victoria thong jiahui| undergraduate portfolio
NAME
Victoria Thong
BIRTH
16| 03| 1990
CONTACT
victoria.t.jh@gmail.com +65 91135806 34 West Coast Road #05-28, Varsity Park S(127335) Singapore
EDUCATION
SCHOLARSHIPS
National University of Singapore | Singapore 08/2009- current, Bachelor of Arts (Architecture)
WORK HISTORY
DPA | Singapore 05/2012- 07/2012, Architectural Intern
Budapest University of Technology and Economics | Budapest, Hungary 09/2011- 12/2011, student exchange program
WOW d-lab | Singapore 05/2011- 07/2011, Architectural Intern
Anglo-Chinese Junior College | Singapore 01/2007- 11/2008, Singapore-Cambridge A Level
National University of Singapore | Singapore 08/2012- 011/2012, Teaching assistant Strategies for sustainable design
Methodist Girls’ School | Singapore 01/2003- 11/2006, Singapore-Cambridge O Level
ETH Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) | Singapore 05/2013-07/2013, Research assistant Plystudio | Singapore 09/2013-current, Architectural assistant
Dean’s List 2011, Ba(Arch) Year 2 (Semester 2) Ministry of Education 2007-2008, MOE Humanities Scholarship
SKILLS
LANGUAGES
AutoCAD Illustrator Photoshop Indesign Sketchup Microsoft office English Mandarin
Singapore Bay City Floating Cities Studio AY4_Semester 1 | 12 weeks Erik G. L’Heureux
The studio was a research-focused urban investigation of an unusual context. The problem of land scarcity and an exponentially growing population in Singapore meant questioning the existing conventions of urban planning premised on centrality and terra firma- we look instead to the territorial waters that surround our island city. This unconventional site would demand inventive new methods of site analysis and mapping of traffic and geographies. The context of the project was simultaneously utopian and of a contemporary reality. Precedent density studies were undertaken to sample existing realities and then assemble visions of an ideal city for a million on the water.
drawing | site plan model | 1:2500 model
singapore bay city
The site: Mapping the Singapore straits
Ve ss els on the st raits The Singap ore St raits is o ne of the bus ie st water route s in thw wor ld. I n o rd er to quantif y this , we t racke d the m ovem ent on the st raits for 24 hours . The re s ult was an am az ing c o l le ction of data graphic al ly repre s enting a f le et of tankers , container and passe nger ve s s els on anchor and in m otion
01
02
Anchorage area and densities In land-s carce Singap ore, we re-exam ine how our te rritor ial waters m ay als o b e counte d as valuable real e state.
01
02
10.8km2 9.8km2 19.4km2
24.3km2
14.6km2
drawing | data mapping of traffic along the singapore straits over 24 hours
12km2 5.2km2
0.4km2
5.4km2
3.9km2
drawing | mapping of areas occupied by anchorages
Precedent studies: densities + distributions
1km by 1km samples of cities, both real and imagined, were studied to understand the densities of existing cities as it relates to building typologies, larger urban configurations and resulting urban qualities. From the ultra-dense visions of Corbusier’s Plan Voisin to existing urban realities of Times Square in New York, these studies yielded1km2 “pixels� of varying densities which were then deployed in an assemblage to accommodate 1 million people.
From left Times Square, New York Rotterdam, Holland Marina Bay, Singapore drawing | 1x1km axonometric drawing | 1x1km figure-ground
From left Monaco, France Plan Voisn, Paris Unite d’ Habitation, Marseilles drawing | 1x1km axonometric drawing | 1x1km figure-ground
Projections for 1million people The Singapore Bay City is finally the realisation of a model Singapore has envisioned for herself over the past decades. It is a continuation of Singapore’s legacy of land extension via east coast since the 1990s; it is a revisiting of URA’s 2001Concept plan; it is a fulfilment of everything marina bay and East Coast Park should and could be. The creation of the Singapore bay and city essentially proposes a completely new function for the eastern anchorage- for inhabitation instead of industry.
model | close-up of residential and recreational bay
model | section across 2km-wide city drawing | section across 2km-wide city
Si ngap o re Trop i c a n a Perce ptions of a Tropical City Chair of Architecture and Urban design (FCL)| 8 weeks Alex Lehnerer
The Singapore Tropicana research collaboration was set up as a kind of task force to discover and document some of Singapore’s first modern buildings that have been left in sorry states of unuse and dereliction. The studio would be an archaeological expedition focused on investigating the architectural artefacts that borrowed from modernist movements abroad and produced in a particular spirit of national bravado and ambition at home. Now forgotten in favour of the new landscape of international style glass towers, Singapore Tropciana was regrettably shortlived. We celebrate its legacy in a monument to Singapore’s Modernism nonetheless!
model | Monument to Singapore’s Modernism
photographs | process documentation and final photos of exhibition at FCL
Documenting Tropicana Through a thorough study of 11 buildings identified as “tropicana artefacts� as well a photo expedition across Singapore, the studio began an extensive documentation of peculiar architectural features as traces of tropicana that we have inherited as tangible objects in the city. From public housing to shopping malls to pedestrian infrastructure, everyday occurrences in our familiar city became increasingly legible as unique and interesting forms, spaces and textures in the lineage of the tropicana era.
model | monument to singapore modernism photographs | collective documentation (columns) from left 1. Unique forms (HDB at Chinatown Complex, ventilation holes at Golden Mile comlex, HDB at Rochor Centre) 2. Extensive coverage (covered walkway at Beace Road, Bukit Panjang and Woodlands) 3. Public housing blocks (HDB at Swee Road, Air-conditioned facade,
End l e s s U m bre l l a
Singapore Tropicana Studio AY4_Semester 2 | 12 weeks Erik G. L’Heureux Alex Lehnerer
Triggered by Bukit Timah Shopping Centre as 1 of 11 of the tropicana artefacts identified, this project envisions a contemporary remaking of the high-rise, mixed-use mega-structure of the experimental typologies of 1970s Singapore Architecture. The proposal celebrates the constant circulation within the megastructure and furthermore, throughout the contemporary metropolis in which citizens are commutersthat have come to “expect complete connectivity”. The carefully engineered condition of being perpetually inside extends with the extension of the limit of architecture via a type of collective infrastructure endorsed as provisions by a patriarchal government.
section model | 1:200 building model celebrating circulation
drawing | exploded axonometric of circulation of various scales drawing | diagrammatic plan and section of circulation of various scales drawing | new front and side section
Mapping the tropicana in BTSC
The coloured cruiseship -- an expression of large-scale formal tectonics
photo| front view of BTSC drawing + model| 6 tropicana feature study models from left: mixed-use high-rise megastructure strata-title conglomeration extensive covered walkways integrated parking garage walkway armatures concrete vs natural jungle
To each his own -- Strata title aggregation of autonomous parts
Accommodations made for the automobile -- sevenstorey parking structure intergrated into building
5
10
20
A floating city -- pedestrian walkways as armatures that support the ship-like complex
The Se c o nd Ur ba n S q u a re RIBA Part 1 AY3_Semester 2 | 12 weeks Patrick Tan
This project to design an elderly care nursing home was a highly programmatic brief undertaken to explore new mid-rise typologies to accommodate Singapore’s growing ageing population problem. Having to deal with the highly specific requirements of elderly care as well as the social implications of such centres on the surrounding neighbourhood were key considerations. Concerned with the realities of the prevalent NIMBY mindset of residents towards such facilites, iterations of formal and spatial configurations were tested in order to arrive at the most harmonious resolution both at a building and larger urban scale.
final model | nursing home at chinatown
series of concept models
diagram | managing block language and tropical architecture drawing | detail section for wards
drawing | detail section for lounge rooms
Terrac e H o us e Everton Road Conservation Shophouse Plystudio
Terrace 1. Terrace house- a typology of housing where identical houses are cojoined into rows 2. Terrace garden- an element where a raised flat paved or gravelled section overlooks a prospect 3. Terrace (geology)- a step-like landform The brief of the project was to design a shophouse extention within a local conservation district. Constrained by strict conservation guidelines, the design intervention was largely concerned with how to stitch the split levels between the old and new sections of the house. By adopting the consistent technique of “terracing� as an architectural intervention, a central courtyard is created and infilled with a continous terracing of incremental steps that reads as i)vertical circulation through all 7 levels of the house, and ii) a series of planters that together create a green, naturally ventilated verendah space inserted directly into the centre of the long, narrow shophouse plot.
drawing
| section and rear elevation of shophouse
sectional model of shophouse series of sectional study models
Rea d in g Lan d s c a p e AY2_Semester 2 | 5 weeks Erik G. L’Heureux
Reading geometry in architecture and landscape The project is an investigation into how architects reconcile landscape and architecture. Is it simply left-over space? Or a type of nature to be untouched as opposed to building? Palladio’s Villa Rotunda, an apt monument to the built object, is the site of the landscape project. ARCHITECTURE is premeditated geometry to order and intensify nature LANDSCAPE is of another geometry but is equally legitimate
model | villa rotunda drawing | geometry in architecture and site
Beginnings and ends Architecture begins: at the rotunda where the origin of its concentric plans is found and ends: at the edge of the plinth that marks the limits of Palladio’s attempt to order nature as nature. Landscape begins: at the river where the unique geomtry of the meander is forms as it follows the most natural path on a plain and ends: at the plinth where the undulating topography is suppressed by Palladio’s imposed flat plane
model | site model drawing | section of promenade through site
drawing | Isometric of promenade from stair to ladder
The promenade between landscape and architecture is a carefully crafted route that conveys a person form the most natural horizontal to the most ambitious built vertical. Governed by virtual lines of Palladio’s ideal geometry, now projected onto the landscape, the promenade is a massive flight of stairs that allows its users to move only either directly towards architecture or away from it and towards its perceived polar opposite; landscape. Orchestrating movement from open to dense; direct to convoluted; gentle to steep; slow to fast; the path affords a vast experience of landscape that is punctuated with persistent views of the villa at every turn and the otherwise static rhythm of harmonic proportion is made tangible in the deliberately laboured journey from landscape to architecture. Finally at a one person-wide stairway on the second storey of the villa, a single person ascends a ladder leading to the copula such that the rational man behind architecture returns to its very centre and origin.
model |
villa rotunda and ladder through copula
Altering A lvar Aa l to AY1_Semester 2 | 3 weeks Sanson Ng
“True architecture only exists where man stands at the centre” Alvar Aalto
Given 27 of Alvar Aalto’s iconic E60 stools, the project was to design a folly to be sited at the Asian Civilisation Musuem at Boat Quay, a reprieve from the adjacent Central Business District. The intention of the folly was then to create an exaggerated emblem of rest in the form of a twisting pagoda that continues to tend to the weary modern man.
model | E60 folly
drawing | axonometric + elevation of folly
Conc rete + C l ay Folded chair in concrete Architectural construction_4 weeks Teapot Clay workshop_ 4 weeks
chair | cast concrete
teapot | clay
Art wo r ks “dust to dust; an inevitable end in a transient world” A level art installation_ 6 months
“dust to dust; an inevitable end in a transient world” This project is concerned with the theme of time and decay. The work hopes to express both the grim reminder of time’s inescapable grasp on all things but also, a kind of beauty found in the quiet resignation to this process. This is how we are meant to be from dust to dust. Acrylic & clay
“dust to dust” | final installation
process photos of a series of clay sculptures
2009-2013
Terrace H ou s e
Everton Road Conservation Shophouse Plystudio | 3 weeks
Th e Se con d U rba n S q u a re RIBA Part 1 AY3_Semester 2 | 12 weeks
Victoria Thong Jiahui | Undergraduate Portfolio
section showing central airwell
series of models showing level sectional studies
O ld + N ew
Rep ro d ucing the cent ra l courtya rd
The brief of the project was to design a shophouse extention within a local conservation district. Constrained by strict conservation guidelines, the design intervention was largely concerned with how to retain the existing envelope on the exterior while mediating the 7 split levels between the old and new sections of the house. After consulting conservation guidelines, a series of sectional studies was done to produce various iterations of connections that would yield interesting new spaces in this interstice of old and new
The introduction of the central void not only brings light into the long and narrow enclosure but also encourages natural ventilation via openings in both the roof and rear wall. The intention to create visual relief and social spaces via the central air well is a modern intervention which pays tribute to the original ambiance of the shophouse typology. Existing Upper Storey Levels - Existing level, timber floors and structural system are to be retained and restored. -Minimium 1.5m setback required when new roof mezzanine floor is higher than top of window/ fan light. Proposed Pitched tile roof - Proposed pitched roofs may be higher than the eaves of the main consserved builidng but lower than the ridge of the main roof - The material and the pitch are to be the same as those of the main roof
(section diagram from left) 1. air-well brings light and air into typical shophouse 2. air-well as central courtyard space 3. vertical void extends horizontally to become an inhabitable space 4. air-well now conceived as a vertical and horizontal funnel to facilitate crossventilated via the venturi effect
back elevation
roof
15A
15
14
13
3A storey/ attic plan
section model
roof garden plan
11A
12
9A
10
8
9
11B
2A storey plan
section model
Terrac e + H o u se Terrace 1. Terrace house- a typology of housing where identical houses are conjoined into rows 2. Terrace garden- an element where a raised flat paved or gravelled section overlooks a prospect 3. Terrace (geology)- a step-like landform By adopting the consistent technique of “terracing� as an architectural intervention, a central courtyard is created and infilled with a continuous terracing of incremental steps that reads as i)vertical circulation through all 7 levels of the house, and ii) a series of planters that together create a green, naturally ventilated verandah space inserted directly into the typical envelope of the long, narrow shophouse plot. (plan diagram from top) 1. typical air-well 2. air-well as central courtyard space 3. communal space extends across the central axis of each floor plate, private services confined to narrow bands at party walls; private bedrooms confined to front and back to afford views out 4. vertical void of central courtyard extended and expressed as a void on rear facade on second storey
9B
third storey plan
7A
1. front foyer 1a. powder room 1b. reading ledge 2. living 3. dry kitchen 4. wet kitchen 5. yard 5a. storage 5b. service W.C 6. bedroom 1 (guest) 7. outdoor toilet 1 (guest) 7a. shower 1 (guest) 7b. W.C 1 (guest) 8. bedroom 2 9. outdoor toilet 2 9a. shower 2 9b. W.C 2 10. family lounge 11a. W.C 3 11b. maids bedroom 12. granny suite 13. attic 14. roof terrace 15. bedroom 3 (master) 15a. W.C 3 (master)
6
7 7B
second storey plan
5A
1A
1
1B
ground floor
2
3
4
5 5B
perspective from internal courtyard
series of typology study models
The Se c o nd Ur ba n S q u a re The formal organisation of the project had it’s beginnings in the social and urban implications that must be considered when inserting a elderly care facility into an existing community. The building was first considered as a series of external rooms- a kind of city-room, such as a conventional urban square. Following rigorous mapping of the activities and circulation on site, programmatic spaces were inserted onto the street level as an elaboration of urban patterns that existed on site. These were defined by orthogonal axes and free flow between loosely defined spaces that was contiguous with the existing urban fabric and patterns of its habitants so that it would be spontaneously claimed by the neighbourhood.
ground floor/ site plan
section 1 layout plan all floors
A ssimi latio n v s. Al i e n at i o n Another key consideration for the project was to explore new mid-rise typologies to accommodate Singapore’s growing ageing population.
section 1
The project sought to adopt the familiar typology of the (public) podium- (private) block found in Singapore’s public housing estates but further adapted so as to afford new opportunities for interaction between the elderly residents, staff and public communities. Spatial organisation hence occurred on 2 scales. The highly programmatic requirements of an elderly care facility demanded careful spatial organisation on each ward floor while the need to separate but not segregate (and alienate) the elderly and existing communities were explored through section through the entire building. section 2
section 2
ward wall and external elevation
elements diagram
Bre eze + B lo ck
non load-bearing enclosure window ward wall perforated masonry wall
Managing sustainability with tropical architecture meant negotiating between a breathable building (i.e. naturally ventilated) with protection against the elements (rain and sun-shading) highly regular and compartmentalised programs such as repetitive residence and nursing functions bound by internal loadbearing walls infilled between column grid
The project was interested in how this mediation could occur in a basic formal and construction language of the block.
concrete column-slab + intrnal loadbearing walls
The idea was to keep this new insertion consistent not only with the existing urban patterns but also with the existing buildings. Hence the new building would mimic the prefab concrete public housing blocks in the neighbourhood. Since the structural system of concrete column-slab with internal shear walls is efficient for load-bearing, the external walls are afforded freedom for design.
concrete column slab system
6x6m column grid precast concrete column 200x500mm insitu concrete flat slab 200mm 12X6m column grid precast concrete column 200x500mm precast concrete beam-slab 900mm depth
plan for location of external breeze walls
structural axonometric
At podium level