Mano Ponnambalam
Bachelor of Architecture and Environments
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(L) Harry Wiraputra, ‘Mirrored Movements’. Situated in the abandoned tunnels of St. James Station, ‘Mirrored Movements’ tackles the complexity of the subterranean site by translating the natural circulation above ground into a sequence of spaces underground. This project references the Grande Louvre designed by the late I.M. Pei by having a conical circulation ramp that is mirrored from the descending steps of the Sandringham Garden. This ramp becomes the circulation spine of the proposed Oral History Library by giving its visitors the option to enter the permanent exhibition space halfway or directly enter the storage space through the tunnels. (R) Delos He, ‘Monument Valley’. The design
reawakens the sleeping tunnels underneath Hyde Park with radical and theatricalised architectural interventions, with the concept dealing with the notion of permanence, by an unconformist scatter of non-enduring relics beneath the ever-changing city. Blurred-boundary program spaces defined by industrious structures, raw finishes, intersecting planes and alternating threshold moments were inserted to enact story-telling journeys between observers and performers, listeners and presenters, artifacts and minds, monadic and plural, lights and shadows. These interactive gestures opened up the tunnel beyond its innate exclusivity and reconciled its position with the public realm.
