the family.20 The Kitchen in which the production of food that served the family becomes the smallest within the modern construction of the dwelling, but they are a space that always link the rest of the house together, from the living to the toilet. Even though the layout of the HDB housing is culturally neutral in its design and layout, and did not follow any of the examples of previous traditional houses; the traditional placement of ‘Kampung spirit’ is still articulated on how the living space which is also a dining space are connected to the corridor which can be seen as a front porch for interaction between neighbours.21 The openness of the living space makes eating together with your neighbours a strange narrative that could only be found in this part of the Asian society.
Eating together in a Hawker centre 2000hrs
19 Aureli, Pier Vittorio, ‘Life, Abstracted: Noted on the Floor Plan’, e-flux Architecture (2017) https:// www.e-flux.com/architecture/representation/159199/life-abstractednotes-on-the-floor-plan [accessed 15 November 2019] 20 Aureli, Pier Vittorio & Giudici, Maria Sheherazade, ‘Familiar Horror: Towards a Critique of Domestic space’, Log, 1 (38) (2016), p.113 21 The corridor is understood not only as an access space can be exploited as a communal space to be shared by the familities along that corridor. In this vision of the corridor it is likened to a street which can serve as a place where young children play and where enighbours meet informally. See Cairns, Jacobs, Jiang, Padawangi, Siddique, Tan, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia – Singapore’s Void Decks’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p.84 22 Chan, Randy, Lee, Jolene, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia - Hawker Centres: Siting/Sighting Singapore’s food heritage’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p.101
A family sits at a table laden with colourful plates, having their dinner and speaking over the din of the neighbouring tables. The father is busy barking into his hands-free set as he glares at his son who is picking out the vegetables form his plate. His briefcase sits atop a colourful school bag decorated with cartoon characters on the seat next to him. Across the table, the mother coaxes her toddler to have some porridge as she throws a tantrum, giving a smile at the cleaner who greets them warmly as she clears the plates form the previous diners off their table. A familiar sight to many stall owners many a weekday evening. This is a space that has often been the kitchen, dining and living room for many a people.22 The displacement of street side hawkers into infrastructure typology with a fixed store location, fixed tables and chairs was a deliberate move to bring forth sanitary conditions that can be better controlled. The intention from the government might be that but what it brought forth was a housing landscape typology that brought back another spatial manifestation of the ‘Kampung spirit’ in the HDB estates – eating together with ‘strangers’. These hawker centres are spaces that integrate different types of food stores under one roof; where the seats are open for anyone and placed both under shelters and open areas. The main architectural language that was repeated in all the hawker centres are the visual impact of neutrally designed spaces. These spaces do not take references from any cultural elements but instead, created a new urban language itself. Often located near town centres or within the vicinity of a housing estate with predetermined number similarly to a church in other cities, many Singaporeans grew up around the hawker centres which are also synonymous with the Singapore’s food culture. This urban infrastructure typology have evolved over time to become community spaces, with provisions that contain gathering spaces of different activities as it goes through
Left: Map of Central and South area of Singapore, showing the spread of hawker centres and their residential estate area Bottom Left: Different people who are strangers sharing a same table
23 Chan, Randy, Lee, Jolene, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia - Hawker Centres: Siting/Sighting Singapore’s food heritage’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p.101 24 Chan, Randy, Lee, Jolene, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia - Hawker Centres: Siting/Sighting Singapore’s food heritage’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p.98
renovations to improve its environment for the better of both patrons and hawkers.23 This manufactured notion of multiculturalism is then reflected in Singapore’s food and hawker culture. The favourite past-time of Singaporeans is eating and the hawker centre played a role in provided a strange sense of eating together without ever knowing the companions you eat with. Within the mundane time of eating within the hawker centre, the loud noise coming from different stores as orders are announced and the bustling of people trying to get seats either before or after purchasing their food occupies the whole infrastructure. The subtlety of sharing the tables together becomes part of the eating culture in hawker centre as the infrastructure becomes packed during rush hours while sharing the same tables for dining. The strangeness of being together and eating together extends out to the smell that traverses through the infrastructure. The distinct mixture of spices, cooking, ingredients and food guides Singaporean in finding their favourite store or their favourite dish. Since the houses in Singapore are culturally neutral designed, the kitchen becomes the congregation of cultures being preserved and educating the next generation through the process of cooking and consumption. But because of the highly slaving nature of Singaporeans, the process of cooking at home was seen as a tedious production which makes the hawker centre a favourite infrastructure to be visited for all forms of dining. One then could boldly claim that because of the continuous production of time-valued lifestyle, the typological infrastructure which houses the production of eating was seen as an extension of the domestic space – where the preservation of culture was animated through the constant production of culturally distinct food in a culturally neutral environment. In recent years, with the evolution of the Singapore society the hawker centre began to see a gradual change and shift in production of labour due to the increase education of Singaporeans. The ageing population of the nation builders starts to slowly fade out by retiring from the production of cooking in these hawker centres. The estates have seen familiar hawker stalls disappearing off the gastronomic maps, some without any announcement as they stop when the hawker centre goes into renovation period and some ending off on a high note by highlighting their eventual retirement over social media – whichever the route is, the result is an end of an era for the local food scene.24 But even with the disappearance of the familiarity, many still reminiscence the time spent growing up in this unique space. The familiarity of the food, the smells and the unique extension of the domestic space contributed to the interesting narrative of the role of the hawker centre in the residential estate of Singapore’s satellite towns. Throughout the day in the hawker centre, there are various types of activities that are similarly bizarre and would have thought to be part of the domestic space in the home. A hawker teaching her young child on the hawker tables in front of the store, while serving chicken rice to an old lady who looks on lovingly to the little child. A young teenager playing a mobile phone game while sipping on some cold soya bean drink in the middle of the day. Two old man playing a couple of rounds of Chinese chess while discussion about latest government policies over a cup of hot coffee. A young student ordering a bowl of prawn noodles while on the phone with her mother asking when she would be joining her for lunch. A couple of old ladies bump into each other while ordering food for dinner, happily engaging in conversation. These series of seemly accidental activities are resonances of what you would
Top Left: A video made by the National Heritage Board (NHB) that talks about how hawker centres as considered a community dining room of Singapore - https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=PcSEBDCRt-I&feature=youtu.be Middle Left: A show by Mediacorp called '128 circle' about a old lady who keeps going to the same hawker centre to reminiscent the memory of her pass even when she have amnesia Bottom Left: A show by HBO called Invisible Stories talks about how a mother of a autism child who treats the hawker centre as a space of solace and kitchen where they are able to enjoy any type of food together as a family
Left: Kallang Old Airport road hawker centre in the 1960s Middle Left: Waterloo Street wet market that is adjacent to the hawker centre Bottom Left: New concept of hawker centre experimented by Timbre corportation
find within the domestic space, extended out to the hawker centre. To many Singaporeans this is scenes that are essential part of their collective identity and memories of growing up, often shared with much enthusiasm of the food they love and the people they met. Looking at this how can I associate the hawker centre, a public infrastructure as an extension of the domestic space? One can start looking at how Singaporeans finds comfort in a public infrastructure like the hawker centre, very much like how we would find comfort in our own domestic space. A hawker centre is not an urban typology where one would feel the need to be self-conscious about their own appearances. It is not a space where one would need to be dress up in order to have a meal. It is not a space that is relentless on its social decorum. It is a space that allows for any type of people; be it from the high society level or the poor, to come and share the same space, same table and same types of meal together.25
Eating together in a public infrastructure like back at home 0400hrs It was late, perhaps early for some. It was dark, save for some choice lights that burned through the night. And it was quiet, no signs of anyone who might be wandering about that hour. Astray black cat jumps off its perch from a bright green table top as the sound of metal meeting metal echoes through the brightly lit space. An old man wields his chopper expertly while his elderly wife busies herself preparing the sauces for the kuehs that sat in the steamers. This is a space where each day plays out the same as the day before – familiar and comforting in a city constantly busy with change.26
25 Henderson, Joan C, Ong, Poon, ‘Hawker Centres as Tourist Attractions: The case of Singapore’, International Journal of Hospitality Management 31, 3 (2012), p.849 – 845 26 Chan, Randy, Lee, Jolene, ‘Public Space in Urban Asia - Hawker Centres: Siting/Sighting Singapore’s food heritage’, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (2014), p.104
Claiming that the hawker centre is the extension of the domestic space within the HDB estate of Singapore is not a something that is boldly challenging against the norm, but is something that is easily understandable to every Singaporean who grew up in the vicinity of these hawker centres. Even though the evolution of the hawker centre typology progresses together with the progression of the city-state, the core layout and arrangement still retains its original intention. The scale may change but its architectural typology is always scaled against the larger residential estate program – its resident’s plays apart in shaping its typology through the usage of the spaces and activities. What would be interesting now is to reaffirm the hawker centre’s role as an extension of the domestic space, through understanding how the hawker centre is being used throughout the day by the residents. In the morning the hawker centres will always be fill with people from the working class to the aging population. Those who are in the rush to go to work as well as families who are sending their children to school will procure their breakfast through the hawker vendors. Disengaged for the labour of making breakfast at home, the domestic labour of breakfast is then passed on to the responsibility of these hawkers to fulfil the morning production essential brining the breakfast on the table to the hawker centres. Lunch hour come and the hawker centre are filled with people again. This time the hawker
Left and Right: A video made by the National Heritage Board (NHB) introducing the Hawker Centre and its unique spatial qualities for the UNESCO Nomination Video - https:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=PcSEBDCRt-I&feature=youtu. be
Left: Different layout of the hawker centres in Singapore but the core architectural and spatial influence remains - Collective eating through the 'Kampung spirit' and Asian culture dining of eating together in a round table
centre is not only populated by the working population but also residents who decided to spend their morning to noon idling on the hawker seats – either on their mobile phones or watching the morning news sipping their cup of coffee or milk tea. Sharing of tables become common in this time, where the patrons begin to engage in conversation together with people who they know as well as other patrons sharing the same table. Conversation may start by asking which food stall did it come from or if they are able to save some space while others queue up for their food. The Asian dining culture began to elevate as eating together becomes something beyond only family members. As lunch hours dissipate the children of the hawkers begin to arrive as their parents receive them in their hawker centres. These children start to engage in self-study and conversation with their hawker parents as though as the scene is part of the living space within the home. The familiarity of the scene see hawkers and residents watch those children grow up within the hawker centre as it becomes a day to day familiarity within the constantly moving cityscape. Dinner time come and the hawker centre is fill with people again, but this time the scene is occupied with different scale of families. Some are waiting for their other families to arrive, some are sharing tables with other families, some are queuing up for food to be brought back to their families and some are engaging in idle conversation. The scene plays as though its different families dining together in their homes, while eating together as though as it is part of the ‘Kampung spirit’. The end of day where the hawker starts to close their stores, the tables are still occupied by the young and old engaging in socialising through food and drinks. What seems to be a domestic event becomes part of the hawker centre scene – another familiar playback that happens every other day. As the night drags on, hawkers that require to set up their preparation early next day starts to come in and set up their stores. The repetition of such mundane act can be seen as a repetition of cycle which makes the hawker centre as part of the domestic space which produces the effective labour keeping the estate together through food. Singapore is a culture of food. The culture that gave birth to a very unique infrastructure – that blurs the boundary between private and public spaces but creating a space that is both public and an extension of the domestic space. It is the familiarities of the Singaporeans that allow the unique spatial character to continue its existence, even if the typology changes through architectural intervention or progression of the urbanisation of Singapore. As long as the familiarity of the hawker centres remains within Singaporeans who live or once live within the HDB estates, these spaces will always be an extension of the domestic space of the residential estates in Singapore – through the collective multiculturalism of Singapore’s food culture and domestic space.