Picture credit: Tay Chi Fan Keith Picture credit: Ahmad Nazaruddin Bin Abdul Rahim
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DOWN TO EARTH : THE NEW PEASANTRY Tutor: Teo Yee Chin
FORAGING FOR DESIGN Tutor: Marc Webb (Co-teaching with Naoko Takenouchi)
When we think of farming in Singapore today, two diverging trajectories come to mind. The first is a ground-up interest to “grow your own”, as hobbies, lifestyle choices or community initiatives—on backyards, remnant plots, or HDB corridors. The second is a state-led mission to increase local food production, with an aim to reach 30% self-sufficiency by 2030. A key thrust of this is the high productivity redevelopment of Lim Chu Kang to a high technology agri-food cluster. Is the future of agriculture an industrial abstraction, or can it still connect people to the land? This studio will look for alternatives, hacking a trail between ecology and technology, spiritual enrichment and physical sustenance, community, and national security.
FORAGING is a culinary concept that uses local wild ingredients as a way to reduce the carbon footprint, encourage sustainability, and evoke a sense of place. We would like to take this idea further and expand the concept of FORAGING to include the architectural and interior concepts for a new dining space. In an increasingly homogenised world, there is a stronger desire for people to seek more local experiences rooted in their communities, together with an increased awareness of sustainability as both a consumer, and in the built environment. With easy delivery and better transport networks, a central location is no longer a requisite for a successful restaurant. With this in mind, our focus will be in the North East of Singapore—around Sungai Kadut and Kranji, where nature and industry exist side-by-side in a combined area of manufacturing and small-scale farming. We will look to create a hybrid of these two contrasting elements using the concept of FORAGING, that will combine both sustainable ingredients to support the restaurant and the physical elements of the space where local fabrication and foraged materials can be combined.
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