Archifest Pavilion 2013: "House".

Archifest is a month-long festival celebrating the urban environment and the communities that make it come alive. Organised by the Singapore Institute of Architects, Singapore’s only architecture festival features programmes to engage a wider audience in conversations about the city.

Accompanying the festival, is the festival pavilion whose design is won through competition.  The pavilion is in its third year this year; in fact, it just concluded competition submissions last week, therefore results for this year's winning scheme should be out anytime soon.

"House", the winning scheme last year won by RSP Architects Engineers and Planners, was a structure built with construction scaffolding.

Archifest Pavilion: A House for Contemplating Architecture 

by Lim Sio Hui 27/09/13 1:33 AM EDT 

Organized by the Singapore Institute of Architects, this year’s Archifest opens today, September 27, with the unveiling of the pavilion. 

Like a house under construction, the scaffolding-wrapped structure of this year’s Archifest Pavilion reveals itself upon closer inspection. Set lightly on Dhoby Ghaut Green, the purpose-built venue is accessed through a main footpath leading from the MRT station exit, where a series of small installations invite and lead visitors into the main event area, whose pitched-roof form can be seen as one moves closer. It is in this sheltered space where visitors will find many of the festival’s activities taking place, from talks, tours to exhibitions.  

Titled “House,” the winning design by RSP Architects Planners & Engineers centers around a concept that contemplates the process of a building’s life, its carbon footprint and the larger landscape in which it resides, as well as building with common elements found in the industry, which gave rise to the scaffolding-based structure.

“Such structures loom large at every construction site spotted across the island, yet people often look past or through them for the final product,” explains the project’s lead designer Mark Wong. Additional reasons for choosing the scaffolding system was for its efficacy in set up and teardown, and more importantly 100% recyclability, and inherent structural logic also allows the pavilion to be elevated, hence reducing the damage made to the ground. “In essence, the Pavilion unapologetically evokes a sense of fleeting temporariness, even if expansive, with a grand hope that past its shelf-life and little to no waste is incurred on the land,” says Wong. 

Apart from the main event space, the plot has been designed to flow out into the surrounding landscape and internal courtyard, allowing activities to extend to the entire site with its existing greenery and trees. Visitors are also encouraged to explore and experience the pavilion in their own way, interacting with the playfully inserted elements that range from the very small to the extremely large, from the landscape blinker lights that are attached to scaffolding pipes, to the link-way installation and the main event space itself. 

“From our experience, Archifest is an excellent opportunity for architectural designers to explore new and unconventional ways of building, and to really flex one’s design thinking in a way that a lot of permanent projects cannot for an array of reasons,” says Wong. 

“We do believe that House lends a very different perspective on what architecture is and can be moving away from just a finished product, to the wonders of the smaller, transient and forgotten parts, processes and the people who contribute to the finished product.” 

 

(All images belong to RSP Architects Engineers and Planners Ptd Ltd.)

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References:

1. Archifest Official Website.
2. Lim, Sio Hui, Archifest Pavilion: A House for Contemplating Architecture, Blouin Artinfo, 27 Sep 2013

Building for sporting events and costs.

There're series of derelict sporting facilities photos floating about in view of on-going Brazil World Cup 2014.  Mostly, we see facilities that are abandoned once international games like the Olympics end because people in the host countries never/ don't gravitate towards the sports that these facilities are meant for.  In conservation, the quickest death to any building is in its disuse, for with abandonment comes lack of maintenance and care.

Here're some examples of two facilities build for the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008:

Beach Volleyball Stadium in July 2008:

 Beach Volleyball Stadium Now: 

 Rowing canals in 2008:  

  Rowing canals now:  

Other than the potential unsustainability of facilities for these major sporting events, there's also the question of whether or not the spending committed to the hosting of these events even begins to justify itself.  One of the key bone of contention in on-going anti-World Cup protests in Brazil is the obscene amount of money pumped into the event by the government, when the general conditions for workers, public welfare and facilities (e.g. schools) are not improving.  

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References:

1. "30 Haunting Photos Of Abandoned Olympic Stadiums. It's Scary To Think Sochi May Be Next...",  
2. "Striking Images of Brazil’s Anti-World Cup Protest Movement"

Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza and Philippine Independence Day.

(photo from by Calvin Teo, Wikipedia.)

Organisers cancel Philippine Independence Day event: Police 

SINGAPORE — Organisers have decided to cancel an event to commemorate the Philippine independence day at Ngee Ann City, the Singapore Police said.
BY - MAY 27 

SINGAPORE — Organisers have decided to cancel an event to commemorate the Philippine independence day at Ngee Ann City, the Singapore Police said. 

In a statement sent to Channel NewsAsia today (May 27), the police said the organisers, the Pilipino Independence Day Council 2014 (PIDC), had withdrawn their application to hold the event at Ngee Ann City. 

“This follows Police’s advice that there are public order and safety concerns with the venue proposed by PIDC,” the police said. It said the organisers had been advised to hold the event at alternative locations, such as Hong Lim Park and Suntec City. 

The event, originally slated to be held on June 8 at the Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza in Orchard, drew a barrage of anti-foreigner comments online. The organisers reportedly also received abusive phone calls after they posted about the event on Facebook. 

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wrote on his Facebook page on April 19 that he was “appalled” to read about the online furore. Singaporeans “must treat people in Singapore the way we ourselves expect to be treated overseas,” he wrote. CHANNEL NEWSASIA

My thoughts:

1. Ngee Ann City civic plaza is a commercial space that is used for all sorts of events: Subaru challenge, fashion shows, lion dance competitions, temporary discount setup, cultural events, etc.  Some of these events private, while others open to the public.  
2. From what I know, this space has never been so politicised, since a commercial space is--as  the name suggests--pinned to money.  You pay, you run.  Money sees no race, color, nationality, etc, just like so much of the imported goods people buy in that area. 
3. Orchard Road keeps getting more and more unpleasantly exclusionary, by the people who frequent the place (but feel that some other people shouldn't be allowed in their presence), the cost of goods and services, and now by people who may not go there even but somehow relate the shopping stretch--full of tourists--as a national symbol.
4. I can't think of another country in this region whose people and government are so virulently and proudly discriminatory, judgemental and elitist.

ETA 20160821:

1. A commercial space will, of course, discriminate against people who don't have as strong a spending power.
2. There has been a systematic erasure and disdain of low-wage foreign workers in the shopping stretch.  Read some past accounts of the sort of action taken against workers occupying and using public spaces in Orchard: Justin Zhuang's "Home Maid Picnic" (Reclaim.sg), Cha-Ly's "Observation Studies at Lucky Plaza (and vicinity) Singapore" (The Use of Public Space by Foreign Female Domestic Workers in Globalizing Asian Cities, 7 Jan 2009), or the crystal clear account by Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Social Support and Training (FAST) President Seah Seng Choon on the opening of FDW Befrienders Clubhouse, located off the main city grid, “You notice currently the foreign domestic workers congregate in various places of interest. Like Lucky Plaza, Gardens by the Bay, the Botanic Gardens, and sometimes even in the residential areas. We want them to go to a place where they can be among themselves, where they will not be disturbing the owners of the building or residents of the area.” (Olivia Siong, "Clubhouse for foreign domestic workers to open next month," Today, 10 Mar 2014.)