NEO KENG HENG PORTFOLIO 2020
CONTENTS
Architecture A Tale of Two Cities Beacon Others Illustration Photography
Context: As the city continues to prioritise progress, speed, and production, the spaces we inhabit morph to reflect these values. Capitalism and its incessant demands have weakened our innate understanding of time, allowing the experience of time to be dulled and diluted to that of a metronomic drone. Combined with relentless advertisements, impossible economic demands, and a lack of enriching spaces, the city is filled with a suffocated population, overwhelmed by the hysteria of the city. We have become a city detached from the human experience, one of high-tech, and low-life. Abstract: ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ explores a long lost dimension of the temporal experience: Kairos. We surrender ourselves to the steady march of time in lieu of progress, yet speak of time as an entity that is not as unyielding as it seems. We make time, keep time, and waste time; and can simultaneously be in time, and out-of-time. Time is suggested to be a fluid entity, one that both shapes, and is shaped by the human experience.
A TALE OF T WO CITIES
The thesis suggests that the key to sculpting the temporal experience is through the sculpting of the spatial, an exploration on the entanglement of space and time. In a city that is pressed for time, it is perhaps the responsibility of the architect to design spacious moments of relief. The Thesis proposes a manifestation of the two dimensions of time as two cities that intertwine: The City of Chronos and The City of Kairos. Set amidst the heart of the Central Business Park: Raffles Place, a new public space typology designed with the temporal experience in mind combines the chaotic nature of the restless financial centre and train station, and the expanded time-space of a temple in a park. Two cities: Chronos and Kairos; one of sensorial desensitisation, incessant progress, and the ticking of time; the other of sensorial distillation, spacious moments, and the in-between.
KAIROS
CHRONOS
CIT Y OF KAIROS
CIT Y OF CHRONOS
It’s about timing. The sun’s warm embrace and the dance of the leaves. They all align eventually.
It’s about time. I cannot hear you, it’s too loud. I need to go, can you please hurry?
A TALE OF T WO CITIES
An acupuncture of relief. A spacious moment.
Raffles Park Plan
Raffles Place Basement Plan
Temple Mandala
Morning 7am
Dance Performance
Isometric Section Textures and Details
Rain Shrine
Meandering through the Shrines
The Temple, in silence
Chronos Module: Tethered Assets
Chronos Nucleus Details
Configuration Variations
Chronos Nucleus Usage
KAIROS TRANSCRIPTS
CIT Y OF KAIROS SECTION
Infinite possibilities, an experience of eternity.
It is amidst the hysteria of the city where we yearn for silence the most.
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times.
Beacon is a project that grapples with how to beautifully represent and accomodate the process of the funeral. Inspired by the act of keeping vigil by keeping a candle lit throughout the entire duration of the funeral, the design intention is then to create 4 glowing cubes that correspond to the 4 funeral halls. This is much alike 4 lanterns seemingly float on the lake’s surface as they glow softly throughout the night. The additional programmes are 24 hour cafes and a candle making workshop. What makes this architecture different is that each funeral matters and make a difference, they don’t light up because they are funeral halls, they light up because of the funeral. Aside from creating beautiful spaces for the bereaved to grieve in, the architecture transforms a loved one’s passing into something beautiful for everyone else, allowing us to look on and quietly contemplate the beauty of life and death.
BEACON
As the funeral ends and the lights switches off, and the shimmery reflection on the lake leaves the night sky behind, we are then forced to contemplate the light that these people will no longer bring to our lives and that loss is also extended to everyone in view. Death is innately intimate, personal, yet ironically public and with this architecture, everyone can participate in the appreciation of the life that is lost and the beauty that it brought and the emptiness it now brings..
as the funeral halls dim
the stars light up
Ground and Basement Plans
Exploded Axometric
Funeral Hall detail and textures
Funeral Hall
Columbarium
Family Area
ILLUSTRATION & PHOTOGRAPHY