D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO S E Q U E N C E M
D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO S E Q U E N C E AM RCH & I & A RIC H
II II M ARCH
AY 21—2 2
M ARCH
21—2 2 AY 2022/23
D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO S E Q U E N C E M ARCH I & II
Picture credit: Erik G. L’Heureux
MMAASSTTEERR OOFF MASTER OF AARRCCHHIITTEECCTTUURREE A RC HITEC TU RE PPRROOGGRRAAMM MMEE PROGRAMME AY - 22 AY 21 2022/23 AY2022/23 M M ARCH ARCH II & & IIII Department of Architecture Department Department of of Architecture Architecture School of Design & Environment School Environment CollegeofofDesign Design&and Engineering
MASTER OF A RC HITEC TU RE PROGRAMME AY 22- 23 M ARCH I & II Department of Architecture College of Design and Engineering
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C O N T E N TS
Picture credit: Goh Kah Hui
H E A D’S M E S S A G E 4
M A S T E R O F A R C H I T EC T U R E P R O G R A M M E DIR EC T O R’S M E S S A G E 5
M A R C H P R O G R A M M E O V E R V IE W 6
SIN G L E D EG R E E M A R C H 8 C O N C U R R E N T D EG R E E M A R C H T R A C K I 10 C O N C U R R E N T D EG R E E M A R C H T R A C K II 11 M A R C H SIN G L E & C O N C U R R E N T D EG R E E 13 O P T IO N S D E SIG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO + A D VA N C E D A R C H I T EC T U R E S T U DIO 14
M A R C H I & II S E M E S T E R I D E SIG N S T U DIO L E A D E R S 15
M A R C H I S E M E S T E R II D E SIG N S T U DIO L E A D E R S 16
D E SIG N S T U DIO: S E M E S T E R 1 S T U DIO D E S C R IP T IO N S 18
D E SIG N S T U DIO: S E M E S T E R 2 S T U DIO D E S C R IP T IO N S 24
C O R E G R A D U L AT E L E V E L M O D U L E S 27 G R A D U AT E L E V E L E L EC T I V E S 2 8 A R C H I T EC T U R E IN T E R N S H IP P R O G R A M M E 32 M A R C H II 35
M A R C H II D E SIG N R E S E A R C H T H E SIS 36
M A R C H II D E SIG N R E S E A R C H T H E SIS FA C U LT Y A D V IS O R S 3 8
M A R C H II D E SIG N R E S E A R C H T H E SIS O F F E R IN G S 4 0
R E S E A R C H C LU S T E R S 4 8 D E SIG N S T U DIO R E V IE W C A L E N D A R 5 0
E V E N T S & G U E S T L EC T U R E S 52
V ISI T IN G P R O F E S S O R S & M A R C H E X T E R N A L R E V IE W E R S 5 4 C O N TA C T 5 6
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H E A D’S M E S S A G E
M A STER O F A RC HITEC T U RE P R O G R A M M E DI R E C T O R’S M E S S A G E
On behalf of the department, I would like to warmly
Another aspect of a nurturing environment is the way
The NUS Master of Architecture (M Arch) is Asia’s leading
Experiencing these curriculums, students are expected
welcome all new and returning students to the start of
we engage with our students. Architecture programmes
design and research program for architecture. Our
to proactively build up their knowledge and skills. In the
this academic year 2022/23 (AY2022/23). I hope you are
are known for their challenging demands on your time,
programme emphasises design expertise in architecture.
second semester of M Arch II, students shall concentrate
as excited as I am, looking forward to the new adventure
mind and hands. Your well-being is of topmost priority to
By recognising architecture as a cultural practice that
on their individual Design Thesis. Encompassing a wide
in the coming year. At the Department of Architecture
us and our teaching staff will work with you closely and
involves both speculative intelligence and practical
variety of disciplines and cultural dimensions, the Design
(DOA), we strive to create a nurturing learning environment
empathetically. Embracing a whole-person development
execution, the programme encourages students to
Thesis module offers students an opportunity to form
for all students. The core of this learning environment
approach, our staff will be here to encourage and
acquire knowledge and cultivate critical perspectives for
independent positions on self-researched inquiries.
is “Education”. I firmly believe that when you own your
support you, cherishing your achievements, working
their future creative practice.
education, you can shape your desired personal and/ or
together on your challenges and contributing to your
professional pathway for the future. All of us at DOA are
growth academically and as a person. We have initiated
NUS M Arch design studios are rich in diversity and
professional architects from six research clusters:
committed to guide, support and assist you in acquiring
a mentorship programme for Year 1 and 2 students and I
rigorous in quality. Conducted across four semesters,
Research by Design, History, Theory and Criticism,
knowledge, skill, and practice. We will present to you,
hope you can get in touch with your mentors and approach
the Design Options Studios and the Graduate Level
Technologies, Urbanism, Landscape Studies and
values in design that we believe in, and direct you to
them for the challenges you face in your studies here. I
Design Thesis programme explore a variety of issues
Design Education — the programme develops students’
resources that will shape your own values. The nature of
am also delighted to share with you that we will return
through research-based design. Students will be
abilities in research-driven design practice. For
architecture is complex. We often talk about inter- and
to SDE 3 in the second semester of this academic year.
trained to think critically and materially as they embark
concurrent degree programme students, the compulsory
multi-disciplinary approaches in design: incorporating
This creative space has been carefully crafted ensuring
on explorative design methodologies that commits to
Architectural Internship Programme (AIP) provides
factors in technology, humanities, social, nature,
an inspiring learning environment for all. Many thanks
iterative design processes.
an additional opportunity to experience real-life
science and environment. At its base, we are essentially
to Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux and his team for
designing for a human society and thus our values are
making such sustained efforts in realising the design of
Complementing the M Arch design studios are the Core
lectures, symposiums, exhibitions, overseas exchange
human-centric. Through innovative design, we attempt
your new “home”.
Professional Modules and Graduate Level Electives. Set
and field research, the NUS M Arch programme shall
in a lecture and seminar-style learning environment,
richly inspire students in advanced graduate learning.
to conceptualise and provide designed environments for
Facilitated by a team of world-class academics and
architectural practice. Supplemented with guest
various human conditions and activities. Placing a strong
Heartfelt thanks are also due to Associate Professors
these modules shall focus on the core knowledge of
emphasis on pedagogy and curriculum design, our staff
Ong Ker Shing and Tsuto Sakamoto and their teams for
specific topics. M Arch students will benefit from
With this, the NUS M Arch programme will prepare
have spent tremendous efforts in curating the various
directing the Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (BA (Arch))
the application of these basic theories and research
our graduates to become world-class design leaders;
modules and studios as presented in this programme
and Masters of Architecture (M Arch) programmes and
methods in their design activities and beyond.
well-placed to capitalise the opportunities of a rapidly
booklet. With these, we hope to equip you with the
putting this programme booklet together. Lastly, I would
necessary skills and cultivate your critical thinking for
like to once again extend my warmest welcome to you and
your future profession. I hope you are able to look through
thank you for entrusting us with your education and taking
all the learning outcomes and be inspired to achieve much
this learning journey with us. Wishing you a rewarding
success in this learning journey.
journey ahead and may you continue to own and discover
changing Asia and beyond.
new passion for Design with us at the DOA.
H O P U AY P E N G
TSUTO SAK AM OTO
Professor and Head of Department
Associate Professor Master of Architecture Programme Director
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M A RC H OV ERVIE W
M ARCH M Arch I BA (Arch) Year 4
M Arch II
Design Research Studio Options or Architectural Internship Programme
Advanced Architecture Studio
Professional Practice Apprenticeship (2 years)
Professional Registration (SIA, BOA)
Architectural Design Thesis
Architectural Design Research Report
MUP
MLA
MaUD MSc ISD
MAArC
Abbreviations
M A RC H PR O G R A M M E OV ERVIE W
MaUD: Master of Urban Design MUP: Master of Urban Planning MSc ISD: Master of Integrated Sustainable Design MLA: Master of Landscape Architecture SIA: Singapore Institute of Architects BOA: Board of Architects MAArC : Master of Arts in Architectural Conservation Denotes 2 semesters which is equivalent to 1 year
M ARCH PROG R A M M E TR ACK STRU C T U RES OV ERVIE W
M ARCH I
INCO MING M ARCH STU DENTS*
SIN G LE DEG REE M A RCH TR AC K CDP M ARCH TRACK I‡
BA ARCH
(H O NS)
Y 1– 3
AY 2 0 2 2 / 2 3 C O H O R T O N W A R D S
M A R C H II
OR
C D P M A R C H T R AC K II‡
Abbreviations CDP: Concurrent Degree Programme (CDP) (CDP option for MLA is last offered to 2018/19 cohort) * Incoming M Arch students with degrees from outside NUS ‡ For CDP M Arch Tracks I and II: Applicable for Students entering BA Arch Year 1 & Polytechnic Students entering BA Arch Year 2 in AY21/22.
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L E G E N D:
SIN G LE D EG REE M A RCH TR AC K
Picture credit: Sherry Goh
Design Urban & Landscape
M O D U L E C R E DI T S ( M C s) R E Q U I R E D F O R I N C O M I N G M A R C H S T U D E N T S ( AY 2 0 2 2 / 2 3 C O H O R T O N W A R D S S I N G L E D E G R E E ):
Graduate Level Architectural Electives Professional Practice
M ARCH I 40 MCs
M ARCH II
+
=
40 MCs
T O TA L
History & Theory
80 MCs
Architectural Design Thesis
M A R C H II
M ARCH I Semester 1 AR5801
Semester 2 8 MCs
AR5802
AR5321
4 MCs
AR5601
AR5423
4 MCs
AR5221
Graduate Level Architectural Elective‡
4 MCs
Options Design Research Studio 1
Advanced Architectural Integration Architectural Practice
Options Design Research Studio 2
Urban Design Theory and Praxis
Semester 1 8 MCs
AR5805
8 MCs
4 MCs
AR5806
4 MCs
4 MCs
Graduate Level Architectural Elective
4 MCs
4 MCs
Graduate Level Architectural Elective
4 MCs
Advanced Architecture Studio
Contemporary Theories Graduate Level Architectural Elective‡
Semester 2
Architectural Design Research Report (Thesis Part 1)
20 MCs
AR5807
Architectural Design Thesis (Thesis Part 2)
Summation of Modules cumulative towards MArch core modules Summation of Modules cumulative towards MArch Graduate Elective modules Summation of Modules cumulative towards MArch Design Thesis Arch students can take landscape modules from MLA programme as electives. AR4421 is to be taken in either Semester 1 or 2 and replaces the Options Design Research Studio of the chosen semester.
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L E G E N D:
CO N CU RREN T D EG REE PRO G R A M M E M A RCH TR AC K I
L E G E N D:
C O N C U R R E N T D EG R EE P R O G R A M M E M A R C H T R AC K II
Design
AIP IN SEM ESTER 1
Design
AIP IN SEM ESTER 2
Urban & Landscape
Urban & Landscape
M O D U L E C R E DI T S ( M C s) R E Q U I R E D F O R M A R C H S T U D E N T S
Graduate Level Architectural Electives‡
( B A A R C H AY 2 0 2 2 / 2 3 C O H O R T O N W A R D S ):
M ARCH I + 32 MCs
M ARCH II 40 MCs
=
History & Theory
80 MCs
Architectural Design Thesis
M ARCH I + 32 MCs
8 M C s E X E M P T I O N F R O M G R A D U AT E L E V E L A R C H I T E C T U R A L E L E C T I V E S
M ARCH I
8 MCs
AR5802
8 MCs
AR5423
4 MCs
AR5221
4 MCs
Architectural Internship Programme (AIP) ∆
Architectural Practice
Options Design Research Studio 2
Contemporary Theories
AR5805
8 MCs
AR5806
4 MCs
Advanced Architecture Studio
Semester 1
Semester 2
T O TA L
History & Theory
80 MCs
Architectural Design Thesis
Architectural Design Research Report (Thesis Part 1)
20 MCs
AR5807
Architectural Design Thesis (Thesis Part 2)
Semester 1
Semester 2
Semester 2
AR5801
8 MCs
AR4421
8 MCs
AR5805
8 MCs
AR5221
4 MCs
AR5423
4 MCs
AR5806
4 MCs
Graduate Level Architectural Elective‡
4 MCs
Graduate Level Architectural Elective‡
4 MCs
Options Design Research Studio 1
Contemporary Theories
4 MCs
Graduate Level Architectural Elective‡
4 MCs
AR5601
4 MCs
AR5321
4 MCs
Graduate Level Architectural Elective‡
4 MCs
AR5321
4 MCs
Advanced Architectural Integration
=
M A R C H II
AR5601
Urban Design Theory and Praxis
10
40 MCs
M ARCH I
Semester 1
Semester 2
AR4421
M ARCH II
Professional Practice
8 M C s E X E M P T I O N F R O M G R A D U AT E L E V E L A R C H I T E C T U R A L E L E C T I V E S
M A R C H II
Semester 1
Graduate Level Architectural Electives‡
( B A A R C H AY 2 0 2 2 / 2 3 C O H O R T O N W A R D S ):
Professional Practice
T O TA L
M O D U L E C R E DI T S ( M C s) R E Q U I R E D F O R M A R C H S T U D E N T S
Urban Design Theory and Praxis Advanced Architectural Integration
Architectural Internship Programme (AIP) ∆
Architectural Practice
Advanced Architecture Studio
Architectural Design Research Report (Thesis Part 1)
20 MCs
AR5807
Architectural Design Thesis (Thesis Part 2)
Summation cumulative towards MArch corecore modules SummationofofModules Modules cumulative towards MArch modules
Summation of Modules cumulative towards MArch core modules
Summation cumulative towards MArch Graduate Elective modules SummationofofModules Modules cumulative towards MArch Graduate Elective modules
Summation ofModules Modulescumulative cumulative towards MArch Graduate Elective modules Summation of towards MArch Graduate Elective modules
Summation of Modules cumulative towards MArch Design Thesis
Summation of Modules cumulative towards MArch Design Thesis
Summation ofModules Modulescumulative cumulative towards MArch Design Thesis Summation of towards MArch Design Thesis
Arch students can take landscape modules from MLA programme as electives.
Arch students can take landscape modules from MLA programme as electives.
Arch cantake takelandscape landscape modules from MLA programme as electives. Arch students students can modules from MLA programme as electives.
AR4421isistotobebetaken taken either Semester 2 and replaces the Options Design Research of the chosen semester. AR4421 in in either Semester 1 or12or and replaces the Options Design Research StudioStudio of the chosen semester.
AR4421 is to 1 or1 or 2 and replaces the the Options Design Research Studio of theof chosen semester. AR4421 to be betaken takeninineither eitherSemester Semester 2 and replaces Options Design Research Studio the chosen semester.
Summation of Modules cumulative towards MArch core modules
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Picture credit: Choon Wong Yen Gabriel
M ARCH SIN G LE & CO N C U RREN T D EG REE
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O P T IO N S D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO + A D VA N C E D A R C H I T E C T U R E S T U DIO
M A R C H I & II S E M E S T E R 1 D E S IG N S T U DIO L E A D E R S:
SEMESTER 1 (M ARCH I & II STUDENTS)
AR5801 OPTIONS DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO 1 LEADERS:
AR5801 OPTIONS DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO 1
Learning Objectives:
AR5805 ADVANCED ARCHITECTURE STUDIO
1.
To understand that the creative research method employed is appropriate for an exploration of design
Modular Credits: 8
question in a particular context of studio.
SEMESTER 2 (M ARCH I STUDENTS)
2.
the impact to our social and natural environment.
AR5802 OPTIONS DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO 2 Modular Credits: 8
To critically deduce a research outcome considering
3.
To translate creative research outcomes into architectural approaches, techniques and strategies for well-focused architectural design.
Graded Module 4.
To achieve well-focused design exploration as a
This three-semester design module sequence establishes
whole, based on the coherent discussions developed
the foundation for master level creative research
through the creative research and design practice.
and design. Framing design as a creative practice,
5.
for the research contents, design process and final
the objective of the module is to develop a high level
architectural design.
of competency in creative research, that leads to architectural design outcomes which are in turn aligned to
To use representational methods that are appropriate
6.
To use advanced representational techniques in both digital and analogue mediums, simulations in 2D, 3D
the faculty’s expertise and interests.
and 4D mediums to communicate research, iteration 7.
To communicate creative research and design
them to choose the themes aligned with their individual
practice in concise and considered verbal, written
interests and intellectual drives, while creating synergy
and performative presentations using a wide range of
with their studio leader.
mediums.
The module expects students to demonstrate a high
Measurable Outcomes:
degree of proficiency in creative research, design
1. 2. 3.
Coherence between creative research and design practice.
final products should be communicated through mature representational techniques and non-verbal and verbal
Clear individual focus for creative research and design practice within the studio context.
but also translating its outcomes into actionable strategies in architectural design. The processes and the
Provide innovative and rigorous research methods and design concepts in a studio context.
thinking, representation and communication. In its process, students are not only conducting the research,
Cheah Kok Ming Vice Dean (Academic), Associate Professor; B Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore Florian Heinzelmann Associate Professor in Practice; PhD (Eindhoven University of Technology), M Arch (Berlage Institute), Dipl-Ing (Munich University of Applied Sciences); Registered Architect, the Netherlands
4.
Produce robust architectural representations through an appropriate choice of media.
mediums. 5.
Communicate the design and its contribution to knowledge through verbal, written and physical mediums and artefacts.
Ling Hao BArch (University of New South Wales); Registered Architect, Singapore Warren Liu Adjunct Associate Professor; B Arch (Hons) (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore Victoria Jane Marshall Visiting Senior Fellow; PhD (National University of Singapore), MLA, Cert Urban Design (University of Pennsylvania), BLA (University of New South Wales), AAG Petra Pferdmenges Adjunct Assistant Professor; Doctorate in Architecture (RMIT), M Arch (TU Delft), B Arch (University of Science Regensburg); Registered Architect, Brussels (Belgium), Stuttgart (Germany)
Fung John Chye Associate Professor in Practice; B Arch (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore
Pier Alessio Rizzardi M Arch, B Arch (Polytechnic University of Milan)
Richard Ho Professor in Practice; B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore
Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic Associate Professor, Deputy Head (Administration and Finance); ScD, MSc (University of Belgrade), Spec Arch, Dip Eng Arch (University of Belgrade, Serbia); Registered Architect, Serbia
and design techniques in architecture.
The design module provides students with an opportunity to select from a variety of studio topics; thereby allowing
AR5805 ADVANCED ARCHITECTURE STUDIO LEADERS: Stephen Cairns Ong Siew May Visiting Professor (National University of Singapore), Titular Professor (ETH Zurich), PhD (University of Melbourne); BArch (University of Auckland), BA (University of Otago)
Ho Puay Peng (co-tutor with Tan Kay Ngee) Professor, Head of Department; PhD (University of London), M Arch, Dip Arch (University of Edinburgh); RIBA Thierry Kandjee Visiting Professor, PhD (RMIT Architecture and Design), M Landscape (Versailles School of Landscape Architecture) Khoo Peng Beng Adjunct Associate Professor; B Arch (National University of Singapore); RIBA, MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Koon Wee Visiting Associate Professor; M Arch (Yale University), B Arch (University of Western Australia), BA Arch (National University of Singapore); FRSA, Registered Architect, Singapore and the Netherlands Thomas Kong Associate Professor; M Arch (Cranbrook Academy of Art), B Arch (National University of Singapore); Assoc. AIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Joseph Lim Associate Professor; PhD (Heriot-Watt University), MSc (University of Strathclyde), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore
Gwen Tan (co-tutor with Chew Kok Yong) MArch (NUS), BArch (NUS); MSIA, ASEAN, Registered Architect, Singapore Rudi Stouffs Dean’s Chair Associate Professor; PhD, MSc (Arch Comp Design) (Carnegie Mellon University), MSc (ArchEng), Ir-Arch (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Rene Tan Adjunct Associate Professor; M Arch (Princeton University), B Arch (Music and Architecture) (Yale University); Registered Architect, Singapore Teh Joo Heng Adjunct Associate Professor; SMArchS (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Teo Yee Chin M Arch (Harvard University), BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Yuan Chao Assistant Professor (Presidential Young Professor); PhD Architecture (Chinese University of Hong Kong), MIT Kaufman Teaching Certificate (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
* Subject To Confirmation/ COVID-19 Restrictions
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M ARCH I SEMESTER 2 D E S IG N S T U DIO L E A D E R S: AR5802 OPTIONS DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO 2 LEADERS: François Blanciak Associate Professor; PhD, M Arch (University of Tokyo), DPLG (École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble); Registered Architect, France Lilian Chee Associate Professor; PhD, MSc Arch History (University College London), B Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore) Simone Chung Assistant Professor; PhD, M Phil (University of Cambridge), MSc (University College London), AA Dip, BSc (University College London); ARB/RIBA Part 3 UK Hsinming Fung Ong Siew May Visiting Professor (National University of Singapore), Professor (Southern California Institute of Architecture); FAIA Gauraung Khemka Visiting Professor; Master of Urban Design (UC Berkeley), M Arch (National University of Singapore), B Arch (Sushant School of Art & Architecture, India); MSIA, AIA, IIA., Registered Architect, Singapore, India and US
Picture credit: Choo Hui Zhi
Thomas Kong Associate Professor; M Arch (Cranbrook Academy of Art), B Arch (National University of Singapore); Assoc. AIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Shinya Okuda Associate Professor; M Eng, B Eng (Kyoto Institute of Technology); Registered Architect, Japan and the Netherlands Tsuto Sakamoto Associate Professor, M Arch Programme Director; MSc (Columbia University), M Eng (Waseda University), B Eng (Tokyo University of Science) Wong Chong Thai, Bobby Adjunct Associate Professor; Honorary Fellow (National University of Singapore), Dip Arch (Aberdeen), MDesS (Harvard); MSIA, Registered Architect Singapore
* Subject To Confirmation/ COVID-19 Restrictions
Koon Wee Visiting Associate Professor; M Arch (Yale University), B Arch (University of Western Australia), BA Arch (National University of Singapore); FRSA, Registered Architect, Singapore and the Netherlands
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Picture credit: Terence Chek Wei Jie
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D E S IG N S T U DIO: S E M E S T E R 1 S T U DIO D E S C R I P T IO N S (A R 5 8 01)/(A R 5 8 0 5 )
AGROPOLITAN TERRITORIES: MATS, RUGS & QUILTS Tutor: Stephen Cairns This studio will design settlement types for rapidly urbanising food regions that encircle most cities in Monsoon Asia. It will focus on innovative ways to support high population densities and mixed-use economies based on agroecological principles. The studio will be guided by three general themes: 1. Agropolitan territories: hybrid urban-rural regions developed around decentralised technologies and agroecology 2. Mats, rugs and quilts: horizontal, thick 2D/shallow 3D mat-buildings, combining elements, armatures and landscapes 3. Seeding strategies: transformations catalysed in time (lifecycles, emergence, growth, entropy) and in thick environmental, material and institutional contexts.
POOL PLUS: “A COMMUNITY HYBRID” Tutor: Cheah Kok Ming Half fish, half lion — our mascot the Merlion epitomises the concept of a hybrid, an entity produced by a combination of two or more distinct elements, usually with an outcome that is more than the sum of its elements. Public swimming pools in Singapore are no longer just destinations for single use. They have grown from neighbourhood lido or aquatic playground into huge community complex integrating library, clubhouse, polyclinic, food court, gymnasium, sports field or park with swimming pool. One strategic value of hybridisation is land use optimisation. This studio is about architectural hybridisation beyond mere packing or stacking exercises.
POOL PLUS: PUBLIC ACCLIMATISATION Tutor: Florian Heinzelmann Pool Plus: Public Acclimatisation investigates sports facilities in response to the existing Masterplan of “Tengah Forest Town’’ with all its aspects of a futuristic HDB town and its implementation of smart technologies, green and sustainability measures, car free district, vast plantations, urban farming, etc. and potential integration of those aspects with the design research on a neighbourhood and building scale. The design brief encompasses swimming pools, gyms, fitness studios, supporting amenities, back of the house, staff facilities but also additional sports facilities and community programs which should be freely explored. These aspects open the design research for a multifunctional building which h is strivingstrives for synergies between various programs, community aspects, technologies, green & blue landscape but also resilient solutions like passive climatic design strategies which additionally form relations between indoor, semi-outdoor,
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and outdoor spaces. The studio further investigates the role of public sports facilities within the Singaporean context — past and present; and how these facilities or aspects thereof can be adopted and envisioned for the future.
F.U.N. 4.0 | THE MINDFULNESS CONDUNDRUM Tutor: Fung John Chye A hallmark of the 21st century is the omnipresence of information, which overloads and disrupts our mind in an unceasing flux. This pervasive intrusion of the digital exerts an adverse impact on our physical, mental and cognitive health. Humanity needs an attention revolution and a re-enchantment with phenomenological experiences that promote health and wellness. Future Urban Neighbourhoods (F.U.N) 4.0 continues the earlier explorations of architecture and urbanscapes to mitigate the immense challenges of real-world conditions in order to imagine viable futures in 2050 and beyond; through scenarios of sustainable human communities, wellness, urban solutions, and deep technologies. The Mindfulness Conundrum begins with an investigation of mindfulness through meditation in the common’s spaces, to unpack the sacred in the ordinary. The studio unpacks future environments at urban and architectural scales. Students examine the multifarious challenges under the broad umbrella of future urbanism.
HILL WITH A VIEW – THE KEPPEL GOLF CLUB Tutor: Richard Ho It has been announced that the lease for two of the 23 golf courses in Singapore will not be renewed when they expired in 2021 and the land was returned to the Singapore Land Authority. It’s timely that we as a nation re-examine our priorities, especially when so much land has been set aside for the recreation of so few. Golf courses are also perhaps the most detrimental to the bio-diversity of our natural environment and not sustainable in the long run for a city-state that purportedly has a shortage of land. But what will happen to these two golf courses? It is the intention of this studio to select one of these, the Keppel Golf Club located at Telok Blangah, to propose appropriate uses for its future. The objective of this studio is to propose an urban design master plan for the site that will address the issues mentioned above and point a direction towards a more sustainable future in urban development.
HERITAGE IN MOTION: TRADITION RE-PRESENTED Tutor: Ho Puay Peng (co-tutor with Tan Kay Ngee) Tradition is often constructed. People view tradition differently crossing generational or cultural boundaries. Everyone takes away a perspective of tradition when encountering rich culture due to its deep layering. Often time, such encounters challenges our perception of cultural phenomena and our own culture. Heritage is tradition valued. However, in the process of heritage making, we often take a static and narrow view of the tradition. We tend to freeze the tradition. This can be directed to the study of built heritage within the rich
traditional landscape, such as in Kyoto. As one of the most traditional of Japanese cities, there is a plethora of cultural forms covering all aspects of life. However, in such a stereotypical construction of Kyoto, we have to cast the contemporary interpretation of tradition aside and focus only on the tradition forms as we see them. This studio questions such an approach and encourages the exploration of a different encounter with the tradition. The point of entry into the Kyoto milieu can be from literature, crafts, rituals, world view, etc. The site is a modernist secondary school not far from the river Kamogawa. You will propose a new use of the school buildings within the urban and cultural contexts of the site, and design new facilities to support the functional programme to enhance the significance of the built heritage. M Arch students taking this studio are encouraged to register for AC5002 Conservation Approaches and Philosophies.
BE MY GUEST Tutor: Thierry Kandjee (co-tutor with Petra Pferdmenges) In the last Venice Architecture Biennale, the curator Hashim Sarkis asked, in an age of conflict, ‘How will we live together?’. The exhibition at the Thai pavilion addresses the Tha Tum district in Thailand where humans and elephants have lived side by side for centuries. ‘The architecture is embedded with much consideration for one another, as elephants are considered members of the household,’ says the Thai curators. Our design studio entitled “BE MY GUEST” aims to respond to the question of the Biennale at the scale of your choice (district, building or installation). It is a call to you, as ambassador of togetherness among humans and nonhumans.
QUANTUMCITY: THE QUEENSTOWN STUDIO Tutor: Khoo Peng Beng Our foundational understanding of reality — of what matter is — is totally changed by the quantum paradigm. The ideas of Newton, Darwin and Freud — the basic sources of today’s world views, have been overtaken by new discoveries. In the worldview of the emerging quantum paradigm, the universe is not a lifeless, soulless aggregate of inert chunks of matter; it is instead, a living organism. Life is not a random accident and the basis of the human psyche is more than about survival and self-gratification. We are all a part, and simultaneously a whole in our inter-connected universe. How does this new paradigm affect our wellbeing, our city and architecture? The studio is interested in exploring the quantum paradigm and the dance of relationships and materials that affect our overall perception and being in architecture. We will adopt a state of un-knowing or aporia, so that we can be open to exploring possibilities arising from the interactions of the multiple contexts affecting any issue. We will start by immersing ourselves in Queenstown — Singapore’s first public housing estate.
MUSEUM ALIVE! Tutor: Thomas Kong Museums around the world are working to break traditional stereotypes by revamping their designs to connect to wider groups of audiences. The emergence of virtual museums and augmented reality apps are extending the boundaries of museums beyond their physical walls. In this joint studio, architecture students will collaborate with engineering and industrial design students in designing immersive and interactive museum experiences that address a cause. Topics such as storytelling; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; embodied interaction and haptics; cultural computing and place-making will be introduced to support students in delivering diverse outcomes. Students may design interactive experiences that transform space, create new content and interaction modality, or learn a new language of technology based on three broad museum futures — The Metaverse Museum, The Inclusive Museum and the Distributed Museum.
THE URBAN-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: ORGANIZATION STUDIES & ITS ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Koon Wee The original urban-industrial complex theory came about through a study of cities in China, as they were industrialising and urbanising at an alarming rate. Conventional economic wisdom suggests that developing states have to industrialise. Once developed, these cities would rapidly de-industrialise and take on tertiary or service-oriented functions. However, their innate techno-urban rhythms and programs remain highly industrial, and often silently oppressive. Educationalist Ken Robinson, went as far as to suggest that our current education systems is still rooted in 19th century industrial forms — preparing workers with incremental skills for production. Singapore is replete with iterations of an industrial 40-hour work week; such as the sizing of the MRT and highways to match peak hour capacity travel, design of parks for weekend recreation, extolled virtues of punctuality and efficiency, and many others. Throughout the centuries, industrial organisations have produced not only factories and workers, but they have given form to infrastructure, greenery, housing, education, healthcare, food, cultural production, and so on¬ — in the same way that have given rise to institutions of social welfare, justice and control. This studio seeks to identify the organisational traits behind a number of these industrial firms, that may have since diversified into other entities. Adopting organisation studies as a design methodology; students would study an industrial organisation of their choice — similar to how they may develop an understanding of a complex client through research. This process will train students to read the territorial and spatial footprints of such an organisation, in pursuit of its production and profit goals. With an understanding of the depth of exploitation and control required of factories and related urban functions, students would further formulate the basis for a new programmatic and formal intervention.
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SULTAN SHOAL BRIDGE Tutor: Joseph Lim As Tuas Phase 2 is currently under construction 150 meters away from the Sultan Shoal Lighthouse — situated on a 0.6 hA island; the idea of a bridge to provide vehicular access arises. While the crossing is a vital landmark reflecting the corporate image of Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore as a progressive organisation, the public appreciation of this special facility requires deeper thinking. Beyond a singular transport function, the studio identifies key challenges in order to direct design strategies fulfilling fitness for purpose, sustainable and low energy imperatives with innovative scopes for fabrication and installation. To this end, the physical linkage between Sultan Shoal and Tuas Port Phase 2 is to provide more than accessibility to Sultan Shoal; as it is to link new with old, in a heritage site of historical value in the development of Singapore. The linkage will integrate the Tuas Port development and the Victorian architecture of the Lighthouse in a proposal to do more than display maritime heritage and history, or to facilitate corporate functions and events for public engagement. It seeks meaning for a new existence in an area of former restricted access.
than 50% of the non-renewable resources consumed by humankind — and a situation where a few decide what is good for the majority — how can we even begin to solve some of the serious and systemic challenges we face today; such as global warming, resource depletion, disruption of labour and material supply chains, aging population, and rising costs? With advanced, high-performance materials that are inexpensive and easily sourced, augmented with digital design technology and manufacturing; it has become tenable for the act of building to be more accessible to a larger segment of the population. The key lies in combining cheap materials with simple construction techniques that enable portable and quick assembly, like lightweight prefab or modular systems, as well as with new technologies and innovations like open-source collaborations and digital fabrication that simplify customisation without compromising architecture’s creative potential. It is time to change the traditional tendency for Architects to conceptualise building designs with the design brief in mind but leaving it to engineers and contractors to work out how to build it. The profession needs to apply design thinking to allow transparency and to optimise all stages of the building process allowing more people to engage in the act of building. Through this, a bottom-up architecture process can emerge and meet with the top-down process.
This studio is supported by Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. ORDINARY DENSITIES Tutor: Victoria Jane Marshall FEELS LIKE 38 ̊ C, SOUTH SEA WIND FLOWING THROUGH AT SOME SPEED Tutor: Ling Hao 62% humidity is pretty intense. I sit shirtless soaking it all in; on the 23rd floor with multiple cross ventilations and directly under a fan; this thing still hits you with a full force — each time, every year, on this island, in this flat. The building came before me, I came from somewhere else, but I adapt to this flat — move around in it, lie here, sit there, look out from, clouds drift by.... The environment and our behaviours continuously mutually transform. As we wake up each day, are we able to refresh our relationship with our environment. The intentions of this studio are to discover the flows of time in our daily world and to encounter a natural way of living.
Problems of extreme population or building density are often used to influence desirable or undesirable urban form. Would other conceptions of density, shape urban futures differently? Density, as geographer Colin McFarlane (2016) notes, is both a topographical problem of number, and measurement, as well as a problem of topological politics and space. The studio will explore one kilometre square — “ordinary” (Robinson, 2005) areas in Southeast Asia through found densities; topographical, relational, volumetric, experiential, and perceptual. The term “ordinary” means an area where there is no singular big conflict; where power (understood topologically) with nonhumans and their diverse agencies in mind, is diffuse.
ESSENTIAL QUALITY OF SPACE: AN ANTIDOTE TO CHAOS Tutor: Pier Alessio Rizzardi DESIGN FOR DEMOCRATIZATION OF ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Warren Liu The business of architecture and construction is very inaccessible to the vast majority of the population — it is expensive, complicated and undemocratic. In particular, building is largely left to wealthy speculative developers who build directly for the second-hand market and therefore have little incentive to build something of good value and sustainable. Today, architecture and building are still primarily top-down activities driven by profit, and not the wishes and needs of end users. Given that the construction industry alone takes up more
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How do we experience space? And why should we mind about it? A showcase of projects, from masterplans, buildings, and installations will offer hints on how to respond, displaying approaches to design rooted in visual, physical, and immaterial dynamics arising between users and architectural space, simulating experiences, and guiding behaviours. The course will present the ephemeral nature of architecture, the uncertainty of fixed programs, and solutions to the fragility of the present and future urban environments.
Each module will uncover interdisciplinary and crossscale design solutions providing functional tools to create thriving and vibrant spaces, successfully withstanding the test of time. Starting from a conceptual understanding of the potential of the space, students will explore the possibility of formal and informal spaces, creating practical design results to implement in different archetypal architecture projects.
SENSORIAL & SMART - DESIGN INVESTIGATIONS Tutor: Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic This Option Studio examines the potentials of sensorial mechanisms to drive design decisions, initiate paradigmatic changes and generate new built landscapes in the process. Support of smart technologies and advanced integrated thinking should be the tools for achieving novel, exciting, affective and effective designs. The generic design brief is Sensorial Singapore Capsule, the temporary pavilion set in Singapore, or abroad. It represents the essence of sensorial values of the city, exceeds the expected tropical framework, and implies more conceptual characteristics detectable through all senses. Methods of design investigation include facilitated short design exercises, scenario-based explorations, experimentations with sensory design — monitoring and documenting through collages, intuitive drawings, cartoons, conceptual models, material performance exercises and visualisation of ideas and concepts in other forms and analogue/digital techniques.
URBAN DECARBONISATION: COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS AND RULE-BASED DESIGN Tutor: Rudi Stouffs This studio focuses on Singapore’s sea-city fringes and its current threat of increasing shocks and stresses induced by climate change and excessive CO2 emissions. Specifically, through computational analysis and rulebased design, we aim to explore urban design and planning approaches that can help to mitigate climate change and reduce its effects, emphasising the reduction of carbon emissions and the potential for building biomimicry technology to capture, absorb, store and remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Starting from the current urban landscape, we aim to identify positive design actions and express these in the form of design rules that encode their conditional application to the existing situation, thereby achieving a preferable outcome. Embedding both conditions and parameters for application, design rules operate on the data at hand, and express geometric and semantic transformations. Design rules support computation and the exploration of alternative design outcomes.
With its history dating back to the 1930s, it is a repurposed horse racing stadium that now houses lifestyle, F&B, retail, education, office and sports facilities. It is also home to a wide variety of flora and fauna. Rewilding is a strategy used by conservationists to ensure continuity of our natural environment and sustainability of resources for future generations. In nature, cross-pollination leads to stronger species. Due to the pandemic, the way we reimagine spaces has been accelerated, and the hybridisation of spatial programming is on the rise. How can we add a value proposition to the land sale of Grandstand that does not involve a full-scale bulldozing of the site? We see The Grandstand as the best place to test bed a “cross- pollination” of programmes, urban rewilding, and placemaking to serve the community around. Are we able to better design the building and/or the spaces around it, and ensure its materials also contribute back to the ecology?
THE LOOS & WAGNER VIENNA STUDIO – RETHINKING THE RINGSTRASSE Tutor: Rene Tan This is part of a series of design studios that applies history to design. It pairs a great architect of the past with an important city. Its primary aim is to guide students towards creating beautiful designs for a better sustainable environment today. Like its companionstudios — the Palladio-Venice, Brunelleschi-Florence, Le Corbusier-Paris, the Bernini & Borromini-Rome studios — this traveling design studio engages a city, revisits the past and applies relevant lessons to the present. This studio explores Loos & Wagner’s contribution to architecture and design (in this case the Raumplan of Loos and the urban vision of Wagner) and how its relevant in today’s design challenges. This studio engages urban planning, conservation, landscape and reconstruction within the larger scenario of design, travel and fun. Conceived as a ‘travelling studio’ that takes the classroom out of the school, actual travel to Vienna (during termbreak) is contingent upon Covid restrictions. If travel is not possible, the studio will proceed with virtual-travel —utilising online materials, digital information and other resources available.
MORTAL ENGINES: TURF CITY Tutor: Gwen Tan (co-tutor with Chew Kok Yong) By the end of 2023, the Singapore Land Authority will repossess the plot of land where The Grandstand sits on, as well as its surrounding areas, for upcoming land sales.
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Picture credit: Tan Tay Chi Xuan Fan Keith Picture credit: Tan Xuan
NEW TRANSFORMATION POSSIBILITIES Tutor: Teh Joo Heng Interestingly, much of natural resources and human efforts are used to create our built environment. Indiscriminate demolition and rebuilding should be reexamined. Our built environment should be viewed as a resource, to be valued and treasured. Rethinking our built environment as resource will provide a significant insight to address the sustainability issues we are now facing. The studio would like to investigate how the existing built environment in the city, consisting of building, road, public infra-structure, urban spaces can be transformed, re-structured, re-program to invent new strategies to ensure long term resilience and sustainability. The studio hopes to speculate what the BRAS BASAH BUGIS AREA will be like when this transformation takes full effect.
TROPICAL PUBLIC HOUSING: BUILT FORM, SPACE, DECARBONISATION Tutor: Yuan Chao 80% of Singapore‘s resident population live in flats built by Housing Development Board (HDB). Meanwhile, Singapore aims to achieve net-zero carbon emission by 2050. Public housing planning and design undoubtedly play an important role on decarbonisation, and it is still challenging to architects to balance the increasing demand on housing and potential environmental impact. This design studio tries to tackle this important mass housing design issue and engages students to explore ways to conduct climate-responsive design to provide public housing that are more climate sustainable and resilient. The studio emphasises the systematic environmental strategies for decarbonisation at different design stages. The knowledge delivered in this studio allows students not only to deepen the understanding on urban microclimate, but also to practice the corresponding design strategies and skills.
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D E S IG N S T U DIO: S E M E S T E R 2 S T U DIO D E S C R I P T IO N S (A R 5 8 02)
drawing, making, imagining — to tease out forgotten histories, diverse heritages, the ecocritical dimension of media and other subdued narratives.
PROGRAMMATIC SCULPTURE Tutor: François Blanciak
CREATIVE ENCOUNTERS Tutor: Hsinming Fung
The Programmatic Sculpture studio will focus on one basic geometric form as a basis for design investigation. This form will be a large tetrahedron with fixed dimensions, located on a given site in Singapore. Following a thorough analysis of the site in its greater context, students will be asked to determine their own programme. The design work will then consist of adapting the original form of the cube to its given site and chosen purpose; in a process that can be referred to as an act of programmatic sculpture, involving the erosion of the initial form with the projected programme.
The design and construction of important past works of architecture, especially cathedrals of the post Gothic period are clearly collaborative in nature even though their end purpose was emphatically hierarchical.
DOMESTIC CAPITAL: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO Tutor: Lilian Chee Assisted by: Wong Zihao and Rachel Sim Work is moving home. Buildings that previously distinguished productive (paid) from reproductive (domestic/care) labour are being rendered obsolete; sacrosanct boundaries between private and public realms made ambiguous. The home | work phenomenon remains to be conjectured. We will enact a series of counter-situations — practices, objects, temporalities, scales, programmes, sites — which challenge the conceptions, forms and experiences of ‘work from home’. We will engage in the production and curation of architectural artefacts (drawings, paintings, field sketches, photographs, models, films and other objects), with the aim of delineating emerging domestic sites of labour by projective means through the descriptive, the imaginative, the speculative. An accompanying seminar component Workaround grounds design research with historical and theoretical material. This studio-seminar will be run as part of Foundations of Home-Based Work: A Singapore Study, funded by the Social Science Research Thematic Grant.
ALCHEMICAL ATELIER Tutor: Simone Chung; assisted by Mary Ann Ng The Alchemical Atelier presents a space for experimentation in collaborative work, and through resultant artefacts of processual investigations, offer ways for people to engage with aspects of our enquiries. Despite the discipline’s expanded remit, material practices of architecture remain habituated in creative solutioning. We ponder Mark Linder’s (2005: 14) profound prompt: “how does architecture make its appearance as architecture? [...] and where does, did or could architecture make its appearance other than as architecture?” We are interested in technē — the tools, techniques and technologies of a discipline — made richer through collaborative exchanges and interdisciplinary dialogues (Troiani and Ewing 2014). For this, we draw on the full range of our disciplinary repertoire — mapping,
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In our own era, as collaborative work is increasingly pursued over cyberspace, devising an architecture of exchange of ideas and knowledge, aimed towards media production and the environment best suited to support the process as well as the product will be the subject of the studio. Creative collaboration is a skill most often found in the performing arts, where all aspects of a film or stage production are bound together by a singular artistic vision. This much-admired quality is deserving of a teaching facility that enhances and promulgates it throughout its architecture, extending perhaps to the intellectual concepts which underline its structure, spatial organisation, and aesthetics.
LEFTOVER SPACES AND DETRITUS Tutor: Gaurang Khemka Our cities produce leftover and interstitial spaces. Spaces under flyovers, disused rail lines and other unclaimed leftover and negative fragments are some examples. We humans, generate copious volumes of material waste — some of which are incinerated, some goes into landfills, some finds its way to the oceans — while some ends up in these unused leftover fragments of the city. Can architecture intervene at this juncture of waste? This studio shall explore crafting alternate typologies, materials and construction methodologies for a reduce/ reuse/ recycle future for the Singapore cityscape.
GUARANTEES OF THE MODERN CONSTITUTION: NATURE & SOCIETY Tutor: Koon Wee Drawing from my 2016 introduction and writings from the book entitled “Singapore Dreaming: Managing Utopia”, this studio would explore the effects of modernisation in our city-state. On a philosophical level, it connects with, but is distinct from, my option studio exploring the architecture of the “Urban-Industrial Complex.” The drive towards modernisation and industrialisation bear the same logic and relentlessness. In his “anthropology of science,” Bruno Latour (1993: 32) observes three guarantees of the modern constitution: “First guarantee: Even though we construct Nature, Nature is as if we did not construct it. Second guarantee: Even though we do not construct Society. Society is as if we did construct it. Third guarantee: Nature and Society must remain
absolutely distinct…” It is not by coincidence that the two irrevocable pillars of the Singaporean condition were evoked — Nature and Society. These will serve as entry points for students to situate their sites of inquiry in Singapore and Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a city surrounded by 75% of countryside, formed largely by its 24 country parks. Singapore is almost the perfect inversion, with 22% of forested area surrounded by the city. Singapore is aggressively replanting the city to achieve close to 50% of green cover; while Hong Kong is fighting to conserve its country parks. This studio will explore architectural responses within the modern regime to the new expressions of society that might co-mingle with new forms of nature. (Travel to Hong Kong is not required, but may be an option, should Covid restrictions be lifted by 2023).
and heavy snow; the country has experienced numerous disasters and gradually developed a variety of systems to prepare, respond and reduce damage caused by them — the national/ local warning system, identification of escape routes and destinations, organisation of volunteer forces for rehabilitation and the foremost, construction of a physical infrastructure. By investigating and analysing the variety of attempts and engaging with the sequence of events; the studio will explore relationships of the system and everyday life of people. Taking the disaster as an event that is no way out, and accommodating it to their life inevitably; the studio questions how architecture can participate in the system, while changing people’s perception on disasters and life patterns. A particular site visit currently planned will either be in Fukuoka (Kyushu area) or Tokyo (Kanto area). The site trip is planned in Recess period in Semester 2, but is subjected to Covid restrictions.
THE LAST HOME Tutor: Thomas Kong In an essay for the Guardian newspaper, Nigerian writer Ben Okri calls for existential creativity that expresses the end of time for the human species. He is uneasy with our delusion of living a normal life despite the insurmountable facts and warning signs of our final days on earth. He laments our failure to confront the end of things, which he argues will help us get through the worst of our fears. Like writers from the past, he contends that facing the dark times will open up a new consciousness, reframe our values and awaken us to the crises and possible futures. Through visual storytelling, the staging of diegetic prototypes and emotive drawings, the studio will focus on the imagination and design of The LAST HOME. Students interested in design fiction and learning new software like Blender, Audacity, and Premiere Pro to tell the story of The LAST HOME are welcome to speculate a world drifting towards a near-terminal stage.
SKY TIMBER™ - TROPICAL RENEWABLE ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Shinya Okuda
DECOUPLING OR DE-GLOBALIZATION Tutor: Wong Chong Thai, Bobby The studio is interested in Decoupling or De-globalisation. Globalisation has been a great force in driving activities across all spheres of life. There is great exuberance, rage and speculation during the early 2000s when the globalisation we know first permeated this part of the world. But now decoupling is frequently talked about. Prompted by rivalry between the United States and China, Will the region (China included) bifurcate in outlook and expression? Or how would spheres of life morph or evolve with differing standards? Or, any turn inwards, what form would it take? Eclecticism or new invention? The world is already seeing signs of these. Different nation-states are enacting differing regulatory ethical limits on what is possible or not possible on their media platforms. Believing, as always, architecture is local, Students are to confine their studies to particular/ specific contexts and jurisdiction.
The all-year tropical climate results in fast growth in trees and crops — a few times faster than the ones in temperate climates. One of the strongest motivations to review timber nowadays is that it is renewable resource and effective carbon sink, which is the true game changer of the global warming era. However, its architectural application in the tropics faces challenges on constant high-humidity, harsh weathering and fierce termite attacks. SkyTimber™ is a professional design research studio, aiming to create symbiosis between nature and built environment, providing microclimate, fresh oxygen, comfort and amenity for humanity, which leads unique sustainable tropical aesthetics in architecture.
CONTINGENCY INFRASTRUCTURAL-SCAPE IN JAPAN Tutor:Tsuto Sakamoto Due to a recent climate change, natural disasters are currently ubiquitous especially in Japan. Susceptible to harsh natural forces: earthquakes, typhoons, flooding
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C O R E G R A D U AT E L E V E L M O D U L E S
Picture credit: Astoria Tan
AR5601 URBAN DESIGN THEORY AND PRAXIS Tutor: Cho Im Sik/ Naomi C. Hanakata Modular Credits: 4
AR5423 ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE Tutor: Catherine Loke (TBC) Modular Credits: 4
This module will provide a comprehensive and in-depth examination of the theories, methodologies and praxis of urban design. It will introduce ideas that are instrumental in establishing the foundations of urban design, examine rationales and strategies for creating vital and lively urban spaces, and explore key issues and the myriad challenges facing urban design both today and in the future. This module will also view urban design from a place-making perspective — ranging from physical to social, tangible to intangible, and global to local — with a primary focus on topics such as urban form, density, diversity, identity, public space, community, and sustainability.
This module will provide students with foundational knowledge and understanding required to enter architectural practice, and will give students an overview of the key aspects of running an architectural firm. It will introduce students to office management and to using a system to help to manage information, processes, and risk, to ensure consistent project delivery. Lectures and assignments will be designed to simulate the running of a project, demonstrating what needs to be considered from beginning to end. The lecture notes and slides provided will be intended not only for academic learning but also for students to use as a guide and resource when they enter practice.
AR5321 ADVANCED ARCHITECTURAL INTEGRATION Tutor: Shinya Okuda / Eddie Lau Modular Credits: 4 The module will offer learning experiences in multidisciplinary collaboration and problem-solving between architects and engineers, to prepare students for contemporary architectural practice. Students will look at case studies that will provide an overview of the foundations for interdisciplinary collaboration. A series of lectures on advanced architectural technologies will also illustrate how multidisciplinary collaboration can produce innovative architecture. Students will then draw up group proposals for innovative integrated building systems aimed at achieving optimisation, performance, and aesthetic goals, in collaboration with lecturers and consultants who are architects and engineers.
AR5221 CONTEMPORARY THEORIES Tutor: Federico Ruberto / Francois Blanciak Modular Credits: 4
Picture credit: Astoria Tan
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This module aims to expose architecture students to an array of intellectual ideas and theoretical positions by drawing from an expanded field of discourse that includes architecture, urban studies, design, and the humanities. This broad focus acknowledges the unique nature of architectural education, the manifold forces that shape the design of a building, and the role an architect plays in society. The lecture and assignments will be based around nine topics: atmosphere, interior, representation, capital, agency, security, networks, infrastructure, and the Anthropocene.
AR4421 ARCHITECTURE INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME Coordinator: Richard Ho Modular Credits: 8 NUS DOA’s Architecture Internship Programme is a compulsory module that complements students’ architectural education in the classroom. Under this internship programme, M Arch I students undergo six-month work attachments at firms or organisations in the fields of architecture, design, infrastructure and urban planning. This provides students with valuable exposure to a range of professional experiences and skills which cannot be taught in a traditional university setting. It also allows them to observe practitioners at work, see how classroom learning translates to the workplace, and experience the rhythms, ebbs and flows of life on a job in architecture and its related fields. Finally, the internship also helps the student progress in his or her maturity and understanding of the industry, in preparation for entry to the M Arch II programme. The six-month internship is recognised by BOA as partial fulfilment of the 24-month log sheet requirement for the Professional Practice Examination; only students who intern in firms registered with BOA will qualify for the partial fulfilment.
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A R 59 5 X X G R A D U AT E L E V E L E L E C T I V E S Modular Credits: 4 Graduate level electives are seminal learning experiences for Master of Architecture students. Taught in a seminar format, electives are aligned with research clusters, as well as faculty members’ specific expertise and research efforts, and provide a wide range of contemporary topics to enrich an architect’s education. Deep dives into specific themes allow students to align their personal interests in architecture with graduate-level research, thinking, making and writing.
SEMESTER 1 FACULTY OFFERING Chang Jiat Hwee Chen Yu David Chin Fung John Chye Naomi C. Hanakata Lai Chee Kian Albert Liang Panagiotis Mavros Shinya Okuda Tsuto Sakamoto Darren Soh Ellen Philpott Teo Wong Yunn Chii Yuan Chao Justin Zhuang SEMESTER 2 FACULTY OFFERING François Blanciak Lilian Chee Chen Yu Craig Hodgetts Emi Kiyota Shinya Okuda Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic Tan Beng Kiang
SEMESTER 1 AR5957D ARCHITECTURE AND THERMAL GOVERNANCE: ENVIRONMENTS AND TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CLIMATE CRISIS Tutor: Chang Jiat Hwee Raising temperatures and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, particularly heat waves; are compelling us to rethink the relationship between architecture, technology and the thermal environment. Drawing on the latest interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersections between architecture, environmental humanities, and STS (Science, Technology and Society), this module uses the concept of thermal governance to critique the prevailing thermal objectivity that undergirds mainstream understandings of climate, space and society. This module deploys theories and methods such as sociotechnical networks, technopolitics and material agency to analyse multi-scalar thermal phenomena entangled with bodies, interiors, buildings, cities and the planet. AR5958B OVERSEAS CHINESE ARCHITECTURE AND SETTLEMENT Tutor: Chen Yu Studies on overseas Chinese architecture and settlement offer an imperative perspective for understanding the urban and architectural history of Southeast Asia and South China. The cultural exchange across these regions contributed to the hybrid nature of overseas Chinese architecture and the vibrancy of the built environment. This module discusses overseas Chinese architecture and settlements built in Southeast Asia and South China during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It explores their spatial configuration and architectural expression, revolving around several typologies (i.e. temple, clan association, school, shop, house, cemetery, etc.) and their settings in a broader context. AR5958D HEALTHCARE FACILITIES PLANNING AND DESIGN Tutor: David Chin This module teaches the basic design and planning concepts for healthcare facilities. Students will learn about healthcare design through a mix of theory, case studies and facility visits, as well as interaction with clinicians and subject matter experts in the field of healthcare. Each lecture session comprises of three parts: design and planning principles, guest or clinician engagement and lastly a case study or facility visit. AR5958F HUMAN ECOLOGY: AGEING AND THE ENVIRONMENT Tutor: Fung John Chye Rapid population ageing is a global real-world issue, and the urban environment poses many challenges to the older people. This module familiarises students with a critical understanding of the role that the environment plays in impeding or supporting ageing in high-density urban conditions, with a focus on Singapore. It introduces key aspects of ageing and the environment, including functional, psychosocial, urban planning and architectural
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design; as well as considerations for people with dementia. Students will engage in problem-based learning through case studies, neighbourhood studies, environmental behaviours, and exploring potential interventions to enhance the environment for the aged. AR5958A DESIGNING WITH ENERGY. LOCAL RENEWABLES AS KEY FACTORS IN URBAN PLANNING Tutor: Naomi C. Hanakata This module critically investigates the renewable energy transition and the need to explore local energy resources as a key parameter for urban planning practices. It will examine Singapore’s current energy landscape and the potential of local energy production. It will investigate a concrete site to explore the potential of local energy sourcing, and the implication on planning decisions. Students will produce alternative planning scenarios, based on an optimal energy sourcing. AR5957B HISTORIES, THEORIES AND CONTEXTS OF ARCHITECTURE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA Tutor: Lai Chee Kien This module examines the histories, theories and contexts of architecture/ urban design in Southeast Asia over a long duration. AR5955A DESIGN LEARNING EXPERIENCE (DLX) Tutor: Albert Liang Architectural Festivals are events for celebrating design and promoting architectural appreciation. The “Designing Architectural Outreach” examines curatorial concepts, engagement strategies and programme design that shape the experiences of such event. Through comparative case studies of past Architectural Festivals, the elective analyses their respective effectiveness and the factors contributing to their impact on public outreach. A key feature of the module will be the authentic learning experience of conceptualising, planning, designing, implementing and evaluating the impact of an outreach activity in the local Architectural Festival. AR5959C MIXED USE / MIXED USERS Tutor: Panagiotis Mavros Mixed-use building and district typologies are essential for the functioning and also the experience of the city ¬— but mixed-uses also involve mixed users. How do people perceive and navigate in their environment? How do decisions impact the individual and collective experience of the city? In this elective we will engage critically with the mixeduse building typology, conducting observational and computational case-studies in Singapore’s urban fabric to develop an understanding of how different people understand and experience the built environment.
The course will draw its knowledge base and toolkit from current research on cognitive and behavioural science on how people perceive, cognise and act within different types of architectural and urban space. Weekly micro-research will build-up progressively from fieldobservations to computational methods such as Rhino/ Grasshopper, Twinmotion and others; that can be used to forecast and user-experience(s) in space. AR5959B INTRODUCTION TO MASS TIMBER ARCHITECTURE IN THE TROPICS Tutor: Shinya Okuda Mass Timber Architecture is rapidly evolving globally, as it is made of renewable resources and enables to sink carbon in a building form: a true game-changer in the global-warming era. However, its application in the tropics is largely unknown due to climatic and environmental challenges. The elective provides an introductory overview of Mass Timber Architecture; which is highly-interdisciplinary across forestry, manufacturing, structures, architectonics, built environment and carbon sink. It aims to set theoretical and technical frameworks to design Mass Timber Architecture in the tropics, and provide opportunities to interact with timber building experts and/or visit a construction site, etc. AR5957A ARCHITECTURAL IDEAS FROM EXPANDED FIELD Tutor: Tsuto Sakamoto Experiencing two outstanding phenomena: an environmental crisis and a development of intelligent technology; our relationship with things, living beings and environment has significantly changed today. Overwhelming power of natural disasters and pandemics remind us that we are no longer situated at a centre of the world to control and exploit the non-human entities for our subsistence. Today’s intelligent technology and its implementation in our society transformed our consciousness, desire and behaviour instead of us handling such technology as a simple tool. The crisis of human-centric idea or anthropocentrism suggested in these phenomena provides us an opportunity to reexamine the discipline of architecture that has been closely tied with the anthropocentrism since Renaissance period. AR5957E PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE HDB: IMAGING PUBLIC HOUSING IN SINGAPORE Tutor: Darren Soh This module intertwines the concepts of architecture photography and public housing history in Singapore. Students will be taught how photography is integral to architecture and how public housing in Singapore has been represented using photography from the time of HDB’s founding in 1960 up till the present day. Instruction will be carried out with a mix of theories (both in architectural photography and the history of public housing in Singapore) and practical sessions (fieldwork visiting and photographing various HDB estates in Singapore).
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AR5957G PHENOMENOLOGY FOR ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN HISTORY Tutor: Ellen Philpott Teo This module explores the meaning and use of phenomenology as theory and ‘method’ for the study of architecture and design history. Through a series of lectures, discussions, field trips and practical workshops, the module covers the work of key figures in phenomenology most relevant to studies of architecture and design. Key ideas explored include phenomena, ‘method’, contextualisation of historical objects (texts, buildings, artworks, images), narrative, poetics, memory, ocular centrism, the image, the thing, embodiment, experience, being, the senses, the cogito, the dialectic, bracketing, essences, aesthetics, technology and hermeneutics. AR5958C ARCHITECTURAL THEMATICS IN CONTEMPORARY DISCOURSES Tutor: Wong Yunn-chii The primary objective for this upper-level module is to enable students to develop a critical working understanding of architectural themes that have underpinned the discipline and the profession. These themes are assembled under ‘discourses’ rather than a defined or settled set of principles. AR5959A INTEGRATED URBAN WIND ENVIRONMENT DESIGN Tutor: Yuan Chao Following the latest released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR5 report, buildings and cities are urged to consume less energy and resources, provide comfort and quality living environment, and be sustainable and responsible for our future generations. This module focuses on architectural and urban design principles to improve urban wind environment. Urban wind environment is essential to address lots of urban environmental issues, such as urban heat island (UHI) and air quality. This module aims to provide students with theoretical knowledge and hands-on skills on performance and evidence-based planning and design strategies. Simulation knowledges and tools are introduced for planning and design practices from the urban scale to building scale. The simulation part in this module enables and encourages students to apply the wind principles into the real design problems. AR5957F WRITING DESIGN: EXPLORING THE LANGUAGE OF OBJECTS, BUILDINGS AND THE ENVIRONMENT Tutor:Justin Zhuang Objects, buildings and the environment are shaped by concepts and realised with materials; but they are, more often than not, understood via language. This module explores the relationship between language — in the form of words and visuals —and design. Through lectures and workshops, participants will be introduced to various lenses to examine design. They will also be guided to develop a portfolio of writings. By becoming more fluent in reading and writing design, participants will become more critical practitioners too.
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SEM ESTER 2* AR5955I ARCHITECTURE AND DIAGRAMS Tutor: François Blanciak This elective aims to provide students with an overview of various techniques of production and theories that relate to architectural diagrams. Its objectives are: to learn how to analyse buildings from a diagrammatic point of view, to acquire knowledge of the history and theory of diagrams in architecture, and to develop skills to generate urban and architectural diagrams directly related to design studio projects. AR5955G WORKAROUND: AN EXPERIMENTAL SEMINAR Tutor: Lilian Chee Covering the topics of work and home from the 19th century modern to the contemporary present; Workaround will introduce students to historical and theoretical concepts of capital, labour, agency, and space. The historical trajectory we trace across the seminar, broadly covers home conceived in three different tenors: Home as Ideology, Home as Opportunity, and Home as Substitute. Loosely, these three tenors represent the transformation of work in the home from an ostensibly domestic activity that is gendered, to an alternative activity that is messy, to a quotidian activity that is ubiquitous today. In concert with sessions dedicated to discussing how the home has been represented architecturally; the seminar anticipates an ambitious output that deftly combines traditional written outputs with documentative material created through historical research, theoretical models, ethnographic observation, and more. This module is run concurrently with the option studio Domestic Capital: an experimental studio.
AR5952C URBAN AND RURAL REGENERATION IN ASIA Tutor: Chen Yu This multi-disciplinary module explores several topics on urban and rural regeneration in Asia. It aims to provoke critical thinking about sustainable planning and design in Asia. We will elaborate on the theories and principles of this study area by examining selected regeneration projects from historical, social, economic, and environmental perspectives. On-site lectures and seminars will enable the students to experience and understand challenges with regeneration practices in the context of Asia.
AR5XXXX GLOBAL AGING AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Tutor: Emi Kiyota
design exercises and short essay, reflecting the ability for analytical design enquiry.
With the simultaneous rise in the population of elderly and the number of natural disasters; societies worldwide are increasingly facing two critical questions: how can we care for unprecedented numbers of elderly in our society, and how can we reduce the vulnerability of older populations during and after catastrophic natural disasters, due to climate change? Responding to these societal challenges, we need both intelligent policymaking and practical solutions that emerge from citizen engagement on the ground, especially for co-designing our own surroundings. This module aims to familiarise students with challenges and opportunities around aging societies, not only from national but also global perspectives. This module introduces global aging issues related to both social and physical environment aspects. Through dialogues with global experts, students will be exposed to real-life cases, and persons on the ground implementing interventions in various parts of the world. They also gain critical thinking skills in order to come up with their own ideas on how to tackle this complex issue and be a part of the solution to enhance the environment for people of all ages.
AR5952A PARTICIPATORY COMMUNITY DESIGN Tutor: Tan Beng Kiang This module introduces concepts and practices in participatory planning and design at the community scale. Major topics include brief history of participation (global and Singapore), why participation is needed, benefits and problems, methods in participatory community design and case studies. Students are expected to participate in hands-on projects to apply the methods (subject to change due to safety measurement measures). Students are also expected to participate in community engagement activities on some weekends and evenings.
*Module codes stipulated are Subjected to Change.
AR59XXX DESIGN RHETORIC Tutor: Craig Hodgetts Research, analysis, and diagrammatic description of the visual design vocabulary as applied to critical buildings and articles of everyday use. AR5953C INTRODUCTION TO MASS TIMBER ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Shinya Okuda Mass Timber Architecture is rapidly evolving globally, as it is made of renewable resources and enables carbon sink in a building form. However, usage of natural and organic materials in a contemporary built environment requires a whole set of different design approaches from common industrial materials, such as steel or concrete. The elective provides an introductory, highly-interdisciplinary overview of the Mass Timber Architecture — across forestry, manufacturing, structures, architectonics, built environment and carbon sink. It aims to set theoretical and technical frameworks to design Mass Timber Architecture, with its emerging prospect in Southeast Asia. AR5952H HUMAN ECOLOGY – SPACE & HEALTH Tutor: Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic This module is a critical enquiry into the role of sensorial apparatus in processes connecting space to physical, psychological and social wellbeing. In the “flipped model” teaching environment where the lecture slides are available ahead of weekly dialogues, we will be debating the issues from the standpoint of sensory driven perception. Lectures will cover three main areas: topics in history-theory (culture/context related evolution of healthful design; ageing); holistic approaches to sensorial design (transgression from healthy to healing) and pragmatic topics and methods (universal design and investigative practices). Deliverables include small-scale
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A RC HITEC T U RE IN TER NS HIP P R O G R A M M E (A I P) NUS DOA’s Architecture Internship Programme is an essential practical component that complements students’ architectural education in the classroom. Under this internship programme, M Arch I students undergo 6-month work attachments at firms or organisations in the fields of architecture, design, infrastructure and urban planning. This provides students with valuable exposure to a range of professional experiences and skills which cannot be taught in a traditional university setting. It also allows them to observe practitioners at work, see how classroom learning translates to the workplace, and experience the rhythms, ebbs and flows of life on a job in architecture and its related fields. Finally, the internship also helps the student progress in his or her maturity and understanding of the industry, in preparation for entry to the M Arch II programme.
L I S T O F PA R T N E R F I R M S & O R G A N I S AT IO N S: 103 EAST Architects AAMER Architects A D Lab AECOM Singapore AEDAS PTE LTD AGA Architects AKDA Architects AKTA-RCHITECTS PTE LTD APDS Architects ARCHEDEN Architects ARC Studio Architecture + Urbanism PTE LTD ARCHITECTS 61 PTE LTD ARCHITECTS TEAM 3 PTE LTD AWP Architects CENDES+TENarchitects & Planners CONSORTIUM 168 Architects CPG Consultants DP Architects East 9 Architects & Planners ECO-ID Architects Ernesto Bedmar Architects EZRA Architects FARM Architects PTE LTD FDAT Architects LLP Formwerkz Architects PTE LTD Freight Architects LLP Goy Architects Hassell Design (Singapore) PTE LTD HCF and Associates Housing & Development Board HYLA Architects IX Architects PTE LTD Jay Chiu Architects & Associates JPG ARCHITECTURE (S) PTE LTD JTC Corporation K2LD Architects PTE LTD Kaizen Architecture Kerry Hill Architects PTE LTD Kite Studio Architecture LLP Klan Architects KNTA Architects Kyoob Architects PTE LTD KYX Architects LLP LAUD Architects PTE LTD LEKKER Architects PTE LTD LIAN ARCHITECTS LIU & WO Architects PTE LTD
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M&Y Design Architects M.A.N Architects LLP Meta Architecture Ming Architects MKPL Architects PTE LTD MODE Architects PTE LTD MORROW Architects & Planners PTE LTD ONG&ONG Group OWAA ARCHITECTS LLP Paper Plane Architects Park + Associates PTE LTD PI Architects LLP PROVOLK Architects P&T Consultants PTE LTD Quaters Architects LLP RichardHo Architects RSP Architects Planners & Engineers PTE LTD RT+Q Architects PTE LTD S A Chua Architects PTE LTD SAA Architects PTE LTD SCDA Architects PTE LTD Shing Design Atelier PTE LTD SOLID Architects LLP Studio Hatch Studio Lapis Conservation PTE LTD Studio Milou Singapore PTE LTD Studio Wills + Architects Studiogoto Surbana Jurong Consultants PTE LTD Swan & Maclaren Architects PTE LTD Swing Architects TA.LE Architects Teh Joo Heng Architects The Architects Circle PTE LTD Tierra Design (S) PTE LTD Timur Designs LLP TOPOS Architects PTE LTD Twosquarefeet Design Studio Type0 Architects W Architects PTE LTD WASAA Architects & Associates White Matter Design Studio WKL Architects WOHA Architects PTE LTD YUME Architects Zarch Collaboratives PTE LTD ZIVY Architects
Picture credit: Seetoh Hui Yi
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Picture credit: Studio Victoria Jane Marshall
M A R C H II
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M A R C H II D E S IG N R E S E A R C H T H E S I S AR5807 1 SEMESTER ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN THESIS
AR5806 ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN RESEARCH REPORT
(SEMESTER 2)
(SEMESTER 1) Modular Credits: 4
Learning Objectives: 1.
Pass / Fail Module
Modular Credits: 20
To understand and critically manifest creative practice research methods in a directed research
Learning Objectives: 1.
Graded Module
To understand and critically manifest creative practice research methods in an individually directed
programme.
thesis milieu.
To formulate a thesis statement, abstract and
The Master of Architecture design thesis will span across
compendium of students’ individual design research
approach, understood as a design question and line
one semester establishing the final design criteria for
outcomes; and to illustrate the impacts of the modes
conducted in the module. The report shall build and
of inquiry.
achieving the degree of Master of Architecture. Students
of research on the formation of an architectural
To take a critical position on creative research and its
will be able to select from a variety of thesis advisors,
Architectural Thesis (Semester 2) through actual design
outcomes; and to illustrate the impacts of the modes
and either align their thesis with their advisors’ research
practice. Using texts, images, charts and diagrams, and
of research on the formation of an architectural
interests and expertise, or pursue their own self-directed
committing to a variety of material research; the report
proposition through written and graphic analysis.
thesis themes.
The Architectural Design Research Report is a
elaborate on a body of ideas that will be further pursued in
shall display a focused issue, line of inquiry, approach,
2.
3.
4.
To identify, position and relate individual creative
2.
To take a critical position on creative research and its
proposition. 3.
To position individual research in the larger domain of architecture and to communicate how creative research advances the discipline.
4.
To understand and take a critical position on how
practice research to a community of practice and
The two modules (AR5806 Architectural Research Report
might the translation of creative practice research
position precedents.
and AR5807 Architectural Design Thesis) dealing with the
outcomes occur into architectural approaches,
To position individual research in the larger domain
design research thesis have been put together to allow
The module’s fundamental purpose is to enable students
of architecture and to communicate how creative
students to develop a high level of competence in creative
to develop a rigorous method and deep-dive focus in a
practice research advances the discipline.
practice design research; this competence would lead to
To understand and take a critical position on how
architectural outcomes in a wide range of topics.
theoretical background and various evidence that supports the idea. 5.
specific area of design research. It expects students
6.
techniques and strategies or tactics. 5.
To design with creative practice research and conceptual tools and to be able to make informed ethical judgments in architecture.
to produce a series of high-quality-investigations and
might the translation of creative practice research
analysis of which the outcomes are translatable and
outcomes occur into architectural approaches,
Building on the (AR5806) Architectural Design Research
digital and analogue mediums and simulations in
pursuable in the area of creative design practice.
techniques and strategies or tactics.
Report, the Architectural Design Thesis will drive the
2D, 3D and 4D mediums to communicate research, iteration and design techniques in architecture.
6.
To use advanced representational techniques in both
To use advanced representational techniques in both
students to take a critical position of their research and
Deliverables:
digital and analogue mediums and simulations in
hypothesis, where a semester-long design exploration
4000-word A4 portrait hardcopy in PDF format
2D, 3D and 4D mediums to communicate research,
will progress to the manifestation of an architectural
Measurable Outcomes:
iteration and design techniques in architecture.
proposition.
1. 2.
7.
The following should be included in the report:
8.
response to a formulated thesis statement.
To communicate creative research and design
1. Title of Research
practice in concise and considered, written and
Students are encouraged to extend the research
2. Research Abstract (300 words)
visual mediums.
programme from Semester 1 through to Semester 2, translating and transforming a research topic and
3. Research Approach 4. Research Context and Community of Practice
Measurable Outcomes:
5. Research Outputs
1.
6. Contribution to Knowledge 7. Annotated Bibliography and Review of Literature,
2.
Works, and References 8. Image/Resource Index
3.
9. Self-Disclosure of Research 10. Ethics Approval as necessary
4.
Provide an innovative and rigorous design concept in Provide a clear design research method and approach to the act of design.
3.
hypothesis into design outcomes.
Produce robust architectural representations with rigour and graduate level expertise in 2D, 3D, and 4D mediums.
Provide clear evidence for a research program and approach.
Deliverables include all necessary drawings, models,
4.
Produce analogue and digital models.
Provide clear evidence of a design thesis argument in
photos, films that represent the research and Expansion
5.
Demonstrate the thesis and its contribution to
written and representational tools.
of Thesis preparatory report as an A4 Portrait document,
knowledge through verbal, written and physical
Provide clear presentation of an understandable
illustrating and describing the research outcomes in
mediums and artefacts.
design methodology.
Semester 2.
Describe the explanation of the existing field of design knowledge and propose how the thesis will add to the existing field.
5.
Present and analyse the proposed community and their practice.
6.
Represent a convincing design thesis proposal through written and visual mediums in a 4000-word A4 document.
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M A R C H II D E S IG N R E S E A R C H T H E S I S FA C U LT Y A D V I S O R S: François Blanciak Associate Professor; PhD, M Arch (University of Tokyo), DPLG (École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble); Registered Architect, France
Naomi C. Hanakata Assistant Professor; Doctor of Science in Architecture (ETH Zurich), MSc ETH Arch (ETH Zurich), BSc ETH Arch (ETH Zurich), BA (University of Tuebingen)
Lam Khee Poh Provost’s Chair Professor of Architecture and Built Environment, PhD (Carnegie Mellon University, USA), B Arch (University of Nottingham, UK); FRIBA, Registered Architect, UK, FIPBSA
Tsuto Sakamoto Associate Professor, M Arch Programme Director; MSc (Columbia University), M Eng (Waseda University), B Eng (Tokyo University of Science)
Hans Brouwer Adjunct Associate Professor; B Arch (University of Southern California); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore
Florian Heinzelmann Associate Professor in Practice; PhD (Eindhoven University of Technology), M Arch (Berlage Institute), Dipl-Ing (Munich University of Applied Sciences); Registered Architect, the Netherlands
Victor Lee Adjunct Assistant Professor; AA Dip, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); MSIA, ARB, Registered Architect, Singapore and the UK
Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic Associate Professor, Deputy Head (Administration and Finance); ScD, MSc (University of Belgrade, Serbia), Spec Arch, Dip Eng Arch (University of Belgrade, Serbia); Registered Architect, Serbia
Randy Chan B Arch, B Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore Chaw Chih Wen M Arch, B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Cheah Kok Ming Vice Dean (Academic), Associate Professor; B Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore (14.07.21) Lilian Chee Associate Professor; PhD, MSc Arch History (University College London), B Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore) Cho Im Sik Associate Professor; PhD (The Graduate School of Seoul National University, Korea), M Arch (The Berlage Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands), B Sc (Seoul National University) Simone Chung Assistant Professor; PhD, M Phil (University of Cambridge), MSc (University College London), AA Dip, BSc (University College London); ARB/RIBA Part 3 UK Fung John Chye Associate Professor in Practice; B Arch (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore
Richard Ho Professor in Practice; B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Ho Weng Hin Adjunct Assistant Professor; Dip Specialista in Restauro dei Monumenti (Universita’ degli Studi di Genova), M Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); ICOMOS Board Director; Expert Voting Member ICOMOS ISC20C; Docomomo Singapore Chapter Chair Khoo Peng Beng Adjunct Associate Professor; B Arch (National University of Singapore); RIBA, MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Nirmal Kishnani Associate Professor, MSc ISD Programme Director; PhD (Curtin University of Technology), MSc (Env Psych) (University of Surrey), BA Arch (National University of Singapore) Thomas Kong Associate Professor; M Arch (Cranbrook Academy of Art), B Arch (National University of Singapore); Assoc. AIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Adrian Lai Adjunct Assistant Professor; AA Dip, BA Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, ARB Registered Architect, Singapore and the UK
Joseph Lim Associate Professor; PhD (Heriot-Watt University), MSc (University of Strathclyde), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Neo Sei Hwa Adjunct Associate Professor; B Arch (National University of Singapore), BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Shinya Okuda Associate Professor; M Eng, B Eng (Kyoto Institute of Technology); Registered Architect, Japan and the Netherlands Ong Ker-Shing Associate Professor in Practice, BA Arch Programme Director; M Arch, MLA (Harvard University); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Pan Yi-cheng Adjunct Assistant Professor; AA Dip (Hons) (Architectural Association); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Roy Pang B Arch (RMIT University); GMM, UDA, DfSP, MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Tan Teck Kiam B Arch (Hons) (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore
Rudi Stouffs Dean’s Chair Associate Professor; PhD, MSc (Arch Comp Design) (Carnegie Mellon University), MSc (ArchEng), Ir-Arch (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Teh Joo Heng Adjunct Associate Professor; SMArchS (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Tham Wai Hon M Arch, B Arch (National University of Singapore) Tiah Nan Chyuan Adjunct Assistant Professor; AA Dip, BA Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Wong Chong Thai, Bobby Adjunct Associate Professor; Honorary Fellow (National University of Singapore), Dip Arch (Aberdeen), MDesS (Harvard); MSIA, Registered Architect Singapore Wu Yen Yen Adjunct Assistant Professor; M Arch (Columbia University), BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); Green Mark AP, MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Yuan Chao Assistant Professor (Presidential Young Professor); PhD Architecture (Chinese University of Hong Kong), MIT Kaufman Teaching Certificate (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
The Garden of Encounter It was just a day like any other...
We chatted for two nights. He’is unusual. And I sent out an invitation.
Maybe tomorrow, we could meet up after work?
Bing--
Site Map Beijing’s Major Subway Interchanges
+ 280.0m
GUOMAO STATION GUIDE EXIT E Make-up Booth LINE 1
Vending Machine Parcel Collection Ticket Booth
Elevator to Chedaogou-Bound Trains
Elevator to Chedaogou-Bound Trains
You are here.
EXIT F Elevator to Songjiazhuang-Bound Trains Elevator to Songjiazhuang-Bound Trains
LINE 10 To CheDaoKou EXIT G
Escalator to Street
LINE 10
Picture credit: Yin Menghua To SongJiaZhuang
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Urban Elevation
Picture credit: Ching Yu Han and Marsha Ismail
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M A R C H II D E S IG N R E S E A R C H TH ESIS O FFERIN GS Picture credit: Yao Jia Ying Elizabeth
FORM Tutor: François Blanciak
inspiring cultural network of leading creatives and visionaries.
What should a significant architectural project look like? How can it come into existence within the current ecological context of architecture and a strained economy of attention? In light of current debates on what is — fundamentally — a building; this thesis topic will focus broadly on the issue of form in architecture, a notion so contentious that it is often presented as necessarily “following” particular variables. What these are, and why they surface at specific moments in history, will be investigated; with a particular emphasis on the study of precedents in order to envision architectural outputs that transcend solutionism.
The fringe is also about producing things that enrich our lives; to make more with less. It is paradoxical but true. The concept shall be focused on three key themes that navigates the drastic transitions in the world of mobility: connectedness, digitality and circularity. It is an invitation to explore the topics, the possibilities of perception and sensuous, and the boundaries of factual and fantastic.
THE NARRATIVE OF TECTONICS Tutor: Hans Brouwer The craft of architecture evolved from simple shelter to the complex structures of today. It will continue to evolve into amazing and hitherto unimagined forms and spaces. At its core, however, architecture is about craft and the making of things. It is about the human ability to take materials and to transform them — through care, innovation and craftsmanship into architecture. This relationship of process and outcome is perfectly summarised in Robert Maulden’s definition of tectonics in architecture: Tectonics in architecture is defined as “The science or art of construction, both in relation to use and artistic design. It refers not just to the “activity of making the materially requisite construction that answers certain needs, but rather to the activity that raises this construction to an art form”. Robert Maulden: The Tectonics in Architecture
THE INNER COAST
Craft and construction, however, is lacking in the true potential of architecture without a narrative to guide it. It is this pursuit of a higher purpose that has driven us to constantly seek out new ways of solving old problems. The challenge lies in understanding how to choose one’s narrative so that it guides us towards the highest ideals of form, space and order. FRINGE CITY – COLLECTIVE Tutor: Randy Chan No one can predict the future. Everything in this space is a reflection on the status quo. We are not questioning it entirely, rather we are realising we cannot continue as we used to. The thesis study shall act as an artistic, experimental experience space to imagine the tomorrow. Space at the fringe of the city provides a flexible setting to cater for a creative dialogue between creators, art and technology. We shall attempt to look at fringe of city, i.e. exploring the undercurrent of its own existence — the densities; the tension between social-economic and connectivity. Studies shall address what is really relevant for people in the city, arising in opportunities to open up our range of reach to connect to architecture culture, art, fashion and overall creativity.
Picture credit: Rifqi Ashraf Bin Rosali
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As a marginal space, the fringe holds a prominent position in the reimagination of the “new”. This enables the space, brand and collaborative artists to engage with a rich,
The thesis shall attempt to translate three key connected themes from an emotional level through to companionship in a digital world; and how this is influencing everything in our world — as issues on circularity and sustainability are paramount too. TEMPLES FOR HOMO DEUS Tutor: Chaw Chih Wen The studio is interested in the paradigmatic shifts in architecture as we transit from homo sapiens to homo deus. Yuval Noah Harari’s seminal works will serve as an impetus for further research into related socio-politicalcultural phenomenon and most importantly, their spatial implications. The thesis should refrain from a simplistic application of black box technology in architecture; but rather, focus on the discovery of novel, unimagined spatial practices through the lens of a homo deus. LENS OF ANTI-FRAGILITY Tutor: Cheah Kok Ming When dinning-in restrictions hit Chicago-based Dimo’s Pizza shop during the pandemic, they reinvented themselves by deploying some of their ovens and manpower to produce plastic shields for health-care protection. The transformation thrived for Dimo despite the adversities. Nassim Taleb describes “antifragility” as an attribute beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same but the antifragile gets better. The studio provides an “antifragile” framework to examine situations, problems or threats for thinking about unique contextual architectural possibilities. For Dimo’s Pizza, it raises the question of how architecture would facilitate the concurrent production of pizza and plastic shields. BROKEN: LABOUR FOR CARE Tutor: Lilian Chee ‘Now breakdown is our epistemic and experiential reality.’ Our worlds are increasingly vulnerable. Wars, protests, inflation, disease and climate change have resulted in an unprecedented rise in the disenfranchised, discriminated, homeless, jobless, with many lives already lost. Cities are sites of trauma and strife; they are also the sites of resilience and repair. How do we put our worlds back together? To do this, architecture must galvanise a movement at its frontiers, forge relations at its boundaries. It means to think through, and construct architecture alongside with, our environments, society, culture, technology, human and nonhuman Others. This Thesis Studio is committed to reimagining an architectural politics and aesthetics through the ethics, theories and practices of care: Architecture made in-themidst-of others.
EMERGING CIVIC URBANISMS: DESIGNING FOR SOCIAL IMPACT Tutor: Cho Im Sik With rising awareness of the impacts of environmental degradation and growing social and economic polarisation, various forms of civic urbanisms are emerging around the world as an alternative to the growth-oriented and market-driven urban development of the past. This implies an awakened desire for a new paradigm in society — based on more sustainable ways of life, which contributed to the increased interest in communal life and shared identities in localities. The new paradigm has also brought about greater emphasis on well-being, quality of life, social inclusion, environmental consciousness, and active participation of citizens in decision-making. In a fast changing social context, this studio draws attention to the possibilities and challenges that we face while moving towards a more inclusive and sustainable future. ARCHITECTURE AS MEDIA Tutor: Simone Chung Media, as defined by Hertz and Parikka (2015, 146), is “approached through the concrete artifacts, design solutions, and various technological layers that range from hardware to software processes, each of which in its own way participates in the circulation of time and memory.” The materiality of media, from a deep-time perspective, exposes an extensive matrix implicating the geopolitics of labour, expansionist capitalism, and irreversible environmental damage not only from planetary excavations and energy production but also the long-tail effects of toxic waste. F.U.N. 4.0 | THE MINDFULNESS CONDUNDRUM Tutor: Fung John Chye A hallmark of the 21st century is the omnipresence of information, which overloads and disrupts our mind in an unceasing flux. This pervasive intrusion of the digital exerts an adverse impact on our physical, mental and cognitive health. Humanity needs an attention revolution and a re-enchantment with phenomenological experiences that promote health and wellness. Future Urban Neighbourhoods (F.U.N) 4.0 continues the earlier explorations of architecture and urbanscapes to mitigate the immense challenges of real-world conditions in order to imagine viable futures in 2050 and beyond; through scenarios of sustainable human communities, wellness, urban solutions and deep technologies. The Mindfulness Conundrum begins with an investigation of mindfulness through meditation in the common’s spaces, to unpack the sacred in the ordinary. The studio unpacks future environments at urban and architectural scales. Thesis students conduct deep dives under the broad umbrella of future urbanism.
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DESIGNING WITH ENERGY Tutor: Naomi C. Hanakata The transition towards renewable energies is foremost a spatial issue. The inevitable energy transition and as well as recent geopolitical events emphasise the urgent need for greater energy independence and the demand to create more localised, sustainable and integrated energy systems. Together, these challenges present urgent calls that we as designers, need to respond to. We need to find creative strategies in order to develop holistic and adaptive ways to prepare our urban environment for uncertain futures and renewable energy generation needs, to factor into design decisions rather than being an afterthought. “SOCIO-CLIMATIC SPACES” Tutor: Florian Heinzelmann Students are invited to research and design systems and solutions which concern themselves with halting or reversing the effects of global warming through the built environment and construction practice. Students should take the socio-climatic context of the tropical region within Southeast Asia as base for their work. With a deep understanding of a specific location and societal context, students can then embark to propose solutions to rethink, improve, repair, or optimise aspects via the means of climatic adaptability, passive climatic design strategies, adaptive re-use, materials and construction systems and embodied energy, energy production, etc. This all starts from the idea that only when a space is comfortable enough, meaningful social interaction and activities will happen, thus turning them into places. THESIS STATEMENT Tutor: Richard Ho In Singapore, issues such as the inequitable distribution of land to private housing vs. public housing, golf courses pandering to the leisure of a select few, priority of roads for cars over streets for people, conservation of our architectural heritage driven by commercial interests — are all important issues which the present generation of architects must seek to redress. We often hear about buildability and sustainability being championed, but what about cultural sustainability? How do we address that in a multi-cultural society like ours? This is a phenomenon not only in Singapore but also in the other Southeast Asian countries where the pressure of development in the urban centres are most felt. Besides Singapore, students are welcome to choose sites beyond the confines of our island. FUTURES FOR OUR MODERN PAST Tutor: Ho Weng Hin Faced with mounting redevelopment pressures, postindependence modernist structures and landscapes in Singapore are at a watershed moment. Today, imageable heroic modern megastructures such as the Golden Mile Complex and People’s Park Complex built barely four decades ago are threatened with obliteration, through their impending en-bloc sales. On the other hand, following estate intensification programmes, what used to be a substantial and varied building stock of modernist housing heritage — such as the pioneering Queenstown Estate — has been severely depleted. The studio proposes
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that this paradigm is increasingly environmentally and socially unsustainable, causing ruptures in social, cultural and urban accretion indispensable to a vibrant, liveable city. Rather than seeing conservation as opposition to progress and intensification, it explores rehabilitation and adaptive reuse as an alternative mode of urban regeneration — one that layers on rather than a demolishand-rebuild approach. Under the guidance by a practicing conservation specialist, the studio will adopt a rigourous research-based approach to inform conservation design strategies for a site of the student’s choice, during the Thesis Preparation stage. Students will gain new skills and tools for ‘deep reading’ into heritage landscapes, structures and artefacts that will inform a robust conservation/ intervention framework to guide the Thesis Design stage. HOLON STUDIO Tutor: Khoo Peng Beng In the quantum paradigm, the human person is a macro quantum system that is nonlocally entangled with other organisms throughout the biosphere. We are no longer seen as separated and apart from the universe. We are simultaneously whole and a part of, or a holon, of the universe. This thesis studio is concerned with examining the concept of the holon and holoarchy in architecture. It starts with the student as the basic unit of the holon, building up the complexity of the system through integrative processes. Students will explore how simple system nests within larger systems, creating a holoarchy. Unlike the traditional hierarchy, a holoarchy does not have a defined top and a defined bottom but is open ended and bi-directional. Architecture therefore is seen as a complex system comprising autonomous wholes that exists within a larger system. Students will be free to explore this conceptual framework and its implications in any context pertaining to a future Singapore. FORM FOLLOWS SYSTEM Tutor: Nirmal Kishnani Asia is witnessing a staggering loss of human, social and natural capitals, due in part to the way we build. The problem isn’t that we aren’t green enough; it’s that green may be the right answer to the wrong question. Should we stay the course of green and do less harm? In the time that Asia embraced the green building movement, our collective impact on natural ecosystems was nevertheless catastrophic.
This approach leads to an altogether new perspective on form, one with profound implications on people and planet.
WORLDBUILDING ARCHITECTURE NARRATIVE Tutor: Thomas Kong “Make up the world you want. Believe it. Tell its story. Inhabit it, and it will become.” Julian Bleecker. Founder, Near Future Laboratory. Buildings are vessels for stories and architects are visual storytellers of possible worlds. The studio will draw from the theories and techniques of filmmaking, design fiction and speculative design to advance critical futurities. Students keen to leverage the power of visual storytelling — through filmic spaces, animation and visual effects — and see worldbuilding as a means to conjure alternative futures and spatial narratives for their thesis projects are invited to submit their proposals. TABULA RASA RASA RASA Tutor: Adrian Lai Tabula Rasa is the obliteration of what went before, so as to make anew. Rem Koolhaas, in his seminal missive S, M, L, XL put Singapore on a petri dish to be pulled apart, studied, analysed and critiqued. The text could be a mirror of ourselves held up by a particularly acute Western eye to serve as the context and ontology of our Blank Slate. Palimpsest and Traditions — or at least the artefacts of these cultural legacies — were lost but how do we make anew with this understanding of Active Neutrality? In the etymology of the word ‘tabula’; that is, to raise up or frame — the word ‘rasa’ takes centre stage. Rasa in Behasa Melayu is the act of feeling, the sense of touch or the sensation produced by a thing touched. Rasa ( ) in Sanskrit refers to the essential element and experience of any work of visual, literary or performing art. Tabula Rasa Rasa Rasa is the methodical insemination of these essences from Singapore’s multi-cultures into our origin story to speculate and rewrite Koolhaas’s Singapore Songlines. We will reimagine original Singaporean architecture premised on a new understanding of Tabula Rasa.
Should we, therefore, faced with a crisis of ecology and climate, aspire to do good; to heal, repair, and regenerate?
This studio will look at Singapore as such a Living Lab and propose research-projected designs in Singapore and/or Venice, related to Venice Biennale 2023 and the aforementioned theme.
This studio returns to the heart of the sustainability question: how to forge Human-Nature partnerships, and restore our place in the natural world.
A “WELL AND GREEN” HABITAT FOR HUMANITY Tutor: Lam Khee Poh
What does this mean at the drawing board? The answer is rooted in whole systems thinking. Each building is many elements, interacting to form a system. This is embedded within a wider system that is the neighbourhood, which is in turn nested in a systemof-systems that is the city. By understanding scale and complexity, we begin to see design as the making of systemic structure and behaviour. Good design, or design in search of good, is many systems fitted together within an efficient and beautiful form, acting in positive reciprocity within a wider system-of-systems.
This thesis studio aims to explore and understand the complex ecological relationship between the human species and the built/natural environment towards designing, constructing and maintaining a “well and green” habitat that supports sustainable and healthy living. The green movement in the built environment has taken root globally over the past three decades. Many innovative technologies have emerged to enable low carbon sustainable developments. However, health and wellness considerations are relatively nascent. There are exciting opportunities to discover new insights as well as
to imagine and test new holistic design concepts. The Greek philosopher Aristotle said this 2000 years ago: “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. Happy people tend to be healthier people due to lifestyle choices. A healthy city must therefore create inspiring and enabling physical and social environments to support such choices. So, the focus must be on the people that cities are built to accommodate and serve.” ICONOMIC FORM Tutor: Victor Lee Through time, buildings have cemented generations and brought together communities through religion, economic manifestations and socio-cultural endeavour. From the traditional icons of past religious buildings to the contemporary world of museums, cultural halls, high-rise hotels and the like — such architectural manifestations often involve the use of form, scale, dominance and signifiers as an outward show of faith, vision and status. Archetypal forms of the dome, pyramid, spire and the modern equivalents of grandeur and extravagance, are commonly depicted as icons to signify meaning to this end, but are there less pompous ways to communicate presence and significance? Iconomic form — a play on the words, icon and economy, questions the pervasiveness of building of icons and buildings as icon by proposing an alternative way of designing significance from a standpoint of building economy. Through the design of an architecture of the everyday, this thesis offering will seek a new relevance and value in the making of an iconomic form through building economy as an antithesis to the making of an iconic form in the spectacular. We will posit how the non-icon can be used as an instrument of a significant architecture to reconnect people and to bond over a common humanistic vision. The search for such a potential architecture is especially critical in a world that now lies at the intersection of economic instability, climate change and social responsibility. EXTREME BRIDGES Tutor: Joseph Lim In contrast to the technological trajectory of modern bridges today, early bridges served more than a single purpose. Not just as places of passage, China’s corridor bridges ‘langqiao’ represent a living tradition in rural communities as spaces for leisure and marketing, and as sites for worship, and recreation. As the term corridorbridge implies a dual character it is the outcome of separate approaches to explore the spatial solutions relating bridge with ‘something else’. From the literal translations of the dwelling-bridge in Bad Kreuznach of Germany and a sophisticated escape route through a private Medici gallery in the Ponte Vecchio of Florence, their histories and architecture remain fascinating in-built contemporary urbanity. Although bridge offices have been built above transport infrastructure for commercial advantage, there are still many design speculations of what a bridge can be, both spatial and structural. This fascination with the bridge continues in design competitions and theoretical exercises in experimental design studios. This thesis studio investigates the hybrid bridge typology in ‘extreme’ sites with emergent need in any geographic
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Picture credit: Tan Yong Jie Alvin, Chin Wen Xuan, Toh Wei Wei
Picture credit: Clarence Credensa Tan
location contextualised by geo-political and socioeconomic disjuncture. Thesis candidates choosing the AR5805 studio on Sultan Shoal Bridge in Semester One will have the benefit of inception and design methods when developing a different hybrid bridge thesis project over two semesters with studio leader Joseph Lim, civil engineering professors and architects with awardwinning bridge projects. COASTAL CONSUMPTIONS – LIVES & LIVELIHOODS Tutor: Neo Sei Hwa The studio is not about solving global climate issues per se, but seeks solutions, both interim and longterm — to address coastal living conditions impacted by environment extremities. We will examine how to strike a new balance, how we displace or coexist with nature, how we prioritise economy or environment, how relevant are climate agendas in discussions of lives and livelihoods. Thus equipped, the practical ambition is to explore an actual coastal area in neighboring West Java, Indonesia. The communities there are fighting for survival after losing most of both homes and livelihoods in a futile struggle against environmental pollution and coastal abrasion. NATURE UNFOLD- ADVANCED ARCHITECTONICS DESIGNS FOR SYMBIOTIC FUTURE IN THE TROPICS Tutor: Shinya Okuda Contemporary social issues are often complex and intertwined to include financial and environmental issues, which require holistic design approaches across materials, built forms, programs and performance. Advanced architectonics designs are to sublime them into innovative multi-dimensional architectural solutions by leveraging essential game-changing phenomena; such as carbon sequestration, and construct them into sophisticated functional advanced architectural compositions and unique sustainable aesthetics. Embracing the power of architecture, the Nature Unfold thesis studio envisions to reveal various symbiotic future relationships including nature and urbanism in Southeast Asia and beyond.
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DIRT, FORM, PERFORMANCE Tutor: Ong Ker-Shing
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS Tutor:Roy Pang
ASSEMBLAGE Tutor: Tsuto Sakamoto
From early Modernity, architecture — through its envelope, plumbing, air-conditioning, weather-tightness and relationship to the ground — has increasingly separated people from the dirty, natural processes, organic waste and germs. Human interferences in natural systems have created fractured links, fragmented systems and energies — a multi-scalar context for new alignments and interactions. In this studio, we will explore reversals of the values of modern architecture’s resilient cleanliness, aiming for strategic and designed “failures”. We will explore how new typologies, languages and material systems may restore or invent new modes of architectural production that combine the architect’s intentions with the input of non-human collaborators; these shift from biome to micro-biome, between building and body and public.
William Lim recounts in his Alternative (Post) Modernity (2003) that “spaces of intermediaries… are unique and chaotic… rugged in nature, and able to withstand rapid usage changes, fragmented… They are pluralistic, fuzzy and complex… sites of vibrant contested spaces… heterotopias…”
This thesis studio focuses on an assemblage of things and living beings including animals, plants and human being. Experiencing disasters, pollutions and pandemics, and immersed in the environment where intelligent technology and pervasive networks enforce us a certain way of life style, behaviour and response, we have come to realise that a variety of non-human entities have as many expressions as human does. Scrutinising these, the studio speculates alternative environment and architecture consequentially emerges from various assemblage of non-humans and human that are co-functioning, symbiotic, troubling and/or disturbing.
DECENTRALISED AUTONOMOUS ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Pan Yi Cheng In this era of accelerated global digitalisation, every aspect of life as we know it are going through far-reaching radical transformation. From currencies, economies to politics and even the way we build social relationships; digital technologies are disrupting and breaking down established structures, giving rise to a swath of decentralised ideologies and interests. Key to this transformation is the rise of the new digital class. Empowered with ad libitum access to the markets and societies worldwide, the individual or the contemporary political subject has the power not only to freely express one’s ideas but also to effect change by inspiring collective actions. This newfound Autonomy has largely begun to take form virtually; in digital cities powered by Blockchain and DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) technologies within the Metaverse. If our built environment is both a reflection and cultivator of societies and cultures, then the current stasis and the burgeoning exodus into the metaverse will progressively devoid our cities of its soul. It is crucial to revisit the project of Autonomy in Architecture to discover a typology that can synthesise and give form to the multiplicity and even divergent demands of life in the city today.
With an increasing rate of technological advancement and consumer demand in a state of constant flux, industries have to invariably adapt to avoid obsolescence. Industrial facilities, precincts and their communities have to also evolve accordingly. This thesis studio will focus on industries and industrial/ post-industrial spaces in Singapore and in the region. The studio will seek to understand the implications of such spaces brought about by market forces, political will, and available resources, etc., and will seek to investigate and uncover urban, architectural and social systems of such precincts. Based on their research and discoveries, students will then be encouraged to pursue a speculative longer-term focus for their projects — of future-tech and their future vision/ version of the city. PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPE Tutor: Tan Teck Kiam Amid current world economic turmoil, global Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine; Singapore is fortunate to have a food security strategy in place. ‘Three Food Baskets’ as it is known, consists of diversifying food sources, growing food locally, and growing food overseas. Is it sufficiently resilient? A Productive Landscape embodies concept of food production, natural resources and environment. This thesis studio probes the Three Food Baskets strategy, speculates the role urban planning and architecture can perform. Site for the exploration include land, air space and the seas. Henri Lefebvre’s notion of the production of urban space is adapted to accommodate conditions where a productive landscape would involve the participation of the community in a collaborative endeavour. This studio argues that a productive landscape embodies principles of restoring the wellness of the residents.
SENSORIAL & SMART Tutor: Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic This thesis studio examines the role of sensuality and the power of integrated sensorial mechanisms and smart technologies, to drive design towards paradigmatic changes. Constant growth in technologies propelled the developments in architecture; however, human ability to make sense of the built environments through fully engaging all senses in perception and cognition processes, hardly changed. Gap between the two is evident in the recent overestimated belief in smart technologies while failing to consider the power of intuition and human senses in experiencing architecture. Consequences are, the somewhat anesthetised, disconnected and passive users, suffering from rising depression and the frustrating lack of novel options in design to fully satisfy human strive for happiness and wellness. This studio is looking into creative options for re-sensitised architecture generated through intuition imbedded in design narratives, novel design constructs and smart use of IT to enrich architectural experience.
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Picture credit: Seetoh Hui Yi
Picture credit: Megan Gwee Su-Lyn, Wang Anxin, Lyu Mengjie
THE SEA-CITY INTERFACE Tutor: Rudi Stouffs
ISLAND PEOPLE Tutor: Tiah Nan Chyuan
MAKING CONNECTIONS Tutor: Wong Chong Thai, Bobby
This thesis studio relates to Singapore’s sea-city fringes and its current threat of increasing shocks and stresses induced by climate change and excessive CO2 emissions. It aims to contribute to the Sea-City Interface research project in one of two ways. The first is to explore (computational) generative approaches to building design at the urban scale allowing for a lowcarbon neighbourhood, focusing on building form and its contribution to the surrounding urban fabric. The second is to explore biophilic approaches for water-sensitive design. Either way, the elaboration of the exploratory process can be considered more important than any single outcome, instead aiming at achieving multiple, alternative outcomes. Exploration is data-driven and serves to achieve better-informed designs. The act of considering performance as a guiding design principle defines the architectural object not by what it is or how it appears, but instead by what it does or how it performs — by its capability to affect, transform and serve a given function. Identifying both the parameters and boundaries of the exploration defines the design space under consideration, guiding the exploration toward the desired performance.
Across different cultures and time, the island condition has been described historically and mythically as the experience of an outpost that is defended, surrounded, contained, isolated, quarantined or hidden. The inherent vulnerability and siege mentality of islands imbue their inhabitants with both a deep awareness of their identity and their relationship with the surrounding externalities.
This thesis offering examines architecture as a matrix of pathways, networks and connections — both existing and emerging. Architecture is often about making connections; it is in making connections that significations occur. These are moments where thoughts or actions are virtualised or actualised. Like a throw of the dice; diverging and converging forces collide, producing singularities. At that point, the old is refreshed, or morphed into new emergence. For Nietzsche, this emergence represented the way to truth. We will examine architecture through this lens, putting aside notions of pre-existing cultural values or preconceived perfect absolutes, and look instead at the production of sense prior to language, codes or identities.
NEW TRANSFORMATION POSSIBILITIES Tutor: Teh Joo Heng Interestingly, much of natural resources and human efforts are used to create our built environment. Indiscriminate demolition and rebuilding should be reexamined. Our built environment should be viewed as a resource, to be valued and treasured. Rethinking our built environment as resource will provide a significant insight to address the sustainability issues we are now facing. The studio would like to investigate how the existing built environment in the city, consisting of building, road, public infra-structure, urban spaces can be transformed, re-structured, re-program to invent new strategies to ensure long term resilience and sustainability.
This thesis will explore the “island condition” through both physical and abstract notions, looking at operative conditions from isolation to protectionism, access and rights, equality and equity. Non-linear enquiries would be conducted across multiple probes, to unravel deep mindsets that define the unique behaviour of “islands” and their people. The hope is that these insights will suggest alternative strategies to engage geopolitical issues related to collective identity, shared responsibility and ownership over contested territories, space and time.
WAIT, IS IT A CITY IN NATURE OR NATURE IN THE CITY? Tutor: Tham Wai Hon This studio explores the city, as the man-made environment par excellence, teeming, infested, populated, ridden, thriving with different species (humans included) — loved and loathed, seen and unseen, cherished or extinguished — intermingling and entangling with us humans. On a planet ravaged by human activity, a shift away from the anthropocentric order of human/ nonhuman, civilised/ barbarian, urban/ wild ways of living are needed. Prioritising coexistence and cohabitation, the studio seeks out new materials, architectures, environments and practices emerging at the encounter between humans and animals at the structural and cultural urban context of Singapore.
CLIMATE SENSITIVE DESIGN: LIVABLE AND SUSTAINABLE CITIES Tutor: Yuan Chao With the rapid urbanisation and climate change, the key challenge in front of architects is clear: it is a difficult balancing act to achieve between unstoppable human desire for development and the finite environmental carrying capacity of cities. This design studio engages students to explore ways to conduct climate-sensitive design to create buildings that are more human centralised and environmentally responsible. The studio emphasises the impact of environmental analysis on design. The knowledge delivered in this studio allows students not only to develop climate sensitive design concepts and ideas, but also to practice the corresponding design strategies and skills.
THE CORPOREAL PERIPHERY Tutor: Wu Yen Yen Architecture is rarely predicated on discourse and ideology. Rather, it reacts to metaphysical, natural and societal constructs. This studio offers space for counter-anthropocentric investigation into unfamiliar corporealities, where they exist and thrive unseen. Starting from outside of architecture, we will give empirical form and language to these matters. Materialist ontologist Manuel De Landa suggests that geology, biology, economy and linguistics, steered the growth of cities. Historian Mario Carpo says contemporary form can be generated by computation and science. Architect Philippe Rahm designs with invisible, meteorological aspects of space. A new kind of intelligence in architecture, and how we think about it, is upon us.
The studio hopes to speculate what the BRAS BASAH BUGIS AREA will be like when this transformation takes full effect.
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R E S E A R C H C L U S T E R S: A N A SIA RESE A RC H FO C US At DOA, our advanced research delves into critical issues of architecture today and tomorrow. In particular, we anticipate and observe new demands and novel forms of buildings, cities, environments, and nature that are emerging throughout Asia and the equatorial region. DOA research clusters coalesce creative practice, technology, urbanism, landscape, preservation, and the specific expertise of our faculty members into a productive synergy and alignment between teaching and research. The following six clusters drive the M Arch I Design Research Studio Options sequence, the M Arch II Design Thesis and the graduate level elective offering across our Master of Architecture programme.
RESEARCH BY DESIGN The Research by Design (RxD) cluster develops translational research approaches through creative practice. It emphasises the impor tance of rigorously engaging critical and creative practice in making, writing, and thinking in architecture. RxD strives for innovation and influence in the built environment through its research outcomes. To date, a number of these outcomes have won awards and made considerable impact. RxD focuses on design in Asia and around the equator, and on research into contemporar y concerns as well as the identification of speculative future directions. Members work in a range of design modes from sole authorships to collaborative and interdisciplinar y configurations. As a group, RxD leverages its combined creative exper tise, teaching within design studios and graduate elective modules. Research outcomes include leading buildings, texts, exhibitions, installations, films, drawings, photographs, and object-making, alongside design monographs, edited volumes, and research papers. RxD ’s commitment towards integrative and translational creative practices empowers design research with intellectual and critical bearings, for a discipline in transformation. Lilian Chee (Cluster Leader) Erik G. L’Heureux (Cluster Co-leader, on leave) Cheah Kok Ming Joseph Lim Shinya Okuda Ong Ker-Shing Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic (Minor) Tan Beng Kiang (Minor) Francois Blanciak (Minor)
(Minor) indicates a secondar y membership
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HISTORY, THEORY AND CRITICISM The Histor y, Theor y and Criticism cluster develops critical capacities to examine questions of built environmental production and consumption within the historical and contemporar y milieu. Taking architecture and urbanism in Asia as a primar y focus, members work in interdisciplinar y and transnational modes. Our members conduct research into a wide range of topics against the context of colonial/postcolonial and modern/postmodern Asian contexts, teaching these with the aim of encouraging historical literacy and consciousness in students, to enable them to understand how the present is historically sedimented. Besides teaching, members also publish widely and in diverse forms, organise and par ticipate in major conferences and workshops, curate key exhibitions, and advise both governmental and non-governmental organisations in related fields around the world. Chang Jiat Hwee (Cluster Leader) François Blanciak Simone Chung Ho Puay Peng Nikhil Joshi Tsuto Sakamoto Johannes Widodo Wong Yunn Chii Lilian Chee (Minor) Thomas Kong (Minor) Erik G. L’Heureux (Minor) Lee Kah Wee (Minor)
TECHNOLOGIES The Technologies cluster investigates environmentally per formative or sustainable building forms and systems, and generative-evaluative processes for designing liveable environments. It employs traditional and emerging technologies that contribute to a new understanding of the human ecosystem, and emerging computational methods and techniques for discovering the relationships between form and per formance. Members investigate the relationship between human and natural landscapes, at ever y scale, from the building component scale to the urban scale. Special emphasis is placed on the examination of high-density Asian cities, and on application of design and building technologies in a tropical context. Rudi Stouffs (Cluster Leader) Filip Biljecki Patrick Janssen Nirmal Kishnani Lam Khee Poh Lau Siu Kit, Eddie Swinal Samant Yuan Chao Joseph Lim (Minor) Shinya Okuda (Minor) Zhang Ye (Minor)
URBANISM The Urbanism cluster aims to contribute towards development of sustainable resilient models and innovative advanced urban strategies to cope with various environmental, social, economic and technological challenges facing Asian cities today and in the future. The star ting point for this research is a comprehensive understanding of the complexity and distinctive characters of emerging urbanism in the region. Against this backdrop, members investigate emergent urban design issues related to community and par ticipation; conser vation and regeneration; ageing and healthcare; well-being and built form; modelling and big data; and resilience and informality. These issues are examined from multiple perspectives and through both inter-disciplinar y and transdisciplinar y collaborations, in order to question conventional norms and conceptions and establish new visions for a progressive and human-centric sustainable urban future. Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic (Cluster Leader) Cho Im Sik Fung John Chye Heng Chye Kiang Naomi C. Hanakata Tan Beng Kiang Zdravko Trivic Zhang Ye Lee Kah Wee (Minor) Johannes Widodo (Minor)
LANDSCAPE STUDIES The Landscape Studies cluster under takes research to generate new knowledge of landscapes as socio-ecological systems, and promotes the use of knowledge in governance systems and landscape design to improve the well-being of humans and enhance the ecological integrity of the environment. The geographic focus is primarily high-density urban regions in Asia; however members of the cluster also work in the transitional zones within the rural-urban continuum, where urban regions are expanding at a rapid rate and encroaching into rural landscapes. The overall research approach is both interdisciplinar y and transdisciplinar y. The cluster looks not only at advancing theoretical concepts and knowledge, but also applying the knowledge in practice and public policy, to shape the environment. Areas of research span a wide spectrum of the socioecological dimensions of landscape: from landscape science and landscape management, to design research and sociobehavioural studies. Tan Puay Yok (Cluster Leader) Jessica Cook Kenya Endo Hwang Yun Hye Lin Sheng Wei Tan Chun Liang Dorothy Tang
DESIGN EDUCATION Design education occupies a unique place in the realm of professional education in a university. Located at the intersection of and traversing across different fields and disciplines, it has a long, illustrious, and at times, difficult histor y over the years. Questions and debates have erupted over purpose and pedagogy. Positions were staked, experimental pedagogies introduced, and new paradigms emerged that left impor tant marks in the evolution of design education through the years. The research cluster provides faculty from architecture, landscape architecture, and architectural conser vation with a platform and a forum to advance discourse, research, scholarship, and best practices on design education. It is an invitation to collaborate, share, nur ture and build a community of design educators through lectures, workshops, seminars, conferences, publications, and exhibitions. Thomas Kong (Cluster Leader) Cheah Kok Ming Lau Siu Kit, Eddie Nikhil Joshi Zhang Ye François Blanciak (Minor) Tsuto Sakamoto Tan Beng Kiang
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D E S IG N S T U DIO R E V I E W C A L E N D A R: SEMESTER 1
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WEEK
D AT E
ACTIVITIES Options Studio Q&A Session (Mon)
SEMESTER 2
WEEK
D AT E
ACTIVITIES
1
9—13 Jan 2023
M Arch II: Thesis Primary Review (Tue)
2
16—20 Jan 2023
3
23—27 Jan 2023
4
30 Jan—3 Feb 2023
5
6—10 Feb 2023
BA Arch Year 2: Interim Review 1 (Mon) BA Arch Year 3: Interim Review 1 (Wed) BA Arch Year 1: Interim Review 1 (Thu)
6
13—17 Feb 2023
M Arch II: Thesis Interim Review (Tue) M Arch I: Interim Review (Thu)
Orientation
0
1—6 Aug 2022
Instructional Period
1
8—12 Aug 2022
2
15—19 Aug 2022
3
22—26 Aug 2022
4
29 Aug—2 Sep 2022
5
5—9 Sep 2022
6
12—16 Sep 2022
Recess Week
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17—25 Sep 2022
Recess Week
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18—26 Feb 2023
Instructional Period
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26 Sep—1 Oct 2022
Instructional Period
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27 Feb—4 Mar 2023
8
3—7 Oct 2022
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6—10 Mar 2023
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10—14 Oct 2022
9
13—17 Mar 2023
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17—21 Oct 2022
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20—24 Mar 2023
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24—28 Oct 2022
11
27—31 Mar 2023
12
31 Oct— 4 Nov 2022
Thesis Research Report Submission (Fri)
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3—7 Apr 2023
13
7—11 Nov 2022
BA Arch Year 1: Final Review (Tue) BA Arch Year 2: Final Review (Wed) BA Arch Year 3: Final Review (Thu)
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10—14 Apr 2023
BA Arch Year 1: Final Review (Wed) BA Arch Year 2: Final Review (Thu) BA Arch Year 3: Final Review (Fri)
Reading Week
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12—18 Nov 2022
Options Studio Final Review Grp A (Fri) Options Studio Final Review Grp B (Sat)
Reading Week
14
15—21 Apr 2023
M Arch I: Final Review (Fri) M Arch II: Final Review (Sat)
Examination (2 weeks)
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19 Nov—3 Dec 2022
Examination (2 weeks)
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22 Apr—6 May 2023
Vacation (5 weeks)
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4 Dec 2022—8 Jan 2023
Vacation (12 weeks)
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7 May 2023—6 Aug 2023
0
Instructional Period
BA Arch Year 1: Intra - Unit Exhibition/ Pin-Up (Thu)
BA Arch Year 2: Interim Review 1 (Mon) BA Arch Year 3: Interim Review 1 (Wed) BA Arch Year 1: Intra - Unit Exhibition/ Pin-Up (Thu)
Options Studio Interim Review Grp A (Tue) Options Studio Interim Review Grp B (Thu) BA Arch Year 1: Interim Review (Thu)
BA Arch Year 2: Interim Review 2 (Mon) BA Arch Year 3: Interim Review 2 (Wed) BA Arch Year 1: Intra - Unit Exhibition/ Pin-Up (Thu)
BA Arch Year 1: Intra - Unit Exhibition/ Pin-Up (Thu)
BA Arch Year 2: Interim Review 2 (Mon) BA Arch Year 3: Interim Review 2 (Wed) BA Arch Year 1: Interim Review 2 (Thu)
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E V EN TS & G U EST LEC T U RES Over the course of each academic year, DOA organises and curates a series of events throughout the Academic Year which include: guest lectures, symposiums and professional learning community events. The Events and Guest Lectures for AY2021/22 included: E V EN TS: ILIGHT 2022: BONDFIRE Inspired by the intimate setting of a bonfire, this installation creates opportunities for chance encounters. After two long years of pandemic restrictions, be ready to gather and spark new connections with others as you explore the spaces formed by Bondfire. Exhibition Curator: URA Singapore Exhibition Producer : Trinutty Exhibition Designers: Bethel Arch Studio and co. Exhibition Sponsors : NUS DOA and DBS Singapore NUS-STUD PHD SYMPOSIUM IN ARCHITECTURE May 20th 2022 Design Computing and Technology Speaker:Binyu Lei, Jie Zhang, Xin Wang, Winston Yap, Jing Zhi Tay Quantitative Research on Built Environment Speaker: Ban Liang Ling, Anjanaa Devi Srikanth, Zhuoshu He, Xudong Zhang, Yihan Zhu History and Theory Speaker: Lishen Feng, Ee Bee Gan, Zihao Wong, Mengzhi Ling, Huiyang Qi Design Computing and Engineering Speaker: Wanyu Pei, Daryl Ho, Yang Li, Pradeep Attavar Alva, Lombardia Alonso Alba Architectural and Urban Engineering Speaker: Liqing Zhang, Johann Kay Ann Tan, Nogista Antanuri, Tianyi Chen, Doreen Steven Mlote Mixed-Method Research on Neighbourhood and Urban Space Speaker: Elaine Tan, Ellenbogen Nirit Rivka, Gabrielle Xinyu Zeng, Yuanwei Zhu, Yanhan Liu YEAR 3 DESIGN 6 EXHIBITION 2022 May 13th to 31st May 2022 This exhibition showcases the student model works from Design 6, celebrating the various design exploration in the units, including the tower, energy facility center, and library typologies. Coupled with the main exhibition, a series of programmes that includes the opening night, student sharing session and immersion day. Exhibition Curator: Dr Joseph Lim Exhibition Organiser: NUS DOA ARC-DR3- NEW VISIONS FOR REGENERATIVE URBANISM EXHIBITION AND SYMPOSIUM April 9th to April 24th 2022 A culmination of three years of speculative design works from over elven universities, this exhibition seeking new strategies for risk-resilient environments along the Pacific Rim. A new anticipatory and combinatory approach towards urban design is demonstrated to showcase the possibility of symbioses between humans and the natural and constructed worlds courageously embracing inevitable disaster cycles. Biophilic City Speaker: Jeffrey Inaba, Shinya Okuda Hydroactive City Speaker: David Mah, Cheng-Luen Hsueh
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Archipelagic City Speaker: Tsuto Sakamoto, Weijen Wang Pyroactive City Speaker: Ronald Rael, Kian Goh Dialogic City Speaker: Ishida Toshikazu, Cristian Schmitt Entangled Landscapes: The Urban Geology of Singapore April 15th to May 14th 2022 Exhibition Curator: Dr Erieta Attali Exhibition Design and Coordinator: Ong Chan Hao Exhibition Designer: Zhang Renjie ABSTRACT CREATURES March 30th to April 18th 2022 Abstract Creatures is a travelling art installation by The Press Room that hopes to hope to document the journeys of local architects and designers – the sacrifices, struggles, and rewards that come from pursuing a career in the creative industry. Exhibition Curator: Studio SML HEALTHCARE 2030 March 7th to May 7th 2022 The exhibition showcases innovative design projects from the Philips-NUS Studio jointly taught by experience designers from the Philips APAC Centre, and professors from the National University of Singapore’s Division of Industrial Design and Department of Architecture. The interdisciplinary projects envision a distributed healthcare system in Singapore in the year 2030 that is human-centred and traverse across different scales and experiential touchpoints. Exhibition Curator: NUS DOA and DID in partnership with Phillips APAC Centre LE CORBUSIER: MODEL INSIGHT January 22nd to February 20th 2022 Exhibiting 80 models of Le Corbusier’s works produced by RT+Q and video work by NUS team, it seeks to revisit and rethink the value of model making as a mode of architectural learning. Exhibition Curator: National University of Singapore, RT+Q Architects Pte Ltd Exhibition Committee Leader : Tsuto Sakamoto THE ART OF LIVING: CREATIVE COMMUNITIES IN THE 21ST CENTURY- TOTTORI AND KAMIYAMA March 2nd to March 7th 2022 Exhbition Organiser: The Japan Creative Centre (JCC), Embassy of Japan in Singapore
ENERGY SYSTEMS ACROSS SCALES AND CLIMATES Speaker: Wolfgang Kessling FORM FOLLOWS SYSTEM S TO M Speaker: Wong Mun Summ FORM FOLLOWS SYSTEM M TO L Speaker: Wong Mun Summ HIGH PERFORMING ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDINGS Speaker: Gregers Reimann ONG SIEW MAY VISITING PROFESSOR LECTURE: HPLUSF DESIGN LAB Speaker: Hsinming Fung and Craig Hodgetts MARCH GUEST LECTURE: CHATPONG CHUENDRUDEEMOL, BANGKOK BASTARDS Speaker: Chatpon Chuenrudeemol MODEL INSIGHT LECTURE (24 JAN 2022) Speaker: Rene Tan and Ervin Viray MODEL INSIGHT LECTURE (7 FEB 2022) Speaker: Nick Gelpi MODEL INSIGHT LECTURE (17 FEB 2022) Speaker: John Lin NEW BRICKS, TAI KWUN ARTS CENTRE Speaker: Gianpaolo Mancuso POST COVID-19 URBANISM & ARCHITECTURE Speaker: Kengo Kuma SCALING IMPACT IN CITIES: KNOWLEDGE, MONEY AND POLITICAL WILL CAN DELIVER GREEN MARKET TRANSFORMATION. HOW COULD THIS BE APPLIED TO OUR CITIES? Speaker: Prashant Kapoor SERVICES AND LIMITS OF URBAN VEGETATION TO MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE Speaker: Erik Velasco IN D EPEN D EN T W EBIN A R LEC T U RES: DE-CODING CONTEXT Speaker: Shantanu Poredi and Manisha Agarwal INTEGRATION OF SUSTAINABILITY INTO URBAN DEVELOPMENT Speaker: Li Xiaoqing
G U EST LEC T U RES: BIOPHILIC DESIGN FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING Speaker: Catie Ryan Balagtas
SPONGE CITY AND NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS Speaker: Yu Kongjian
CONTEMPORARY ART PROJECTS AND ALTERNATIVE SPACES Speaker: Dr Simone Shu-yeng Chung and Dr Motohiro Koizumi (Rikkyo University)
TRANSPORT IN CITIES: HOW MODERN MOBILITY CAN SHAPE AND ENHANCE OUR ENVIRONMENT Speaker: Charles Barguidjian
ELEVATIONAL FACADE DEVELOPMENT: A FUNCTION OF DESIGN RATHER THAN STYLING Speaker: Kevin Mak Low ENERGY AND CARBON-UNDERSTANDING THE CARBON CARBON QUESTION AT THE DRAWING BOARD Speaker: Nilesh Jadhav
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VISITIN G PRO FESS O RS & M A R C H E X T E R N A L R E V I E W E R S
Ong Siew May Visiting Professors (For AY2021/22) CJ Lim Professor of Architecture & Urbanism, The Bartlett, University College London Hsin-Ming Fung Professor, Southern California Institute of Architecture Visiting Professors (For AY2021/22) Craig Hodgetts Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, UCLA External Reviewers Over the course of each academic year, DOA also invites leading international practitioners and experts in the field to serve as external reviewers. The M Arch external reviewers for AY 2021/22 included: AY2021/22 Sem 1 Stephen Cairns Programme Director, FCL Singapore Yann Follain Founder, and Head of Design, WY-TO Architects
Picture credit: Ong Chan Hao
Picture credit: Sim Wen Wei
Gwen Tan Co-founder and Partner, Formwerkz Architect Picture credit: Ian Mun
Picture credit: Lee Lip Jiang
Erwin Viray Professor & Chief Sustainability Officer, SUTD
AY2021/22 Sem 2 Randy Chan Director & Principal, ZARCH Collaboratives Kelley Cheng Creative Director, The Press Room Justin Hill Councillor, Australian Institute of Architects International Chapter Yip Yuen Hong Founder & Partner, ipli Architects
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C O N TA C T S National University of Singapore Department of Architecture NUS College of Design and Engineering 4 Architecture Drive Singapore 117566 Tel: +65 6516 3452 www.cde.nus.edu.sg/arch Instagram: NUS Department of Architecture | @aki.nus DOA 2022 Showcase | @archival_2022 Facebook: www.facebook.com/nus.aki For more information on our programmes and on the DOA in general, please feel free to get in touch with the following persons: Teaching Trainee M Arch I & M Arch II Contact: Joanne Seng Email: joanneseng.nus@gmail.com Bachelor of Arts in Architecture Master of Architecture Master of Urban Planning Contact: Wendy Lee Email: wendylee@nus.edu.sg DID: +65 6516 3468 Bachelor of Landscape Architecture Master of Landscape Architecture Master of Science in Integrated Sustainable Design Master of Arts in Urban Design Contact: Jonathan Leong Email: akijlw@nus.edu.sg DID: +65 6516 3454 Other Higher Degrees by Research Contact: Liu Jia Email: sdelj@nus.edu.sg DID: +65 6516 3558 Department Updates & Other General Enquiries Contact: Ires Cheng Email: akisec@nus.edu.sg
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