Category: Cities

TOMORROW: Design Stories of Our Future

Communicate by Caleb Tan and Danny Tan.
Connect by Randy Chan and Lee Xin Li
Dress by Alfie Leong and Teresa Lim
Eat by Kinetic Design and Chris Chai
Learn by Lekker and Esther Goh
Live by Tan Cheng Siong and Sonny Liew
Play by Hans Tan and André Wee
Relax by Nathan Yong and Ng Xinnie
Travel by STUCK and Dan Wong
Work by forest&whale and Koh Hong Teng

What would a day in Singapore look like come 2065?

10 designers and 10 illustrators from this city present their visions of her future today.

Responding to 10 speculative questions of how we will communicate, connect, dress, eat, learn, live, play, relax, travel and work, these creatives were paired up to discuss and create stories together on one assigned aspect of life in Singapore on its centennial.

Through vignettes written by myself, concepts imagined by the designers, and narratives drawn by the illustrators, we invite you on a journey to discover the possibilities and pitfalls of life in this little red dot tomorrow.

Thanks to BLACK, I got the opportunity to pair up 10 Singapore designers with 10 illustrators to imagine futures for this upcoming SingaPlural 2017 exhibition.

Communicate: Danny Tan & Caleb Tan
Connect: Randy Chan & Lee Xin Li
Dress: Alfie Leong & Teresa Lim
Eat: Kinetic Singapore & Chris Chai
Learn: Joshua Comaroff &  Esther Goh
Live: Tan Cheng Siong & Sonny Liew
Play: Hans Tan & Andre Wee
Relax: Nathan Yong & Ng Xinnie
Travel: STUCK Design &  Dan Wong
Work: forest&whale & Koh Hong Teng

Come by the F1 Pit Building from 7 to 12 March to check out the exhibition. We’re also having a chat with some of the teams on 11 March, sign up here.

With Or Without the People

Architect William S.W. Lim’s radical ideas on the Asian city were the subject of a playful exhibition on city life at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.

Incomplete Urbanism exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore.

That no architecture models could be found in an exhibition about an architect speaks volumes about the work and diverse influences of William Lim Siew Wai. Though the Singaporean architect has practised for over four decades—having worked on projects ranging from the brutalist mixed-use icon Golden Mile Complex (1974), to the recently demolished postmodern Gallery Evason Hotel (2000)—Lim is best known today as an advocate. His message is that cities in Asia can develop their own urbanism and people can be involved in building cities.

➜ Read the full review in CUBES #84 (Feb 2017/Mar 2017)

A Singaporean Architect Wants to Reclaim Land From the Sky

Many Singaporeans were up in arms when their government announced plans to house a population of 6.9 million by 2030.

Architect Tan Cheng Siong was one of them.

But unlike his countrymen, Tan was also frustrated at how city planners were planning to accommodate the population increase – by reclaiming even more land from the sea. In just under five decades, Singapore had expanded by over a fifth from its original 587 square kilometres through land reclamation. It is a tried-and-tested plan that will generate land zoned into plots for singular uses like residential or commerce. However, Tan, who is also trained in urban planning, concludes that “this method of planning is wrong.”

Instead, he has a better solution: Reclaim land from the skies.

➜ Read the rest in Rice magazine