O P T IO N S D E S IG N R E S E A R C H 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) ARCHITECTURE AS A PEDAGOGY Tutor: Cheah Kok Ming Almost 20 years ago, Peter Elliot’s Water Recycling Plant in the Melbourne Zoo is a small scale infrastructure but occupies a prime spot between animal enclosures. Recently a controversial waste management project, the Amager Resource Centre was conceived by Bjarke Ingels as a mammoth incinerator plant with an integrated ski slope as its roof. Vastly different in scale comparison, but the common thread linking the two architecture is the idea that buildings can complement its purpose to promote desirable ideas for gaining public advocacy and adoption. “Architecture as Pedagogy” is the framework for the studio to explore meaningful form and programme relationship in a place for Adventure Education.
ARCHITECTURE AS MEDIA Tutor: Simone Chung Assisted by: Mary Ann Ng 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. The studio’s ambition is to go deep, in the sense that deep time media is adopted as the ontological framing to interrogate relationalities critically (following Guattari, 2000), with incisive deep dives performed on socio-technical processes coloured by political ethics. Honing a deep-seated awareness not only makes us more responsive architects but responsible practitioners as well.
TROPICAL MARKETPLACES IN BANDUNG, INDONESIA Tutor: Florian Heinzelmann The majority of people in Indonesia buy their groceries via local markets (pasar tradisional). Despite management issues resulting in desolate maintenance, sub-par logistics and low hygienic standards, Indonesian markets are vibrant multi-programmatic spaces fulfilling a larger role in society. Due to all problems and the recent surge of COVID-19 in Indonesia, markets need to be fundamentally rethought while keeping the spirit and remain financially attractive for the less affluent. The design-research will look into several aspects like social interaction, community, urban integration, delivery chain, on-site logistics, but also resilient solutions like passive climatic design strategies enabled by an overarching ‘programmatically thick roof’ serving the collective.
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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 expire in 2021; and the land will be returned to the Singapore Land Authority. The Keppel Golf Club being one of them. It’s high time, that we, as a nation re-examine our priorities especially when so much land has been set aside for the recreation of so few, not to mention that golf courses are perhaps the most detrimental to the biodiversity 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?
CONSTRUCTIVE CONSERVATION: DESIGNING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR THE PAST Tutor: Nikhil Joshi The rapid transformations experienced by many contemporary Asian societies have radically challenged their built environments’ cultural integrity and cohesion. Several historical buildings and neighbourhoods are erased in the name of ‘development’ (read ‘economic benefits’). It consequently disinfects the place of its identity and leaves it bland and out-of-date after a while. Wilke argues that “a sense of continuity does not have to stop new ideas —just the opposite. The deeper the root, the greater the range of nutrients”. In this vein, this studio advocates critical thinking and understanding of place/ building, change, and stewardship as part of continuing evolution. Applying conservation principles to assess the scope for a new intervention, students will strategise and deliver innovative ways to actively manage change to our historical urban landscape by protecting and adapting historical buildings/places to achieve a balance ensuring that their significant cultural values are reinforced rather than diminished by change.
WARM DATA, TRANSCONTEXTUALITY AND NOT KNOWING: FUTURE SINGAPORE Tutor: Khoo Peng Beng Instead of putting ourselves in a place of knowing, we start by putting ourselves in a state of not knowing so that we can be more open to exploring possibilities arising from the interactions of the multiple contexts affecting any issue. The idea of transcontextuality is that there are multiple different contexts that are interconnected and interdependent behind any single question, issue or thing we look at. Warm data (Bateson) is transcontextual information about the interrelationships that integrate a complex system. The studio will create an alternate Singapore in the future using the Paya Lebar Air Base site with individual projects collectively forming as a whole. Students will explore multimedia presentations— both analog and digital; moving from abstraction to concretisation.
SAMPLING SINGAPORE: ENACTING CARTOGRAPHIC PRACTICE Tutor: Victoria Jane Marshall
ENVISIONING THE NEW NORMAL OF LIVING WITH ENDEMIC COVID-19 Tutor: Tan Beng Kiang
Mapping is a design tool, and maps are ‘things’ that inform architectural outcomes. In this studio, students will learn how architects and landscape architects have engaged cartography to both analyse and project change. The studio is framed by a three-kilometre diameter sampling strategy, based on the 110 Community Clubs of Singapore. We will ask, what if the Club’s governance was substantively empowered to support design? The collective outcome of the studio is premised on the notion that a multiplicity of map knowledge can open up space for architectural outcomes that are unimaginable within existing cultures of governance and official representational tropes.
The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has upended our daily lives and posed social, economic, and environmental challenges. A high percentage of the population continue to work from home; and for students, a blended ‘learning from home’ system will become the new norm in Singapore. Social life is affected by social group size limits that fluctuates with each phase of pandemic measures. As we move to the next stage of living with the COVID-19 endemic, what is the implication on the design of our future living space and neighbourhood? The studio will envisage a design that can respond in a resilient way to changing circumstances due to the pandemic.
BTTV; “BACK TO THE VILLAGE” Tutor: Ali Reda This studio acknowledges that the Urban Fabric will not and cannot continue to function in the same way as it did prior COVID-19. So where to, from here, is the question that will be addressed. People living in cities do not intrinsically know what living in a village means. They cannot fully empathise or understand the charms of village life. To the villagers the world over however, “God made the country and man-made the city”. Whilst Singapore started as a collection of charming villages, it is now a first world sophisticated and busy city. The older generations here often speak about the 乡村, Kampung, the Village. They reminisce about people living in villages who led simple, peaceful, healthy and happy lives. As such, there needs to be a review of how we look at the urban fabric, the way it is designed. It must be people-centric, super sustainable, its form, its function, and a mega mix of programmes. The new, multi-purpose city; where people live, work, play, shop, and entertain, must reflect this, and encompass the new “Circular Economy”; the economies of the villages of yesteryear!
TERRAIN VAGUE: NEW TRANSFORMATION POSSIBILITIES Tutor: Teh Joo Heng A shift in usage patterns is being anticipated in the city, supported by hybrid land use, car-lite policies,— with COVID-19 accelerating the state of flux. This transformation allows for the reclamation of land from roads, carparks, and other public infrastructures. A new possibility is emerging within the city that comes with the recalibration of usage for existing buildings and leftover land. The studio is to speculate what the BRAS BASAH BUGIS AREA will be like, when this transformation takes its full effect.
URBAN SPACES OF ONE-NORTH: COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS AND RULE-BASED DESIGN Tutor: Rudi Stouffs (Co-teaching with Patrick Janssen) Through data collection and computational analysis, the urban spaces of Greater One-North are assessed from various viewpoints, including accessibility, integration, visibility, human comfort and other requirements. Shortcomings may be countered through design and planning; with design actions expressed in the form of design rules that apply to the existing situation, in order to achieve a preferable outcome. Reflecting on the desired objectives of cohesion, vibrancy and liveability; design rules formulate these into actions and operations. 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. This studio builds upon last year’s studio, while shifting the focus of attention in terms of both territory and objective.
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