Dip Unit 21 Yr 4: Jonathan Ashmore, Lucy Evans, Gregoriades Kostas, Tom Holberton, Anthony Lau, John Oliver, Sang–Kil Park, Ursula Thompson, Dennis Tsang, Alex Tucker, Lawrence Wong, Louise Yeung. Yr 5: Grace Craddock, Pedro Alejandro Gil, Doris Lam, Grace Ng, Mark Shaw, Adam Whitlock Wood.
Stay ÷ Time A fascination of cities over time is that they tell stories about people, the way they lived, worked and what they felt was important. Whether it is poetry and myth, technology and finance, the cultural fabric is built into architecture one layer over the next, generation after generation. The project this year is concerned about the reading of context, but perhaps not in the most orthodox sense. Our location is Penang in Malaysia, an erstwhile trading port on the historic spice routes to the east. This small island city reflects its rich cultural past from early Indian civilisation to that of the Portuguese, Dutch, British and later the Japanese military occupation of World War 2. Like many cities of occupation, those that came left their legacies. The colonial imprint announces its origins clearly, but the interwoven material style of the Chinese and indigenous Malay community provides a more subtle backdrop. The multi-cultural histories are like continuously interwoven threads, seen in the buildings and landscape, recorded in literature, and lived out in everyday life. The programme is for a place to stay. It may include some of the traditional components of the hotel, but a wider and more poetic interpretation of ‘stay’ is explored – a place to observe, listen or read; a place that reflects the environment, sensitive to its context but, at the same time, making a sharp, direct and tough statement for the future.
Christine Hawley and cj Lim