DE SIGN STUDIO: SEMESTER 2 STUDIO DESCRIPTIONS

Picture credit: Yao Jia Ying Elizabeth 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 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

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. 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, inspiring cultural network of leading creatives and visionaries. 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 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.

THE INNER COAST

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. 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.

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 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.

Should we, therefore, faced with a crisis of ecology and climate, aspire to do good; to heal, repair, and regenerate?

This studio returns to the heart of the sustainability question: how to forge Human-Nature partnerships, and restore our place in the natural world.

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.

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.

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.

A “WELL AND GREEN” HABITAT FOR HUMANITY Tutor: Lam Khee Poh

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 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.

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.

DIRT, FORM, PERFORMANCE

Tutor: Ong Ker-Shing

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.

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.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Tutor:Roy Pang

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…”

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.

ASSEMBLAGE

Tutor: Tsuto Sakamoto

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.

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.