Deconstructing Orchard Central.

(Image taken from Google Map.)


(Image from Skyscraper City.)

(Image from Time Out Singapore.)

(Image taken from Skyscraper City.)

"What it is *trying* to do".

An excerpt of my analysis from a while back, when a couple of people and I were discussing why it seems that the only people we know who "enjoyed" Orchard Central (OC) are architects:

I'm glad you brought this up because I've been thinking about my experience with OC as well but haven't had the chance to articulate. I too 'enjoyed' the building when I first visited, but my non-aki, designer companion wasn't the slightest impressed. Upon some reflection, I realised that the appreciation of its playfulness of interior volumes, clever circulation, etc are all typical architectural devices we (and more so an NUS effect, I reckon) that are emphasised in school. I actually caught myself thinking about how various spaces were developed in drawings, and then consider how the building looks as a scaled model.

OC's practically a basic constructed menu packed with a host of The Best Spatial Techniques, and exactly like an index lacks a--for want of a better term--soul that produces a greater sum of parts. Resulting in and enjoyment only in parts--for me at least. Not to mention, as I've detailed above, a lot of this enjoyment is divorced from a more visceral appreciation of the space itself, but rather in abstraction of understanding what it is *trying* to do at various turns; definitely a kind of in-group, 'specialist' sensitivity that most wouldn't give a damn.

Ultimately, it's a shopping mall that's programmatically bland, and by conventional big-mall standards marred by unattractive wares as well. (Again, at least to me.)

[...]

I totally have a gripe about [OC's campaign ad featuring two people running through the entire building] as well. An acquaintance of mine is one of the key creatives behind the ad, but I haven't had heart to ask him just WTF he thinks is going to be endearing about putting two Caucasian people running around the building. There're several levels of fail to the campaign, but my discussion with several other ad people suggests that I'm not the only one who experiences some cognitive dissonance singularly from their choice of models.

From the comments above, functional experience is mostly wanting, architectural marvel is divorced even if interesting to me (seriously, if you try so hard but ultimately have to be understood from an architect's POV...) for whoever cares to notice, my suspicion is that OC is positioned more as an architectural artifact (failing as an artifice) and functionally excused with little to no care to shoppers. (That's maybe why architects like it; it's such a fuck-the-client/user wankjob. Sorry archietechs!) And if anyone else caught the OC special on Channel 5 recently, I don't think the conjecture's implausible.

Orchard Central: Don't build this shit.

‘As the mall design is ground-breaking, we are not surprised to receive such feedback from shoppers,’ said Mr Tai Lee Siang, director of home-grown architectural firm DP Architects, which designed the mall.

‘It will take time for them to become familiar with and like a mall that is less than conventional.’

[...]

Mr Tai said the floor plans for the different levels vary according to themes ranging from food to beauty. These thematic clusters are designed to form interlocking spaces rather than uniformly stacked areas.

Of the unusual layout, Mr Chng Kiong Huat, executive director of development and planning at Far East Organization, which owns Orchard Central, said: ‘This is a long, narrow site, not a square site that is easy to handle, so we knew we could not use a traditional model and hope for the best.

‘We embraced the challenge as an opportunity to create something distinct and new.’

He said Far East bid for the land because it was a chance to participate in the rejuvenation of the Orchard shopping belt. Far East also owns Pacific Plaza in Scotts Road and had built Far East Plaza and Far East Shopping Centre in the area.

[...]

Mr Tai said 11 floors with the same repetitive floor plan would have been ‘quite boring’.

‘To create visual excitement and spatial sensation, we zoned the space and matched the architecture of each zone to the tenant profile.’

Hence, the youth area has an edgy design – a winding ramp built around its own atrium, with small shops selling knick-knacks and apparel along the ramp.

The cluster of beauty and wellness shops, on the other hand, is ensconced in a far corner to offer customers privacy.

Vertical malls, though novel here, are common in population-dense cities such as Tokyo, and the architects drew inspiration for their design from malls in these cities, such as Herbis Osaka, Mr Tai said.

But shoppers’ criticisms have not fallen on deaf ears. Mr Chng said Far East has added more lighting to increase the visibility of shops and put up more signs at a cost of almost $4 million.

It is also reviewing the performance of the outlets monthly and granting rental help when appropriate. It plans to pump about $5 million this year into advertising and promoting the mall.

Mr Chng added that Orchard Central’s shopping experience will be further enhanced when the adjacent site, previously occupied by Specialists’ Shopping Centre and Hotel Phoenix, is built.

OCBC Bank, which owns the land, recently announced that it was in talks with construction and property group United Engineers Limited to build a hotel and mall there.

Far East has worked with OCBC to have link bridges on the upper floors that connect Orchard Central to OCBC’s future development. Currently, the bridges lead straight into a partition wall separating the mall from the adjacent site.

When the OCBC development is ready, the partition will be removed and shoppers will be able to walk around, with the Discovery Walk between the two buildings acting as an atrium.

Mr Nicholas Mak, a real estate lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, noted the importance of malls having user-friendly designs.

‘If the layout does not register positively in the minds of customers, they might not return, especially in a competitive shopping area such as Orchard Road,’ he said.

Mr John Ting, former president of the Singapore Institute of Architects, noted that mall layouts here are becoming ‘more interesting’. Orchard Central, he felt, ‘is too ahead of its time here and shoppers are not yet sophisticated enough to appreciate it’.

("Orchard Central: love it or hate it," Sunday Times, 14 Mar 2010.)

Before anything else, the "shopping experience" is not going to be enhanced by the erection of more buildings around Orchard Central. More infrastructure around the building ensures that there's a greater pool of people to suck into the building, especially as 313@Ochard becomes overwhelmed and people are forced into Orchard Central to escape the smothering heat that is this shit weather.

What really irks me are the charming people like these developers, architects and former president of Singapore Institute of Architects, John Ting. It's always good to know that the hoi polloi (read: non-architecturally trained people) are so unevolved that Orchard Central is like throwing pearls before swines.

Believe it or not, building isn't the only or always answer to "rejuvenation", especially building malls in the density of the Orchard shopping belt. There is a possibility of shopper/simulacrum fatigue. Rejuvenation might very well be a green or park relief of minimal structural, multi-tasking layering (Dhoby Ghaut Green.)

It is a pity that the greenland that used to be Orchard Ion is no more. Many people think it's okay that the park is gone because they have an impression that it was primarily only the gathering space for foreign domestic workers on weekends. But it is precisely because of their presence that it's such a great loss: this land was a welcoming space for the lower common denominator, as such brought in a wider range of people into the shopping belt for reasons outside of being a constant flaneur--walking by windows after windows, shops after shops--or the active participant of conspicuous consumption.

There was more to Orchard then, than there is now.

"Canteen Brick-Down".

(This is by Debbie Loo and 5ft Creatives.)

I like it; either out of personal sentimentality for the old FASS canteen, or a general appreciation of Loo's concept of reclaiming memory.

By the way, I've been to the new canteen, and simply don't understand why there was a need to rebuild at all. No doubt it looks cleaner*, but it's such a forgettable space. For fuck sake, Techno Edge (Engineering Canteen) in all its functionalism has more of a personality!

* Just a small distinction that hygiene and cleanliness is a lot about practice, maintenance and upkeeping. No amount of modern material can convince me to lick off walls and floors without a good wipe-down.

1:1 - Brick:Brick - Fragment 1.

The idea here is to create a 1:1 scale fragment of a lost built structure, in the exact material that the original structure was created. The fragment is left to really deteriorate from natural weathering, and safely broken apart by conservators as the structure weakens slowly.

Some structures to consider: the red-brick National Library, National Theatre, Pearl Bank Apartment, Golden Mile Complex, Tanglin Mall, etc.

One day, we should add also the Esplanade, the former Westin Stamford, Bras Basah Complex, Wisma Atria, The Sands, and other still-building or currently functioning buildings that need to question their permanence in this "city... not a country":

‘This is where most people make a mistake…I have tried to explain that we are different. We are a city. We are not a country,’ he told 200 lawyers, many from America, at the New York State Bar Association International Section’s meeting here. ("Q&A with K. Shanmugam", 30 Oct 2009).