M.ARCH STUDIO SEQUENCE HANDBOOK (2020/2021)

D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO S E Q U E N C E M ARCH I & II

M ARCH

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D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO S E Q U E N C E M ARCH I & II

Picture credit: Erik G. L’Heureux

MASTER OF A RC HITEC T U RE PROGRAMME AY 20—21 M ARCH I & II Department of Architecture School of Design & Environment

C O N T E N TS

Picture credit: Tai Han Vern, Nicholas

H E A D’S M E S S A G E 4

M A S T E R O F A R C H I T EC T U R E P R O G R A M M E DIR EC T O R’S M E S S A G E 5

M A R C H P R O G R A M M E O V E R V IE W 6

M ARCH I SEMESTER 1 & 2 9

D E SIG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO O P T IO N S 10

M A R C H I S E M E S T E R 1 & 2 FA C U LT Y 11

C O R E G R A D U L AT E L E V E L M O D U L E S 19

G R A D U AT E L E V E L E L EC T I V E S 2 0 A R C H I T EC T U R E IN T E R N S H IP P R O G R A M M E (A IP) 27 M A R C H II 2 9 M A R C H II D E SIG N R E S E A R C H T H E SIS 3 0 M A R C H II D E SIG N T H E SIS FA C U LT Y 31 R E S E A R C H C LU S T E R S 42 D E SIG N S T U DIO R E V IE W C A L E N D A R 4 4

V ISI T IN G P R O F E S S O R S & M A R C H E X T E R N A L R E V IE W E R S 4 6 C O N TA C T 4 8

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H E A D’S M E S S A G E

M A STER O F A RC HITEC T U RE P R O G R A M M E DI R E C T O R’S M E S S A G E

H O P U AY P E N G

I am delighted to welcome you, either as new or returning students, to NUS Department

E R I K G. L’H E U R E U X

The NUS Master of Architecture programme is Asia’s leading design and research course

Professor and Head

of Architecture. This new academic year will be a great challenge to us all, not least

Dean’s Chair Associate

for architecture. Our concurrent two-year professional degree programme cultivates

of Department

due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the scattering of members of our facilities and

Professor, Vice Dean

a comprehensive and deep understanding of Asia and the equatorial region’s design

studios. Regardless of the mode of teaching, we at DOA pledge to do our best to deliver

Master of Architecture

opportunities and challenges. Students acquire knowledge as designers, intellectuals

an excellent learning experience to you as you journey through the year. The pandemic

Programme Director

and citizens who can then go on to shape and influence the built environment.

has led us to question a number of the essential values at the heart of how we operate in society, such as gathering, community, work and living patterns, nature, technology and

The M Arch design studio is supported by a rigorous and expansive curriculum of

digital capacity. These values are, and should be, expressed in spatial terms.

graduate level electives and core professional modules. Conducted over a duration of four semesters, through the M Arch I Design Option Studios and the graduate level design

As we begin this education journey with you, we have worked to achieve better clarity

thesis, this curriculum trains students to think critically and materially, and to produce

in our studio direction and pedagogy. Our programmes focus on design, which we see

independent work of individuality, rigour, and vision.

as evidence-based problem solving that has the potential to transcend the confines of everyday experience. The required modules in our programmes open the door to

Directing their own learning experience, M Arch I students embark on a selection

different domains of knowledge, which in turn inform design decisions. The elective

of options studios and aligned electives. During their second thesis year, students

modules further expand and enrich students’ knowledge in their chosen topics of

concentrate on independent and individual design trajectories, covering a wide variety

interest. By creating and navigating a path through the entire curriculum, you will then be

of disciplines as well as cross-cultural dimensions. Core professional and technical

empowered to pursue your own aspirations and interests in architecture.

modules support the student’s advanced learning.

The values that we champion in our programmes relate both to architectural and spatial form, and pertain to current social conditions, environmental responsibility, well-being

The strategic objective of the M Arch programme is to prepare students for a

and health, urban liveability, memory and identity, and relationship with nature. At

professional career in architecture amid a rapidly changing global context, and to

this moment, these issues are particularly relevant, poignant and ripe for reflection,

equip them with experiences developed from within Singapore and through regional

research, re-affirmation and redefinition. A number of design studios planned for the

and international perspectives. Facilitated by a world-class team of academics and

new academic year are addressing these issues directly, and we await with anticipation

practitioners, the M Arch programme focuses on research-driven thinking and methods

the innovative answers and outcomes that they will generate.

through five research clusters: Research by Design; History, Theory and Criticism; Technologies; Urbanism; and Landscape Studies.

We are turning the coming year’s challenges into opportunities for robust spatial responses to future conditions. Our programme, curriculum, module design and

The programme allows students to expand design intelligence and creative practice

studio learning outcomes have been formulated and refined in order to achieve design

research at an advanced level, and to further discourse within the discipline

excellence in this environment. I am confident we will rise above our challenges and work

of architecture. A series of seminars, symposiums, guest lectures, internship

to create design solutions that will address pertinent issues of importance for current

opportunities, exchange and field research complement this advanced design

and future communities. My colleagues and I look forward to working together with you,

programme.

and to bringing our passion, creativity and intelligence together with yours, to bear on these issues. I wish you an exciting and rewarding new academic year.

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With this, our graduates are poised to become design leaders for Asia, and for the world.

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M A RC H PR O G R A M M E OV ERVIE W

M A RC H PR O G R A M M E OV ERVIE W

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Picture credit: Luh Astrid Mayadinta

M ARCH I SEMESTER 1 & 2

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D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO O P T IO N S

M ARCH I SEMESTER 1 D E S IG N S T U DIO L E A D E R S:

M ARCH I SEMESTER 2 D E S IG N S T U DIO L E A D E R S:

AR5801 DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO OPTIONS 1

Cheah Kok Ming Associate Professor; B Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore

Francois Blanciak Associate Professor; PhD, M Arch (University of Tokyo), DPLG (École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Grenoble)

Simone Chung Assistant Professor; PhD, M Phil (University of Cambridge), MSc (University College London), AA Dip, BSc (University College London); ARB, RIBA Part 3, Registered Architect, UK

Lilian Chee Associate Professor, Deputy Head (Academic); PhD, MSc Arch History (University College London), B Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore)

Florian Heinzelmann PhD (Eindhoven University of Technology), M Arch (Berlage Institute), Dipl-Ing (Munich University of Applied Sciences); Registered Architect, the Netherlands

Hsin Ming Fung Ong Siew May Visiting Professor (National University of Singapore); Professor (Southern California Institute of Architecture); FAIA

Constance Lau PhD (University College London), AA GradDip, B Arch (National University of Singapore); FHEA, ARB, Registered Architect, UK

Richard Ho Professor in Practice; B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore

Betty Ng M Arch (Harvard University), B Arch (Cornell University); RIBA, Assoc. AIA, Registered Architect, the Netherlands

Patrick Janssen (Co-teaching with Rudi Stouffs) Associate Professor; PhD (Hong Kong Polytechnic University), MSc (Cog Sci Int Comp) (Westminster University), AA Dip

Fiona Nixon GradDipComp, B Arch (RMIT University); APEC, MSIA, FRAIA, Registered Architect, Singapore and Australia (Victoria)

Thomas Kong Associate Professor; M Arch (Cranbrook Academy of Art), B Arch (National University of Singapore); Assoc. AIA, Registered Architect, Singapore

Modular Credits: 8 AR5802 DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO OPTIONS 2 Modular Credits: 8

This two-semester design module sequence establishes the foundation for masters level creative practice design research in architecture. It provides the students with an opportunity to select from a variety of studio topics; thereby allowing them to choose the themes aligned with their individual interests and intellectual drives, while creating synergy with their studio leader.

Framing design as a creative practice, the objective of the module is to develop a high level of competence in creative practice research, leading to architectural outcomes which are in turn aligned to the faculty’s expertise and interests.

Students are expected to demonstrate a high degree of proficiency in creative practice research, design thinking, representation and communication. This module demands that students not only deploy creative practice research methods but also translate research outcomes into actionable strategies in architecture. Advanced architectural thinking and clear practice-based research methodologies applied to architectural discourse are expected, alongside mature representational techniques that communicate ideas through non-verbal and verbal mediums.

Learning Objectives: 1.

To understand and critically demonstrate creative practice research methods in a studio context

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To understand and take a critical position on methods of creative practice research and their resulting outcomes, and the impact of these on the formation of architecture

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To understand and take a critical position on the translation of creative practice research outcomes into architectural approaches, techniques, and strategies or tactics

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To understand creative practice research as a fundamental component of architecture and to explore its future trajectories

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To design with creative practice research and its conceptual tools, and to be able to use such research to make ethical judgments in architecture

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To utilise advanced representational techniques in both digital and analogue mediums to communicate research,

Shinya Okuda Associate Professor; M Eng, B Eng (Kyoto Institute of Technology); Registered Architect, Japan and the Netherlands Ong Ker-Shing Associate Professor in Practice, BA Arch Programme Director; M Arch, MLA (Harvard University); MSIA, Registered Architect and SILA, Registered Landscape Architect, Singapore Tsuto Sakamoto Associate Professor; M Eng (Waseda University), MSc (Columbia University), B Eng Science (University of Tokyo)

iteration, and design techniques in architecture 7.

To utilise advanced digital data, visualisations, contemporary simulations in 2D, 3D, and 4D mediums to probe architectural approaches to design

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To utilise advanced analogue and digital tools in the exercise of making

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To communicate creative practice ideas in concise and considered verbal, written, and performative presentations utilising a wide range of mediums

Tan Beng Kiang Associate Professor; DDes (Harvard University), M Arch (University of California, Los Angeles), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Tham Wai Hon M Arch, B Arch (National University of Singapore)

Erik G. L’Heureux Dean’s Chair Associate Professor, Vice Dean, M Arch Programme Director; M Arch (Princeton University), BA Arch (Washington University in St. Louis); FAIA, LEED AP BD+C, NCARB, Registered Architect, USA (New York and Rhode Island) Charles Lim BA (Fine Art) (Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design) CJ Lim Ong Siew May Visiting Professor (National University of Singapore), Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at The Bartlett, University College London; PhD (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) Joseph Lim Associate Professor; PhD (Heriot-Watt University), MSc (University of Strathclyde), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic Associate Professor, Deputy Head (Administration and Finance); ScD, MSc, Spec Arch, Dip Eng Arch (University of Belgrade); Registered Architect, Serbia Rudi Stouffs (Co-teaching with Patrick Janssen) Dean’s Chair Associate Professor; PhD, MSc (Arch Comp Design) (Carnegie Mellon University), MSc (ArchEng), Ir-Arch (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Zhang Ye Assistant Professor; PhD (University of Cambridge), M Arch, B Arch (Tsinghua University)

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D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO O P T IO N S 1: S E M E S T E R 1 S T U DIO D E S C R I P T IO N S

FORM INTEGRATES SYSTEMS: DESIGNING ECOPUNCTURE Tutor: Cheah Kok Ming “Ecopuncture is acupuncture for the built environment.

Every designed object affects the wider condition within which it is nested. Each insertion enhances the connectedness of social and ecological systems, seeking positive reciprocity and strengthening the whole.”

- Nirmal Kishanani, Ecopuncture – Transforming Architecture & Urbanism in Asia, 2019 The notion of ecopuncture broadens the purpose of a building to embrace the functions of serving, strengthening, sharing and engaging with its surroundings, promoting symbiosis between the built and natural environments. This studio will look at the design of critical and meaningful architecture where the form integrates energy networks, hydrology, ecology, food production and elements of the public realm. Combined learning activities will be conducted with DOA’s Master of Science in Integrated Sustainable Design studio and WOHA.

SPECTRES OF VENICE: INVISIBLE CITIES REVISITED Tutor: Simone Chung The historical city-state of Venice has long fuelled the imagination of travellers and writers, perhaps none more so than journalist-novelist Italo Calvino, whose seminal 1972 book Invisible Cities vicariously recounted scores of imaginative simulacra through a fictionalised Marco Polo. But in the last few decades, Venice has battled environmental perils, and more recently the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, leading many to ponder its long-term survival. This studio will grasp the contemporaneous challenges of island cities through a reading of Neal E. Robbins’ Venice, An Odyssey: Hope and Anger in the Iconic City and a discussion with the author. Taking inspiration from The Hard State, Soft City of Singapore (ed. Chung and Douglass) and lessons from Venice, the studio will also work towards translating the intangible qualities of urban experience and cultural life into a virtual wonderworld. Underpinning the studio’s exploration will be a look at the role of space in narrative construction, and that of digital technology in the experience of space and place. Space will be examined as the context, referent and text that is essential to understanding human spatial experience. This studio is supported by a NUS Teaching Enhancement Grant. A provisional schedule, studio activities and key readings are found at: https://millennialnomadspace.com/ spectres-of-venice/

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TROPICAL MARKETPLACES Tutor: Florian Heinzelmann

PEACE, PLACE AND GRACE Tutor: Fiona Nixon

DIRTY ARCHITECTS Tutor: Ong Ker-Shing

Markets are an essential part of Southeast Asian culture and lifestyle. From Singaporean hawker centres to Indonesian pasar tradisional, traditional markets in the region have a number of things in common. Often, they are semi-outdoor spaces, covered by a large roof housing various stalls underneath. This studio examines the roof as a distinct typology and its performative aspects from various perspectives. In its simplest form, a roof protects from sun and rain, but it has potential to be much more. A roof’s performative aspects can range from supporting communal activity, to presenting an organisational principle structuring functions and circulation, to constituting cultural aspects of representation and displaying advanced microclimatic, engineering, and environmental elements. Students will explore these ideas with reference to case studies of markets and roofs.

For instance, they will be invited to think about Markthal in Rotterdam by MVRDV as a thick roof layered over a market floor housed underneath. What else could be layered, embedded, or integrated underneath, inside or on top of the market’s roof? And how would this building prompt us to rethink the roof as urban typology?

Designing exclusive seclusion without selling your soul Tropical Asia is the birthplace of the hyper-luxury resort.

This hotel typology is unique in its combining a hippie trail expectation of authentic engagement with indigenous culture, incongruously combined with all the pampering expected by the prosperous. Post-COVID-19, well-to-do domestic travellers from large countries and the socalled 1%—international guests with the wherewithal to circumvent travel restrictions—are expected to be the first to drive revival in the hospitality market.

Work in this realm has fed and made famous many Singapore architects: KHA, WOHA, SCDA, and so on.

This studio will examine the work of these designers, as part of a broader exploration of cultural appropriation, critical regionalism, architectural autonomy versus sitespecificity, sustainability, economic development and patronage. Following this exercise in contextual research and reflection, a resort will be scoped and designed: working from brief development through to master planning, architecture and interiors.

This studio embraces forms of dirtiness as a matter of urgent public necessity. Our public health crisis of inflammatory diseases seems to be due, ironically, to the eradication of dirt from our everyday lives. Participants will explore reversals in the values of modern architecture’s resilient cleanliness, aiming for strategic and designed “impurities”. Solutions will expand upon historical modes of interaction between buildings and types of “dirt,” from pre-modern practices, to modern ventilation systems, to domestic animals and other vectors. They will attempt to restore, in part, a type and degree of organic waste in the spaces, surfaces, and systems of buildings, to create an architecture as hospitable at the microbiotic scale as it is at the human one.

ARCDR³ STUDIO: RE-FOREST CITY TM – A RESILIENT URBANISM-NATURE SYMBIOSIS Tutor: Shinya Okuda DIALOGICAL DESIGNS AND HETEROTOPIC ARCHITECTURE IN THE NEW NORMAL Tutor: Constance Lau The role of dialogue in design practice is adopted as questioning and incomplete, with the capacity for user intervention to assume authorship, shaping the reading and outcome of the work. This creation of multiple interpretations is furthered through spatial explorations in Michel Foucault’s notions of heterotopia and heterotopic spaces that encompass layers of meaning within their apparent uses and established contexts.

These arguments, in conjunction with a reading of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and Darran Anderson’s Imaginary Cities, will be used to formulate a post-pandemic narrative for how Singapore as a city can be reimagined through “interdisciplinary approaches that embrace multiple perspectives”.

The research-intensive design studio Re-Forest CityTM invites participants to apply their intelligence to mitigate the impact of global warming and promote a resilient symbiosis between urbanism and nature, as our world moves towards an inevitably hotter climate for present and future generations of mankind. This studio will operate as part of the ArcDR³ (Architecture and Urban Design for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience) global initiative, which seeks to address recurring risks of natural disasters by engaging in collaborative research studios across the Pacific Rim. For more information, view the Re-Forest CityTM studio brief, ArcDR³ Forum Vol. 1 New Agendas for Regenerative Urbanism, at: https://youtu.be/ Rl6Hvitu5A4?t=11125

ARCDR³ STUDIO: SINGAPORE UNDER RISING SEA LEVELS – A RESILIENT LANDSCAPE Tutor: Tsuto Sakamoto In recent years, Singapore has seen the effects of global climate change: intense rainfall, prolonged dry spells and a rise in sea levels that is expected to reach a metre or more by 2100. In response, how can we develop and promote an alternative lifestyle and economy to mitigate the impact of this? And how can urban and architectural design contribute to these more sustainable alternatives?

Students will explore such questions with respect to Singapore’s East Coast area, where the impact of rising sea levels is expected to be amongst the most significant in the country. This studio will be conducted as part of the international Architectural and Urban Design for Disaster Risk, Reduction and Resilience (ArcDR³) initiative.

Picture credit: Su Myat Noe Naing

HOUSE OF THE MUSES Tutor: Betty Ng The earliest use of the word “museum” was in the early 17th century, and it is believed to have originated via Latin from the Greek mouseion, or “seat/house of the Muses”.

Since then, there has clearly been an evolution in museum design and in ways of showing art. This studio aims to investigate and look deeper at this evolution: from the salon, to the appropriated office space, to the white cube, which has become the standard approach since the 1970s.

Participants will be invited to reflect on the relationship between architecture and the ecosystem of the museum, and on the evolution of the display of art. They will be prompted to consider future trajectories in museum design and in the presentation of art: What shape or form will displays and the role of museum move towards in the future? Could we, and should we, challenge the current “museum standard”?

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D E S IG N R E S E A R C H S T U DIO O P T IO N S 2: S E M E S T E R 2 S T U DIO D E S C R I P T IO N S

Picture credit: Ang Boon Kang, Cantona

Picture credit: Goi Yong Chern

THE NEW NORMAL? NEIGHBOURHOOD AND HOUSING DESIGN POST COVID-19 Tutor: Tan Beng Kiang ‘’It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair’’.

– Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has posed great challenges to our daily lives, socially, psychologically, economically and environmentally. 83% of Singapore’s population live in public housing across 23 new towns built by the country’s Housing & Development Board (HDB).

More housing estates are being planned still. How should we design neighbourhoods and housing to weather future pandemics? How will pandemic response measures, such as safe distancing, work-from-home and selfquarantine, affect the way we expect people to function and interact? What should the design of pandemic-ready neighbourhoods look like, and how do we envision their residents will live, work, play and learn? This studio will research the implications of COVID-19 on the built environment and envisage a design that can respond in a resilient way to possible future pandemics. Students participating in this studio are encouraged to also take the elective on Housing (Pre and Post COVID-19 Pandemic) offered in Semester 1.

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PROGRAMMATIC SCULPTURE Tutor: Francois Blanciak The Programmatic Sculpture studio will focus on one pure geometric form as a basis for design investigation. This form will be a large sphere with fixed dimensions, located on a given site in Singapore. Following a thorough analysis of the site in its greater context, students will be asked to determine their own programme. The design work will then consist of adapting the original form of the sphere to its given site and chosen purpose, in a process that can be referred to as an act of programmatic sculpture, involving the erosion of the initial form with the projected programme.

WORKAROUND: PERIPHERIES, DISTRACTIONS, AND THE UNMAKING OF HOME|WORK Tutor: Lilian Chee

BUZZ OFF! PART 1 Tutor: Tham Wai Hon Architecture and the mosquito have had a particularly interdependent history in the hot and humid climate of the equator. This studio will explore the relationship between the built environment and the mosquito, and reveal the possibilities, at increasing scales—from the human body, to furniture and building facades, to urban planning—of responding to current mosquito-borne disease epidemics.

Research will be driven by design and making, with an emphasis on material outcomes in the form of prototypes and models. The studio is part of the Global Studios, a component of the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2021. The outcomes of this studio, if selected by the Biennale, will be organised, refined and showcased as a built artefact for display at the Biennale in November 2021. The work of organising and building will be organised under a Special Semester 2 Studio as Part 2 to this course.

Picture credit: Moritz Maier

Work is moving home. We enter this post-domestic situation through a periphery which seemingly obstructs, delays, and unhinges productivity. A child screaming, burnt cake, a dog’s persistent bark, incessant drilling from an ongoing renovation, unstable Wi-Fi, binge-watching of television, a mountain of ironing, long lunches, and hot afternoons. Each constitutes a site of distraction. When intersected with the bubble of productive work, each site has far-reaching implications of space, scale, temporality, and relationships. Workaround challenges the vacuous state of paid work, tied up in the notion of “the office”.

Approaching home-work through its sites of distraction, students will conduct fieldwork and archival research, map networks and speculate as to opportunities. The studio will produce and enact a series of countersituations—objects, temporalities, scales, programmes, sites—which challenge the conceptions, forms and experiences of working from home.

AN URBAN DESIGN PROPOSAL FOR MARINA BAY GOLF COURSE Tutor: Richard Ho It has been announced that the leases for two of Singapore’s 23 golf courses will not be renewed when they expire in 2021, and that the land will instead be returned to the Singapore Land Authority. It is therefore timely at this point for the nation to re-examines its priorities, and relook the issue of so much land being set aside for the recreation of so few. This is even more in the light of the detriment that golf courses can pose to the biodiversity of our natural environment, and questions as to their longterm sustainability in a land-scarce city-state.

But what then will happen to these two golf courses? It is the intention of this studio to select one of these sites, the Marina Bay Golf Course located off the East Coast Parkway directly across from the Gardens by the Bay, and propose and re-imagine appropriate uses for its future.

Participants will work on this challenge as a group project, and their ability to work together as a team will be a key requirement.

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Picture credit: Li Zhao Yuan, Jevin

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN FOR EXPERIENCE AND WELL-BEING Tutor: Thomas Kong Interior architecture is concerned with the design of habitable spaces from the inside out, where the principles of architectural design, context, structure and enclosure are considered in proximity to materials, objects, human needs and experience. The studio will focus on the conjoined and symbiotic relationship between experience and well-being in the design of interiors, recognising multiple experiential touchpoints across different temporal moments. Students will design interior spaces that that heal, nurture, renew and enrich people in the course of their daily activities based on the following three themes: Design for positive emotions and energy; Design for conviviality and vitality; and Design for diversity and inclusivity.

Picture credit: Liam Shu-Ling, Rachel

ARCHITECTURE: ACTS OF KINDNESS Tutor: CJ Lim This studio advocates the symbiosis of critical thinking and speculative narratives, with drawings (sometimes two-and-a-half dimensions) as the main creative medium.

The discourse, at city and building scales, starts from a chosen work of art or literature. Each student will posit a divergent status quo to establish an intellectual position: researching, translating and synthesising key design decisions to address a world in crisis, resulting in the evolution of resilient architecture and urbanism tailored to the determining factors of climate, nature, resources and the idiosyncrasies of humanity. The heart of this semester’s architecture narratives will be the discovery of the true potential of our human condition.

TISSAGE CELLULAIRE Tutor: Joseph Lim HOT AIR: THE DRAMATIC ATMOSPHERES OF THE EQUATORIAL CITY Tutor: Erik G. L’Heureux The equatorial city’s relationship to climate and atmosphere has become an increasingly complex interface in relation to climate change, population growth, and contamination. Against this background, this studio will research the atmospheric mediums of “hot air” situated in urban Southeast Asia. Three features will guide the work: saturated urbanisms, thick envelopes, and aggregated roofs that modulate and filter the “hot air” of the equatorial city. As the equatorial city evolves from the granular, porous, and informal, to a more formal, conditioned, and hygienic metropolis, it is being transformed with large-scale capital, global aspirations and imported technological systems, often to its longterm environmental detriment. The design research will focus on modes of architectural construction in the region, and the tension between these and the precedent of mid-20th century tropical modernism of the 1930s to the 1980s. The dramatics of heated air, aggregation, scale, vegetation, humidity, heat, rain, and hygiene, and the numerous contagions that compound an atmosphere of “hot air”, will drive the studio’s design and representational research efforts for the semester.

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Designers do not start with preconceptions, code compliance or technological limitations. Instead, the ability to work in the abstract and explore inner subjectivities differentiates designer from technician.

Architectural composition stems from within an inner subjectivity, which is appreciated by users but experienced differently. Our work inspires imagination and speculation to challenge what we already know.

Ideas in architecture, art and fashion design have inspired each other across history. Each discipline has its own forms of creative expression explored through divergent mediums and processes. While fashion and architecture involve the human body and the embodiment of craft in creative pursuit, designers push the limits in expressing the material culture of a particular time.

What if climate and light filtering strategies as well as fabrication were to be inspired by artisanal collections, to provide unusual settings for promotions and events?

This studio will empower our inner subjectivities to create form in light within a couture pavilion, using daylight and shadow to modulate space with enclosure. Design of night-time use and conditions would also be planned as part of the entire diurnal experience.

Picture credit: Lim Yan Cheng, Harvey

TOP-UP THE MSCPS! MULTI-STOREY CAR-PARKS IN A CAR-LITE FUTURE: RECLAIM, RETHINK, RESTORE, REUSE, REINVENT, RETURN, REPOPULATE & REDESIGN Tutor: Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic The second edition of the design studio dedicated to multi-storey carparks will examine the possibility of topping up existing HDB garage structures, turning their uncanny feel and woeful underuse of space into a fertile, resourceful soil for symbiotic architecture to grow atop.

The main aim will be to support the well-being of urbanites in a sustainable and resilient way, even as they face more and more pressing challenges in life.

Students will individually set their own advanced thinking concepts and future-oriented programmes, to develop the appropriate design methodology. The studio will run in experimental mode, with weekly exercises and “discussion-experimentation-production-application” design processes thoroughly documented in the studio report.

URBAN SPACES OF ONE-NORTH: COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS AND RULE-BASED DESIGN Tutor: Rudi Stouffs (Co-teaching with Patrick Janssen) Through data collection and computational analysis, the urban spaces of One-North will be assessed from various viewpoints, including accessibility, integration, visibility, human comfort and other requirements. Shortcomings may be countered through design and planning, and design actions expressed in the form of design rules that apply to the existing situation in order to achieve a preferable outcome. Reflecting on the desired objectives of cohesion, vibrancy and liveability, design rules would formulate these into actions and operations. Embedding both conditions and parameters for application, design rules will operate on the data at hand, and express geometric and semantic transformations. Alternative design outcomes may also be explored.

Picture credit: Lee Ann, Crystal

SHARING CITIES: NUS-TSINGHUA-DPA JOINT STUDIO Tutor: Zhang Ye The city is the quintessential shared spatial environment.

Today, the exercise of sharing is often too narrowly conceived, and perceived, as being primarily about economic transactions. From this perspective, space is solely seen as a resource of economic production and consumption, rather than the foundational reality where our societies and cultures unfold, develop and evolve.

While space is undoubtedly a kind of sharable good, space is also a generative reality: many forms of sharing activities inadvertently lead to the creation of new spatial typologies, which in turn can facilitate and foster new socio-economic formations.

This studio is part of the NUS-Tsinghua Design Research Initiative for Sharing Cities (www.nt-drisc.org). This joint initiative by NUS DOA and Tsinghua University School of Architecture is sponsored by Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation (Hong Kong) and held in partnership with DP Architects. It aims to bring together scholars and students from two top Asian architecture schools, as well as like-minded experts and professionals, in exploring emerging space-sharing practices and new dedicated typologies of shared spaces in cities. In conjunction with this studio, three workshops in Singapore and Beijing have been tentatively planned for the beginning, middle, and end of the semester respectively, to bring together students and scholars for exchange of ideas (subject to restrictions imposed due to COVID-19). Air tickets and accommodations for NUS students involved in this studio would be fully sponsored, should these workshops proceed as planned.

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C O R E G R A D U AT E L E V E L M O D U L E S AR5601 URBAN DESIGN THEORY AND PRAXIS Modular Credits: 4

Picture credit: Ahmad Nazaruddin Bin Abdul Rahim

This module will provide a comprehensive and indepth examination of the theories, methodologies and praxis of urban design. It will introduce ideas that are instrumental in establishing the foundations of urban design, examine rationales and strategies for creating vital and lively urban spaces, and explore key issues and the myriad challenges facing urban design both today and in the future. In particular, this module will view urban design from a place-making perspective—ranging from physical to social, tangible to intangible, and global to local—with a primary focus on topics such as urban form, density, diversity, identity, public space, community, and sustainability.

AR5321 ADVANCED ARCHITECTURAL INTEGRATION Modular Credits: 4

Picture credit: Tang Jia-Yi, Rachel

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The module will offer learning experiences in multidisciplinary collaboration and problem-solving between architects and engineers, to prepare students for contemporary architectural practice. Students will look at case studies that will provide an overview of the foundations for interdisciplinary collaboration. A series of lectures on advanced architectural technologies will also illustrate how multidisciplinary collaboration can produce innovative architecture. Students will then draw up group proposals for innovative integrated building systems aimed at achieving optimisation, performance, and aesthetic goals, in collaboration with lecturers and consultants who are architects and engineers.

AR5423 ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE Modular Credits: 4 This module will provide students with foundational knowledge and understanding required to enter architectural practice, and will give students an overview of the key aspects of running an architectural firm. It will introduce students to office management and to using a system to help to manage information, processes, and risk, to ensure consistent project delivery. Lectures and assignments will be designed to simulate the running of a project, demonstrating what needs to be considered from beginning to end. The lecture notes and slides provided will be intended not only for academic learning but also for students to use as a guide and resource when they enter practice.

AR5221 CONTEMPORARY THEORIES Modular Credits: 4 This module aims to expose architecture students to an array of intellectual ideas and theoretical positions by drawing from an expanded field of discourse that includes architecture, urban studies, design, and the humanities.

This broad focus acknowledges the unique nature of architectural education, the manifold forces that shape the design of a building, and the role an architect plays in society. The lecture and assignments will be based around nine topics: atmosphere, interior, representation, capital, agency, security, networks, infrastructure, and the Anthropocene.

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A R 59 5 X G R A D U AT E L E V E L E L E C T I V E S

SEMESTER 1

Modular Credits: 4

AR5958E URBAN AND RURAL REGENERATION IN ASIA Tutor: Chen Yu This multi-disciplinary module explores several topics on urban and rural regeneration in Asia. It aims to provoke critical thinking on sustainable planning and design in Asia. Through examining selected regeneration projects from historical, social, economic, and environmental perspectives, theories and principles of this study area will be elaborated on during lecture time. Fieldwork will be organised for students to experience and understand challenges facing regeneration practices in the context of Asia.

Graduate level electives are seminal learning experiences for Master of Architecture students. Taught in a seminar format, electives are aligned with research clusters, as well as faculty members’ specific expertise and research efforts, and provide a wide range of contemporary topics to enrich an architect’s education. Deep dives into specific themes allow students to align their personal interests in architecture with graduate-level research, thinking, making and writing.

SEMESTER 1 FACULTY OFFERING Chen Yu Simone Chung Fung John Chye Filip Biljecki Nikhil Joshi Lau Siu Kit, Eddie Joseph Lim Tomohisa Miyauchi Melany Park Swinal Samant Ravindranath Rudi Stouffs Tan Beng Kiang Tay Kheng Soon Teh Kem Jin Zdravko Trivic Johannes Widodo Wong Yunn Chii Yuan Chao

SEMESTER 2 FACULTY OFFERING Erieta Attali Filip Biljecki Francois Blanciak Habib Chaudhury Florian Heinzelmann Thomas Kong Tsuto Sakamoto Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic Tan Beng Kiang

SPECIAL SEMESTER OFFERING Cho Im Sik Shinya Okuda

AR5958F OVERSEAS CHINESE ARCHITECTURE AND SETTLEMENT Tutor: Chen Yu Studies of overseas Chinese architecture and settlement offer an important perspective in understanding urban and architectural history of Southeast Asia and South China. Cultural exchanges across these regions contributed to hybrid nature of overseas Chinese architecture and vibrancy of built environment. Examining overseas Chinese architecture and settlements built in Southeast Asia and South China during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this module will explore their spatial configuration and architectural expression, revolving around several typologies (i.e. temple, clan association, school, shop, house, cemetery, etc.) and their settings in a broader context.

AR5957F MOVING IMAGE SPACE Tutor: Simone Chung New media and more recent digital technologies have become so ubiquitous in our everyday and professional lives that they have become integral to space planning, design, and spatial experience, as tools for visual representation and expression. Capitalising on the temporal feature of the cinematic image, moving images possess the capacity to reveal how space is—and can be— differently organised and experienced. Profilmic mapping techniques, when properly employed for analysis, also allow us to unpack embedded spatial and socio-cultural information shaping the lived environment, revealing certain inherent biases governing the logic of spatial configuration.

AR5958B HUMAN ECOLOGY: AGEING AND THE ENVIRONMENT Tutor: Fung John Chye Rapidly ageing populations are a pressing issue globally, and there is a growing recognition that the urban environment poses many challenges to older people.

This module will familiarise students with a critical understanding of the role that the environment plays in impeding or supporting ageing in high-density urban conditions, with a focus on Singapore. It will introduce key aspects of ageing and the environment, including functional, psychosocial, urban planning and architectural design, as well as certain considerations for people with dementia. Students will engage in problem-based learning through case studies, neighbourhood studies, studies of environmental behaviours, and explorations into potential interventions to enhance the environment for the aged.

AR5959F INTRODUCTION TO DATA SCIENCE Tutor: Filip Biljecki This module will introduce data science and programming in R from scratch. Lectures and computer lab sessions will be conducted, providing hands-on the state-of-the-art tools, datasets, and methods to manipulate, analyse, and visualise data. The module will focus on urban problems, but will be taught in a sufficiently generic manner so that knowledge attained may be transferrable to other domains.

AR5957D THE DEMOCRATISATION OF HERITAGE: “SEEING” AND “TELLING” THE HERITAGE OF EVERYDAY PLACES Tutor: Nikhil Joshi In the context of management of built heritage, this module critically analyses the contemporary discourses on heritage, and how these are used in politics, economy and community identity-building in Singapore and other Asian nations. This module will focus on questions of value, and on the understanding of how and why only specific components of the historic environment are considered significant by authorities. This module will introduce the visual methodologies needed to understand and interpret the ideas of heritage among various stakeholders. It will explore the need to accommodate a growing diversity of stakeholders, and support active dialogue between stakeholders centred on everyday places that are extraordinary and rich in significance.

AR5959A ARCHITECTURAL ACOUSTICS Tutor: Lau Siu Kit, Eddie Architectural acoustics describes the art and science of interactions between people and sounds in indoor and outdoor spaces. Students will be introduced to fundamental knowledge and skills with regard to: principles of sound generation, propagation, and reception; and properties of materials for sound absorption, reflection, and transmission.

In addition, we will examine the characteristics of sound: What makes sound in buildings and urban areas? How can sound influence the way people perceive a space?

This module will be directed towards a focus on design criteria, model simulation, and prediction of acoustics performance.

AR5959G STRUCTURAL STRATEGIES IN ARCHITECTURAL FORM Tutor: Joseph Lim When building structures follow the shape of architectural forms and arrangements of space, there often arises the condition of discontinuous supports and the amplification of loads through eccentricities. The art of redirecting load paths in compromised structural geometries is an important design strategy for architects and of great relevance and interest to designers.

The work of leading architects and structural engineers will be used to illustrate how “redirected forces follow form” and how structure can compensate for inherently unstable forms in architecture.

AR5957A CURATING ARCHITECTURE – EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE MEDIUMS FOR ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Tomohisa Miyauchi The module aims to provide opportunities for students to work collaboratively on school-related publications and events, with the aim of developing critical and curatorial skills in the discourse of architecture.

Students will be expected to publish books and organise events of academic quality as their deliverables. Also, they will be encouraged to explore alternative mediums such as poetry, photography, film, painting, sculpture and other modes of conceptualisation and communication in architecture.

Tham Wai Hon

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AR5957G MODERN ARCHITECTURE, CULTURES OF BUILDING, AND REPRESENTATION IN EAST ASIA Tutor: Melany Park This course introduces late 19th and 20th century architecture, its representation, and modern cultures of building in Japan, Korea, and China, through a comparative and interregional approach. The course asks: How were institutional and technical lineages of construction transmitted throughout modern East Asia? What role did the politics of the nation-state play in fostering, catalysing, or impeding the transmission of architectural knowledge? How was land and the city imagined in the wake of post-war destruction?

Major themes that will be covered include modernity, colonialism, nationalism, technology, historiography, and globalisation.

AR5959C MIND THE GAPS: CRITIQUING URBAN SPACES IN THE CONTEXT OF HIGH-DENSITY VERTICAL ENVIRONMENTS Tutor: Swinal Samant Ravindranath In the context of urban intensification, this module will engage students in supervised research on specific urban spaces within Singapore that function as nuclei for people, programmes, and facilities due to their spatial, visual, and functional characteristics. More specifically, it seeks to explore and understand the myriad challenges and possibilities presented by our transit-oriented environments, and the urban spaces that they encompass as well as those that envelope them; spaces within, between and around.

The main themes expected to be investigated include connectivity and flexibility, multi-modal/multi-speed transport integration, programmes, and typologies; environmental performance and green/social democratic spaces..

AR5959D SHAPE COMPUTATION Tutor: Rudi Stouffs Parametric/associative modelling has received much attention. There are obvious benefits to modelling a family of design alternatives instead of just a single design.

However, developing a parametric model requires a prior understanding of the likely outcome to be able to identify the desired parameters and associations. In this module, we will look closely at an alternative approach of rulebased modelling, using graphically defined shape rules.

We will explore the advantages and disadvantages of this rule-based approach in an application to design within the Rhino/Grasshopper environment.

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AR5958A TOPICS IN URBAN STUDIES – HOUSING (PRE AND POST COVID-19 PANDEMIC) Tutor: Tan Beng Kiang This module covers the history and evolution of housing in Singapore (planning, design, and policy) with a focus on public housing. It will explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on future housing planning and design. This will be a seminar-based discussion class, conducted primarily online and tapping on webinars held globally as an additional resource.

AR5955H TECHNIQUES AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE 3D PLANNING OF SINGAPORE’S LAND AND SEA SPACES Tutor: Tay Kheng Soon Contemporary architecture is in crisis. The context of climate and environmental degradation has been starkly brought home by the COVID-19 pandemic. This lecture/workshop elective will introduce students to larger perspectives on the human and nature interface, through considering the mathematics and aesthetics of Singapore’s floor space relative to land and sea spaces.

Water, food, energy, foreign labour, economy in the context of global economic stagnation, regionalisation, teleworking, urban morphology, transportation, and climate adaptation will all be encountered interconnectedly in this challenging team work elective.

AR5959B DESIGN FOR FIRE SAFETY IN BUILDINGS Tutor: Teh Kem Jin This module will focus on the study of the principles of fire safety and how these are applied in architectural design in Singapore. The Singapore Fire Code will serve as the primary reference document. This study will not only enable a clearer understanding of fire safety and its implications for building design here, but will also be used to prompt a discussion of how fire safety strategies may be used to contribute to design thinking and conceptualisation.

AR5958D CITY AND THE SENSES: A MULTI-SENSORY APPROACH TO URBANISM Tutor: Zdravko Trivic Multi-sensory experience is central to the design of urban built environments and to an overall sense of well-being.

However, contemporary cities are often either sensory overwhelming or sensory depleting, with design practices historically prioritising the visual over other senses. This elective will provide a comprehensive overview of the growing interdisciplinary scholarship on the senses, with a primary focus on multi-sensory approaches to urban design, drawing from phenomenology, psychogeography, anthropology, ethnography, environmental psychology and other related theoretical discourses. It also explores various means and techniques to capture, gather, measure, analyse, assess, represent or visualise, and design urban environments from the perspective of multisensory experience.

AR5958C TYPO-MORPHOLOGY IN ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Johannes Widodo This elective module will deal with the methodology of urban analysis, based on the holistic understanding of the architecture of the city in terms of its layers (morphological, sociological, and symbolic) on different scale levels (from dwelling unit, urban segment, city, to region), transformed over historical periods (time).

The analysis will employ both synchronic and diachronic readings of the urban tissue.

This full continuous assessment module will be delivered through a combination of workshops and seminars.

AR5957E ARCHITECTURE AND ITS SETTING IN SINGAPORE Tutor: Wong Yunn Chii This module will involve a detailed study of architecture and related built environments in Singapore since its founding as a colonial trading settlement by Stamford Raffles, through its various stages of physical development from independence to the present day. It will examine how particular edifices and places were understood, studied, and described, from within and without, under various kinds of discursive structures.

These sites will be studied in the context of the historical moments of the island state: as a colony, a nation-state and as a global city. The module will cover architects and their works, unbuilt projects, and lost buildings and places by consulting various sources of evidence. The module will consult a variety of histories—institutional, professional, social-political—to develop a more robust narrative of the making of Singapore’s architecture within a landscape history.

AR5959E INTEGRATED URBAN WIND ENVIRONMENT DESIGN Tutor: Yuan Chao This module is focused on architectural and urban design principles to improve the urban wind environment.

Managing the urban wind environment is essential to address many urban environmental issues, such as urban heat islands and poor air quality. This module aims to provide students with theoretical knowledge and handson skills on performance and evidence-based planning and design strategies.

It will introduce the multi-scale approach to urban wind environment design, to provide a comfortable, highquality living environment and minimise the use of scarce natural resources. After reviewing the effects of wind environment on urban heat islands, anthropogenic heat dispersion, thermal comfort, and air quality, students will gain an understanding as to why it is necessary to conduct wind analyses in urban planning and design.

To this end, an introduction will be made on simulations and other applicable tools for planning and design practices, from the urban scale to the building scale.

The simulation component of the module will enable and encourage students to apply wind principles to real design problems: including the identification of important wind criteria, spatial scales, and issues in the particular design process, as well as the expression of simulation results in comparing design options.

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SEMESTER 2 AR5957K BUILDING IMAGES: URBAN ANATOMY Tutor: Erieta Attali Architectural photography primarily deals with the relationship between artifacts and their environments, or the dipole of building and landscape.

Cities represent a special case in this model of thought.

Urban landscapes have their own seasons, circadian rhythms and sociopolitical ecosystems. From historical centres and high-density commercial developments, to suburban sprawls and post-industrial brownfields, urban landscapes enmesh past, present, and future.

The intention during this photographic exploration will be to capture this fusion of different elements of Singapore, and convert it into a new cityscape through visual exploration.

AR5957L LANDSCAPE INTO ARCHITECTURE: THE INVERSION OF CONTENT AND CONTEXT IN ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY Tutor: Erieta Attali Photography of buildings and landscapes exists in a synergistic relationship with architectural history, theory and design: these all build a framework for the analysis and communication of architecture, within the context of a larger culture. Apart from this parallel relationship, there also exists a more direct and reciprocal connection between photography, theory and the design process.

This connection lies in the fact that a photographic understanding of architectural works in relation to their environment essentially amounts to an act of translation: one that builds a visual language for the expression of architectural ideas. In line with this, this photography course will aim to cultivate a context-aware visual perception on the part of the architectural photographer and the architect.

AR5959J GEOGRAPHIC DATA SCIENCE AND URBAN ANALYTICS Tutor: Filip Biljecki This module will provide an introduction to urban analytics, including the basics of geographic data science. This is a continuation to the elective Introduction to Data Science offered in in Semester 1, with an added focus on urban data and the addition of intermediate data science topics, coupled with geospatial data and geographic information system (GIS) techniques.

AR5957J ARCHITECTURE AND DIAGRAMMES Tutor: Francois Blanciak This elective aims to provide students with an overview of various techniques of production and theories that relate to architectural diagrammes. Students will learn how to analyse buildings from a diagrammatic point of view, gain knowledge of the history and theory of diagrammes in architecture, and develop skills to generate urban and architectural diagrammes in direct relation to design studio projects.

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AR5958I AGEING AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Tutor: Habib Chaudhury The built environment is an important factor in older people’s physical, social, and emotional well-being. Older adults’ interaction with the environment is affected by their physical capabilities, psychological needs and preferences, and socio-cultural rules. This course will address design criteria, principles, and solutions for older adults with physical and/or cognitive declines.

Key topics that will be dealt with include: theories of person-environment interaction; sensory changes with ageing and their influence on environmental experience; architectural design issues in community and institutional settings for older adults; therapeutic goals and design principles for people with dementia; and methods of environmental evaluation.

AR5957H ARCHITECTURAL IDEAS FROM THE EXPANDED FIELD Tutor: Tsuto Sakamoto The recent rise of intelligent technology and awareness of global climate change has affected architectural practice and ideas significantly. In the light of the circumstances, human-centric ideas have been questioned, criticised and re-examined. By studying these theories both in and out of architectural discourse, the course aims to develop critical discussion and produce ideas that contribute to architectural design strategies and methods. The course has been designed for participants to first gain an understanding of the substance of key theories, and then subsequently translate these into practical knowledge which supports architectural design and thinking. This course will also help build up participants’ knowledge in preparation for the M Arch Architectural Design Thesis.

AR5955A TROPICAL TIMBER MICRO-INTERVENTIONS Tutor: Florian Heinzelmann Southeast Asia has a rich history in vernacular timber structures. In addition, wood as a construction material outperforms many other materials when it comes to embodied energy. These factors present advantages to using wood as a material in this region. The question for this elective is: How can one design contemporary timber structures in the tropics, so that they not only withstand microclimatic conditions but also pests and deterioration? The focus in particular will be on applying this in Singapore, to the design and construction of microinterventions: smaller structures of up to around 100 square metres serving communal functions, and situated in public spaces in relation to the layout or programmes of a neighbourhood.

AR5958G HUMAN ECOLOGY – SPACE & HEALTH SPECIAL: DISCUSSING THE SENSORIAL Tutor: Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic This module is a critical enquiry into the role of sensorial apparatus in processes connecting space to physical, psychological, as well as social well-being. In a “reverse model” teaching environment where lectures are available ahead of weekly dialogues, participants will debate the issues from the standpoint of sensory driven perception.

Lectures will cover: topics in history-theory (culture/ context-related evolution of healthful design and ageing); holistic approaches to sensorial design (the progression from healthy to healing); and pragmatic topics and methods (universal design and investigative practices).

Deliverables will be small-scale design exercises and a short essay to demonstrate students’ skills of analytical design enquiry.

AR5957I DE-SIGNING ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION Tutor: Thomas Kong Architectural education occupies a unique place among other professional programmes at a university. Located at the intersection of different fields and disciplines, it has a long and at times contentious history. De-signing Architectural Education examines architectural education from the inside-out. The module looks at the history and theories of architectural education through case studies, readings, conversations, and interviews. Students will research the state of architectural education in the past and present, and examine various architectural pedagogies and their associated theories, to gain deeper insight into a pedagogical experience of which they will be both inculcated participants and change advocates.

AR5958H TOPICS IN URBAN STUDIES PARTICIPATORY COMMUNITY DESIGN Tutor: Tan Beng Kiang This module introduces concepts and practices in participatory planning and design at the community scale. Major topics include a brief history of participation (both in Singapore and globally); why participation is needed; benefits and problems; methods of participatory community design; and case studies. Students will be expected to participate in hands-on projects to apply methods learnt.

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SPECIA L SEM ESTER ARSPSEM URBAN SPACE DESIGN FOR SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY IN HIGH-DENSITY ENVIRONMENTS (PRESENTED DURING THE SPECIAL SEMESTER) Tutor: Cho Im Sik

AR5955G COLLABORATIONS IN ARCHITECTURE AND ENGINEERING Tutor: Shinya Okuda This elective will provide learning experiences in multidisciplinary collaboration and problem-solving between architects and engineers, to prepare students for actual contemporary practice. The course will begin with testing and establishing inter-operability workflows, which will provide the foundation for multi-disciplinary collaborations. A series of design-engineering iterations will be made and submitted as entries to the International Building Design Competition held by Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA). In preparing these, students will facilitate multi-disciplinary discussions and acquire advanced technical skill sets required in the fields of sustainable building designs, design for manufacturing and assembly, and integrated digital delivery. Under the guidance of lecturers from NUS Department of Architecture and School of Civil Engineering, students will participate in design and engineering tutorials to create innovative proposals for optimisation, performance, and achievement of aesthetic goals.

ARSPSEM BUZZ OFF! PART 2 Tutor: Tham Wai Hon This is an elective (4MC) that builds upon the outcomes of the earlier Buzz Off! Studio. Should the outcomes of the first Buzz Off! Studio be selected for inclusion in the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2021, the team could potentially have a budget of US$15,000 to prepare, execute and situate a “refuge” measuring 4 metres x 4 metres x 6 metres, representing the architect’s response to mosquito and mosquito-borne epidemics. Studio participants would work closely with tutors to create, edit and produce materials to be exhibited, and develop details and drawings to communicate their design intentions in Seoul. The resulting work would then be displayed at the Biennale, with the team potentially having the chance to attend the Biennale’s opening as well.

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A RC HITEC T U RE IN TER NS HIP P R O G R A M M E (A I P)

L I S T O F PA R T N E R F I R M S & O R G A N I S AT IO N S:

NUS DOA’s Architecture Internship Programme is an essential practical component that complements students’ architectural education in the classroom.

103 EAST Architects 3PA A D Lab Aedas AGA Architects aKTa-rchitects ARC Studio Architecture + Urbanism architects 61 Architects Team 3 Archurban Architects Planners CENDES+TENarchitects & Planners Czarl Architects Design Metabolists DP Architects East 9 Architects & Planners EHKA Studio EZRA Architects FARM Architects FDAT Architects Formwerkz Architects Forum Architects Gensler Singapore Goy Architects Hassell Design (Singapore) HCF and Associates Housing & Development Board K2LD Architects RSP Architects Planners & Engineers Studiogoto Surbana International Consultants Surbana Jurong Consultants Swan & Maclaren Architects Swing Architects TA.LE Architects Teh Joo Heng Architects TENarchitects The Architects Circle Tierra Design Studio TOPOS Architects Twosquarefeet Design Studio Type0 Architects W Architects WASAA Architects & Associates White Matter Design Studio WOHA Architects Xcube Architects ZIVY Architects

Under this internship programme, M Arch I students undergo 6-month work attachments at firms or organisations in the fields of architecture, design, infrastructure and urban planning.

This provides students with valuable exposure to a range of professional experiences and skills which cannot be taught in a traditional university setting. It also allows them to observe practitioners at work, see how classroom learning translates to the workplace, and experience the rhythms, ebbs and flows of life on a job in architecture and its related fields.

Finally, the internship also helps the student progress in his or her maturity and understanding of the industry, in preparation for entry to the M Arch II programme.

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Picture credit: Ian Mun

M A R C H II

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D E S IG N R E S E A R C H T H E S I S

The first two modules, AR5805 and AR5807, will involve creative practice research with direct design outcomes.

AR5805 ADVANCED ARCHITECTURE STUDIO

AR5806 will then synthesise these design research

(SEMESTER 1)

efforts into a full-length design research compendium

Modular Credits: 8

that complements evidence with textural descriptions, theoretical writing and other written strategies,

Refer to text below for AR5807

alongside graphic, photographic and visual material.

Its fundamental purpose will be to enable students

AR5806 ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN RESEARCH REPORT

to develop a rigorous method and deep-dive focus in

(SEMESTER 1)

a specific area of design research. Students will be

Modular Credits: 4

required to mount a body of evidence to demonstrate that their research has translational potential in the field of

Hans Brouwer Adjunct Associate Professor; B Arch (University of Southern California); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Chang Jiat Hwee Associate Professor; PhD (University of California, Berkeley), M Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore) Chaw Chih Wen M Arch, B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore

The Architectural Design Research Report is an A4

architecture through creative practice. Students will also

hardcopy and PDF compendium that would capture

be expected to exercise high-level competence in creative

research, design and presentation materials on the

practice research, design thinking, representation and

student’s design thesis. This report should build and

communication.

Cheah Kok Ming Associate Professor; B Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore

Learning Objectives:

Lilian Chee Associate Professor, Deputy Head (Academic); PhD, MSc Arch History (University College London), B Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore)

elaborate on a body of evidence through creative practice research, using writing, images, and diagrammes. The following should be included in the report: 1. Title of Research

1.

thesis milieu

3. Research Approach 4. Research Context and Community of Practice

To understand and critically manifest creative practice research methods in an individually directed

2. Research Abstract (300 words) 2.

To understand and take a critical position on creative

5. Research Outputs

practice research methods, outcomes, and evidence;

6. Contribution to Knowledge

and to illustrate the impacts of the modes of research on the formation of an architectural proposition

7. Annotated Bibliography and Review of Literature, Works, and References

3.

9. Self-Disclosure of Research

To identify, position and relate individual creative practice research to a community of practice

8. Image/Resource Index 4.

To position individual research in the larger domain practice research advances the discipline

5.

To understand and take a critical position on

AR5807 ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN THESIS (SEMESTER 2)

translation of creative practice research outcomes

Modular Credits: 20

into architectural approaches, techniques, and strategies or tactics

The Master of Architecture design thesis will span

6.

To design with creative practice research and

two semesters and three modules (AR5805, AR5806

conceptual tools, and to be able to make informed

and AR5807), establishing the final design criteria for

ethical judgments in architecture

achieving the degree of Master of Architecture. Students

7.

To utilise advanced representational techniques

will be able to select from a variety of thesis advisors,

(i.e. digital and analogue media) to communicate

and either align their theses with their advisors’ research

research, design iterations, and design techniques in

interests and expertise, or pursue their own self-directed

architecture

thesis themes.

8.

To utilise advanced digital data, visualisations, contemporary simulations in 2D, 3D, and 4D mediums to research architectural approaches to design.

The three modules dealing with the design research thesis have been put together to allow students to develop a high level of competence in creative practice design research; this competence would then lead to architectural outcomes in a wide range of topics.

Fung John Chye Associate Professor in Practice; B Arch (National University of Singapore); Registered Architect, Singapore Ho Puay Peng Professor, Head of Department; PhD (University of London), M Arch, Dip Arch (University of Edinburgh); RIBA Richard Ho Professor in Practice; B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore

of architecture and to communicate how creative

10. Ethics Approval as necessary

9.

To utilise advanced analogue and digital tools in making

10. To communicate creative practice ideas in concise and considered verbal, written, and performative presentations, utilising a wide range of mediums.

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M A R C H II D E S IG N T H E S I S FA C U LT Y D E S IG N T H E S I S A D V I S O R S:

Ho Weng Hin Adjunct Senior Lecturer; Dip Specialists in Restauro dei Monumenti (Université de Genève), M Arch, BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore) Patrick Janssen Associate Professor; PhD (Hong Kong Polytechnic University), MSc (Cog Sci Int Comp) (Westminister University), AA Dip Khoo Peng Beng Adjunct Associate Professor; B Arch (National University of Singapore); RIBA, MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Nirmal Kishnani Associate Professor, MSc ISD Programme Director; PhD (Curtin University of Technology), MSc (Env Psych) (University of Surrey), BA Arch (National University of Singapore) Thomas Kong Associate Professor; M Arch (Cranbrook Academy of Art), B Arch (National University of Singapore); Assoc. AIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Adrian Lai Adjunct Assistant Professor; AA Dip, BA Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, ARB, Registered Architect, Singapore and the UK

Lee Kah Wee Assistant Professor, MUP Associate Programme Director; PhD (University of California, Berkeley), MA Arch (National University of Singapore), B Arch (University of New South Wales) Erik G. L’Heureux Dean’s Chair Associate Professor, Vice Dean, M Arch Programme Director; M Arch (Princeton University), BA Arch (Washington University in St. Louis); FAIA, LEED AP BD+C, NCARB, Registered Architect, USA (New York and Rhode Island) Joseph Lim Associate Professor; PhD (Heriot-Watt University), MSc (University of Strathclyde), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Neo Sei Hwa Adjunct Associate Professor; B Arch (National University of Singapore), BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Shinya Okuda Associate Professor; M Eng, B Eng (Kyoto Institute of Technology); Registered Architect, Japan and the Netherlands Ong Ker-Shing Associate Professor in Practice, BA Arch Programme Director; M Arch, MLA (Harvard University); MSIA, Registered Architect and SILA, Registered Landscape Architect, Singapore Tsuto Sakamoto Associate Professor; M Eng (Waseda University), MSc (Columbia University), B Eng Science (University of Tokyo) Swinal Samant Ravindranath Senior Lecturer; PhD and PGCHE (The University of Nottingham), M Arch (The University of Sheffield), Dip Arch (Institute of Environmental Design) Peter Sim Adjunct Assistant Professor; B Arch, BA Arch (National University of Singapore); ARB, Registered Architect, UK Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic Associate Professor, Deputy Head (Administration and Finance); ScD, MSc (University of Belgrade), Spec Arch, Dip Eng Arch (University of Belgrade); Registered Architect, Serbia Rudi Stouffs Dean’s Chair Associate Professor; PhD, MSc (Arch Comp Design) (Carnegie Mellon University), MSc (ArchEng), Ir-Arch (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Tan Beng Kiang Associate Professor; DDes (Harvard University), M Arch (University of California, Los Angeles), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Teh Joo Heng Adjunct Associate Professor; SMArchS (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), B Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore

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Tiah Nan Chyuan Adjunct Assistant Professor; AA Dip, BA Arch (National University of Singapore); MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore

M A R C H II D E S IG N R E S E A R C H T H E S I S O FFERIN GS

Zdravko Trivic Assistant Professor; PhD (National University of Singapore), Dip Ing Arch (University of Belgrade, Serbia) Johannes Widodo Associate Professor; PhD (University of Tokyo), M Arch Eng (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Ir (Parahyangan Catholic University); IAI

Picture credit: Loh Tze Yang, Glenn

Wong Chong Thai, Bobby Adjunct Associate Professor; MDesSt (Harvard University), DipArch (Robert Gordon University); MSIA

THE NARRATIVE OF TECTONICS Tutor: Hans Brouwer The craft of architecture evolved from simple shelter to the complex structures we are capable of today. it will continue to evolve into amazing and hitherto unimagined forms and spaces. At its core, however, architecture is about craft and the making of things. It is about the human ability to take materials and to transform them, through care, innovation and craftsmanship into architecture.

This thesis offering is predicated on the belief that good architecture is the result of a powerful narrative directing a love for material and construction.

EVERYDAY MODERNISM Tutor: Chang Jiat Hwee The focus of this thesis offering is on the banal and ordinary built environment that surrounds us, the “other 99%” that architectural discourse doesn’t cover. In Singapore and many Asian cities, this taken-for-granted built environment is inevitably a modern and transient one. Students would look at employing strategies to sift through heterogeneous time and map layered socio-cultural spaces of the ordinary, so as to develop alternative and innovative ways of understanding and intervening in them. Ultimately, the hope is to propose alternatives to, and perhaps even resist, the inadvertent erasure of such rich, multi-dimensional spaces, by the hegemonic system of (de)valuation and the ideology of “upgrading”.

Wu Yen Yen Adjunct Assistant Professor; M Arch (Columbia University), BA Arch Studies (National University of Singapore); Green Mark AP, MSIA, Registered Architect, Singapore Yuan Chao Assistant Professor (Presidential Young Professor); PhD Architecture (Chinese University of Hong Kong), MIT Kaufman Teaching Certificate (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Zhang Ye Assistant Professor; PhD (University of Cambridge), M Arch, B Arch (Tsinghua University)

TOWARDS A POSTHUMAN ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Chaw Chih Wen

Picture credit: Goi Yong Chern

The thesis offering is concerned with the paradigmatic shifts in the conception of the body schema and selfhood, taking cues from Katherine Hayles’s seminal work, How We Became Posthuman Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. The new Being, construed as part of an ephemeral informational pattern/network instantiated in a biological substrate, would serve as the impetus for further research into related socio-politicalcultural phenomena and their spatial implications. Theses should refrain from a simplistic application of black box technology in architecture, but should focus instead on the discovery of novel, unimagined spatial practices through the lens of a posthuman.

CRISIS OPTIMIST: ANTIFRAGILITY AND ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Cheah Kok Ming “Antifragility’ is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2012 This thesis offering builds on the silver lining presented by the COVID-19 crisis. Beyond highlighting the need to adopt many public health counter-measures in daily life, COVID-19 has also revealed the potential for new modes of practice and new perspectives leading to fresh architectural or infrastructural paradigms. These may well have lasting relevance to our industry even after the spectre of the pandemic fades. Rather than reacting defensively to this crisis with rebuttals and counteractions, students will be invited to adopt an “antifragile” framework, and to explore and discover new architectural possibilities.

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REMOTE PRACTICES: A MINOR ARCHITECTURE AND ITS DISTANT ARCHIVES Tutor: Lilian Chee Remote Practices is concerned with disciplinary limits, seen in architecture’s acts of improvising and transposing; the (mis)alignments intrinsic to its distance from the built environment, and its “promiscuous mix of the real and the abstract.” Investigations will further accentuate such distance and dissonance by examining architecture’s peripheral subjects. Drawing from Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of “minor literature”, the research correspondingly argues for the criticality of a “minor architecture.” Each thesis will respond to the contexts of tropical Southeast Asia by engaging the region’s uncategorised subjects: mythic environments; shapeshifting practices, and/or its often-anecdotal knowledges. Students will select one peripheral phenomenon such as the climatic peculiarities of health and environment, post/trans/colonial histories, the rural-urban transition, or traditions in the aftermath of modernisation. They will co-locate themselves in a corresponding archive, a distant site which embeds expert knowledge of their chosen periphery. Their outcomes – “architecture [that] makes its appearance other than architecture” – will define the boundaries and forms of a “minor architecture”.

FUTURE URBAN NEIGHBOURHOODS 2.0 F.U.N. 2.0 | COMPLEXITY SYSTEMS Tutor: Fung John Chye This studio will re-imagine future high-density urban neighbourhoods that would be capable of encouraging resilient communities in a complex homeo-dynamic system of interconnected functions.

Fuller posits that utopia would be attained by resolving real-world challenges to achieve the most favourable human conditions. In this vein, as we look at interconnected challenges facing our world today—such as climate change, pandemics, economic transformation, ageing populations, civil activism, disruptive technologies, and changing work cultures—a number of overarching questions emerge for the architect and urban planner. How will urban neighbourhoods be shaped in the future? Will the very concept of the neighbourhood still be relevant, or will smart technologies fully breach the thresholds of geophysical boundaries? What are the deep values around which we would pivot to realise multiple futures? Applying complex systems theory to a pursuit of psychosocial and urban resilience, students will re-imagine and explore the shape and form of future neighbourhoods that comprehensively integrate housing, mobility, healthcare, community, biophilic design, the future of work, lifelong learning, resource resilience and smart technologies.

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CITY - CULTURE – CONSERVATION Tutor: Ho Puay Peng

FUTURES FOR OUR MODERN PAST Tutor: Ho Weng Hin

FORM FOLLOWS SYSTEM Tutor: Nirmal Kishnani

This thesis offering will look at the social and cultural contexts behind design initiatives. How might a design project form a locus for symbolism, cultural representation, or the expression of identity? In exploring answers to this, students will embark on a journey of uncovering the meaning behind conceptions of society, community and cultural manifestation. Observation and critical discourse will be essential to the process; these will be applied to questioning students’ views of individual or national identity. Along the way, the juxtaposition of time and space in architectural production would not only be a key factor examined in this journey, but may also be a product of the journey itself. This thesis offering would also complement a research interest in the areas of heritage conservation, adaptive reuse, and intervention in historical buildings and neighbourhoods.

Faced with mounting redevelopment pressures, postindependence modernist structures and landscapes in Singapore are at a watershed point. Today, iconic, heroic modernist megastructures built barely five decades ago, such as Golden Mile Complex and People’s Park Complex, are being threatened with obliteration through impending en-bloc sales. On the other hand, following estate intensification programmes, what used to represent a substantial and varied building stock of modernist housing—such as the pioneering Queenstown estate—has been severely depleted. This thesis offering proposes that increasingly, this approach is environmentally and socially unsustainable, and that it causes ruptures in socio-cultural and urban accretion indispensable to the long-term richness of a vibrant, liveable city. Rather than seeing conservation as being in opposition to progress and intensification, this thesis offering will explore rehabilitation and adaptive reuse as an alternative mode of urban regeneration: one that layers on, rather than just demolishes and rebuilds. Under the guidance of a practising conservation specialist, the studio will adopt a rigorous research-based approach to inform conservation design strategies for a site of the student’s choice at the thesis preparation stage. Students will gain new skills and tools for “deep reading” of heritage landscapes, structures and artefacts. These will inform a robust conservation/ intervention framework to guide them at the design stage.

Asia is witnessing a staggering loss of human, social and natural capital, in part due to the way it builds. The problem isn’t that we aren’t green enough; it’s that being green in the way that we currently understand it may be the wrong approach altogether.

This thesis offering calls for a return to the heart of the sustainability question: an examination of how we forge human-nature partnerships. The answer is rooted in whole systems thinking. Good design is akin to many systems fitted within an efficient and beautiful form, acting in positive reciprocity within a wider system-of-systems. An exploration of sustainable design from this angle will lead to new perspectives on architectural and urban form, one with implications for our neighbourhoods, cities and, ultimately, the planet.

UNTITLED Tutor: Richard Ho Architects and the authorities have sometimes failed to protect the interests of the have-nots and those without a voice, preferring instead to further the commercial and economic gains of the developers and landowners. Some examples of this might be inequitable distribution of land between private and public housing, the existence of large swathes of land as golf courses pandering to the leisure of a select few, the prioritising of space for cars on roads over space for people, and commercial interests dictating conservation of architectural heritage. These are some issues which the present generation of architects and urban planners should examine and seek to address.

This thesis offering will also look at how in addition to championing buildability and environmental sustainability, we can also safeguard cultural sustainability as the city continues to grow. In particular, students will look at how this should be addressed in a multi-cultural society such as Singapore, or in other regional nations where the pressure of development in the urban centres is most felt.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE Tutor: Patrick Janssen For this thesis offering, the medium is the message (Marshall McLuhan, 1964), and the medium is the Web. Students may pick any thesis topic they like, as long as it has a clear and direct relevance to the discourse of architecture. However, there are a set of strict rules that must be followed regarding the medium. For all tutorials, interim presentations and final thesis submissions, students must leverage the Web as their primary medium, and must develop content that is interactive and dynamic.

All static drawings (including plans, sections, renderings, and so on) will be prohibited. The same goes for static physical models, static slide show presentations, or any other static media. A key requirement will also be that that people on the Web must be able to engage in a two-way interaction with the student’s architectural proposals.

HOLON STUDIO Tutor: Khoo Peng Beng This thesis offering is concerned with examining the concept of deep sustainability through the lens of the holon, and finding integrative processes that explore the idea of self-organised systems within systems.

Students will explore how small simple systems nest within larger systems, creating a holarchy. Unlike the traditional hierarchy, a holarchy does not have a defined top and a defined bottom, but is open-ended and bidirectional. Architecture is therefore seen as a complex system comprising autonomous wholes that exists within a larger system. Students will be free to explore this conceptual framework and its implications in any context they choose.

ARCHIVAL FUTURES Tutor: Thomas Kong The archive provides us with the evidence that we existed. However, to collect and to classify are not neutral actions but an act of intervention in anticipation of future memories. This thesis offering will speculate on the archive’s construction, its entangled futures and accompanying socio-cultural, economic, political, biota, and technological concerns. Thesis projects that are ambitious and employ advanced critical thinking will be encouraged, along with those seeking to go beyond the narrow relation between means and ends to produce novel outcomes where the local and the familiar coexist alongside the new and the foreign.

THE PROMISE OF ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Adrian Lai This thesis offering will explore what the promise of architecture is: what architecture has the potential to achieve, but also where its limits as a discipline lie.

Students will explore the basis of architecture as cultural production and as built matter, by focusing on defining the seminal. As the seed of upcoming developments, seminal architecture creates new correlations between the artefact and life. It also has the power to fundamentally shape future trajectories of growth in architecture. Conceptually, performatively and experientially, students will explore a proposition for a seminal architecture that involves shifting, inverting, recreating or otherwise antagonising existing frameworks and correlations as a platform for architecture’s future currency and agency.

BORDERS, SOVEREIGNTIES AND A CRITICAL ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Lee Kah Wee When one stands at the boundaries between nations and states, we understand borders not as dividing lines between mutually exclusive regimes, but porous zones where overlapping laws are further obfuscated by trafficking of goods, ideas and bodies. How can architecture work in this space as a critique of our contemporary condition? In exploring “critical architecture”, students will look at the power of architectural form and discourse to reveal the hidden inequalities and injustices of our contemporary moment. The focus will not be on solving problems or envisioning a better world; rather, the aim will be to strip away the vanities of the present and confront them for what they are.

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Picture credit: Toby Fong

HOT AIR: ATMOSPHERE AND THE EQUATORIAL CITY Tutor: Erik G. L’Heureux

IT’S THE CLIMATE, STUPID!... OR IT IS? Tutor: Neo Sei Hwa

The equatorial city’s relationship to climate and its territory has become an increasing imperative in the face of global warming and rapid population growth.

Against this background, this thesis offering will research the atmosphere of “hot and wet” architecture in dense cities on the equator. The research will focus on modes of atmospheric calibration and representation overlooked by traditional techniques in drawing and photography. Humidity, temperature, breeze, sound, heat and rain—the mediums that produce a hot and wet environment—will be considered to expand students’ visual and design capabilities.

Films, photography, sound, and simulation techniques will be mined to develop novel modes of seeing and experiencing atmosphere; these ideas can then be incorporated into architectural design.

This thesis offering will expand on its parallel module in M Arch I while furthering site and representational research outside of Singapore, to the rest of Southeast Asia. Each student will develop a robust and considered design thesis emerging out of discourses on equatorial architecture, so as to extend and produce new knowledge for architecture calibrated to the hot and wet climate of the region.

It wasn’t too long ago that the world was preoccupied with a long list of environmental challenges; a list that included the likes of global warming, deforestation, water scarcity, land degradation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, pollution, waste management, and so on.

It was only December 2019 that the world met in Madrid at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to take stock of global efforts to fight climate change. The headlines showed young people highlighting that world leaders and governments were not doing enough to address global warming, and their demands for urgent action to cut emissions, help vulnerable communities, and ensure a chance of handing over a functioning world to the next generation. Fast forward a few weeks into 2020: almost without warning, the wheels of global economy all but ground to a standstill, hit by the impact of a virus the world is still racing to control. Countries and communities implemented draconian measures to lock down entire cities, close businesses and eliminate social interaction.

But then, as the devastating health and economic cost loomed, all around the world people starting noticing the sounds of birdsong in the air replacing the droning noise of traffic. This thesis offering is not concerned about the pandemic per se, but instead asks longer-term questions that have been stirred up even as the dust of the pandemic settles. These questions explore how we can search for a new balance, how we displace or coexist with nature, whether we should prioritise economy or environment, and how relevant the climate agenda is, in the present day’s discussions of life and livelihood.

HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES Tutor: Joseph Lim A city plan for the future is unlikely to remain in its current form of high density/high occupancy vulnerability. If pandemic protection measures restrict the habitation of city spaces and disrupt all supply chains to industries, then more resilient alternatives to our way of life are worth exploring. New production and consumption models may be generated which can be adapted for remote operations, and new processes and flows to transform cityscapes to function as engines of new economic growth. Home environments would serve as the site of workplace, recreation, and homeschooling activities in a new culture of containment.

At the scale of neighbourhoods, how would social interaction continue within these norms of isolation?

If supply chains become unreliable, should megacities then fragment into smaller nuclei? This thesis offering will look into these questions and explore new meanings behind business, work, dwelling, recreation, transport, emergency response and healthcare, identifying theses for deeper investigation in the course of creating a new conception of the city.

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Picture credit: Sun Wei Chen

Picture credit: Han Feng Yi, Lisa

NATURE UNFOLDS — ADVANCED ARCHITECTONICS DESIGNS FOR A SYMBIOTIC FUTURE IN THE TROPICS Tutor: Shinya Okuda Our world today faces complex social issues, often intertwined with financial and environmental concerns.

Addressing such pressing matters demands holistic design approaches across materials, built forms, programmes and performance. Advanced architectonics designs translate these into innovative multi-dimensional architectural solutions, by leveraging essential gamechanging phenomena—such as carbon sequestration—in the construction of sophisticated functional advanced architectural compositions with unique sustainable aesthetics. Embracing the power of architecture and design, Nature Unfolds invites students to envision a future where creative solutions support a number of symbiotic relationships, including between nature and urbanism, in Southeast Asia and beyond.

DIRT, FORM, PERFORMANCE Tutor: Ong Ker-Shing From early modernity, architecture, through its envelope, plumbing, air-conditioning, weather-tightness and relationship to the ground, has increasingly separated people from “the dirty”: from natural processes, organic waste and germs. Human interferences in natural systems have created fractured links, fragmented systems and energies; a multi-scalar context for new alignments and interactions. This thesis theme will explore reversals of the values of modern architecture’s resilient cleanliness, aiming for strategic and designed “failures.” Students will explore how emerging typologies, languages and material systems may restore or invent new modes of architectural production that combine the architect’s intentions with the input of non-human collaborators, and how these shift from biome to microbiome, between building and body and public.

Picture credit: Tim Wai Leung, William

ASSEMBLAGE Tutor: Tsuto Sakamoto What would an architectural design look like, if the essential vitality of matter—whether human or non-human—and different ways of life were respected, prompting a reexamination of our human-centric design approach?

Along with contemporary theoretical discussions on new materialism, Assemblage will attempt to scrutinise nonhuman entities, explore scenarios for the future, and produce innovative architectural designs appropriate for these situations. A key idea in this journey will be to not only focus on the proper qualities of each object, but to also carefully observe the objects in an assemblage, or in relation to each other—in the co-functioning, symbiosis and alliances between objects through which the milieu of human experience is informed and defined.

EXTRAPOLATING THE Z AXIS Tutor: Swinal Samant Ravindranath The vertical redistribution of multi-speed transport and transit-oriented developments presents novel opportunities to reimagine the high-density city. In this context, layered networks of public and green space could form continuous structures that organise, transform and redefine urban settings at the intersection between nature, mobility, infrastructure and buildings, achieving a renewed engagement with the high-density urban form.

This thesis offering will explore these possibilities, and how they may lead to a paradigm shift for cities and urban habitation: one where urban life is increasingly stratified and energised, and the ground plane is no longer the most familiar datum and is returned to nature and biodiversity as urban pasture.

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Picture credit: Chen Ting Yan, Candice

Picture credit: Mo Shuen Yea, Amanda

POSSIBLE WORLDS: AN ARCHITECTURE OF SIMULTANEOUS TEMPORALITIES Tutor: Peter Sim In the 1960s, the avant-garde architects’ collective Archigram mixed technologically inspired ideas, a new liberalism, and humour to produce some of the most influential works of architecture of the day. They propositioned architecture as a projective medium for imagining possible ways of living, and for critiquing convention and traditional conceptions of the city as well as the boundaries of architecture. That was 50 years ago.

Today, the present milieu is rich in contradictions: the age of the internet, the drone, facial recognition, social media, COVID-19 , cyber hacking, urban farming, global warming, SpaceX, the Mars rover, Trump, Brexit, Airbnb, Uber, veganism, hipsters, tiny homes, co-living and coworking, electric cars, self-driving cars, floating farms, shrinking ice caps, plastics in fish, liposuction, reality television, K-pop, and so on. Against this background and these influences, ideas and trends, we now ask: What can architecture become? This thesis offering will look at architectural propositions which are not only about the future, but that also reveal an architecture which is capable of encapsulating the dreams, desires and narratives of humanity’s past, present and future.

THE CITY OF EXCESS – RESTRAINED Tutor: Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic In this thesis offering, we will examine the notion of a city built on all-pervading excess, and its transformation under extreme scenarios where restrictions are imposed.

This hypothetical framework would be constructed using data from real geopolitical, economic, social and cultural world trends that have the potential to affect Singapore radically in the future. The key question we would seek to address is: how might our discipline of architecture respond as an agent of change, and how might it help preserve urban well-being and mitigate the impact of the restrictive “emergency mode” that societies are under? Students will be encouraged to build hypothetical scenarios based on real facts and critically examine issues at hand from different perspectives—from the angle of theories, images, narratives, techne, bios and zoe—and with different techniques, such as through film, photography, the senses, stories, sketches, and so on. Students are invited to get excited about the types of excesses and restraints they choose to focus their analysis on, to be critical in their approach, and to be imaginative, clear and creative in formulating both their questions and design responses.

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EXPLORATION Tutor: Rudi Stouffs

SUSTAINABILITY AND CIRCULARITY Tutor: Teh Joo Heng

In this thesis offering, the exploration of design alternatives will serve as a means to achieve betterinformed designs. Whether adopting computational methods and techniques or exploring alternatives by hand, the objective will be to systematically explore a design aspect, issue or component, so as to gain a better understanding of the choices and implications thereof.

The act of considering performance as a guiding design principle will define the architectural object, not by what it is or how it appears, but instead by what it does or how it performs—by its capability to affect, transform and serve a given function. Identifying both the parameters and boundaries of the exploration will also define the design space under consideration, guiding the exploration toward the performance desired.

“We only have one earth. The relentless exploitation of exhaustible resources is not only unsustainable, but also creates complex long-term social and environmental problems. We therefore need to examine how these resources can be harnessed responsibly. The built environment consumes a major portion of global resources; rethinking the way we utilise these resources is both critical and timely. This exercise has the potential to create new ways of conceptualising our built environment, and new design and business opportunities…”

These words are common enough; we hear them often in design studio presentations. But do we truly understand the real meaning behind what they say? And how do each of these statements and phrases relate to each other?

This thesis offering will focus on the concepts of sustainability and circularity in design and architecture.

Students will construct an operating web to understand the relationship between statements and narratives on sustainability, during which they will also be encouraged to formulate theories and architectural approaches on how to design our built environment responsibly.

THE NEW NORMAL? — LIVE, WORK AND LEARN IN THE POST COVID-19 ERA Tutor: Tan Beng Kiang The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has posed great challenges to our daily lives socially, psychologically, economically and environmentally. How will pandemicprompted measures such as safe distancing, working from home, and self-quarantine affect the way we live, work and learn? How should the design of neighbourhoods look like, to support residents as they live, work, play and learn? And how should we design for preparedness against future pandemics? Students will be invited to research the impact and implications of COVID-19 on the built environment, and propose a design thesis for a “new normal” of living, working and/or learning that promotes increased responsiveness and resilience in the event of a pandemic. Proposals can be on a neighbourhood scale as well as on an architecture scale. Students who select this thesis offering are encouraged to also take the elective on Housing (Pre and Post COVID-19 pandemic) offered in Semester 1.

ISLAND PEOPLE Tutor: Tiah Nan Chyuan Across different cultures and time periods, the island condition has been described historically and mythically as the experience of an outpost that is defended, surrounded, contained, isolated, quarantined or hidden.

The inherent vulnerability and siege mentality of islands imbue their inhabitants with both a deep awareness of their surrounding externalities, as well as the ability to maintain a calm internal resilience of the mind.

This thesis offering will explore the “island condition” through both physical and abstract notions, looking at operative conditions from isolation to protectionism. Nonlinear enquiry and examination will be conducted across multiple mediums, in order to unravel deep mindsets that define the unique behaviour of islands and their people.

The hope is that these insights would suggest alternative strategies to engage with geopolitical issues related to collective identity, shared responsibility, and ownership over contested territories and space.

DESIGN WITH AND FOR THE SENSES: A MULTI-SENSORY APPROACH TO WELL-BEING IN THE POST-DIGITAL AGE Tutor: Zdravko Trivic Rapidly advancing new technologies—such as augmented reality, mixed reality, virtual reality and artificial intelligence—offer new forms of user-to-space and people-to-people interaction, fundamentally challenging the traditional primacy of physical space in architectural and urban design. Instead, the focus has shifted towards designing intuitive and customisable events, conditions and ambiences, responsive and “sensponsive” environments. Yet the body-mind system remains unchanged as the fundamental means for meaningful and healthful spatial experience. This studio will re-examine architecture within the post-digital paradigm, and its capacity to embrace and articulate the “messiness” and “ephemerality” of subjective multi-sensory and emotional experiences as vehicles for novel and poetic design outcomes aimed at improving physical, psychological and social well-being. Critical and imaginative design investigations into the means for transforming spaces into healthful places, structures into events, poetry into reality and vice versa, and so on, will be encouraged through issues and sites carefully selected by the students. Experimental research and design techniques, including the use of film, AR, MR and VR, would also be welcome.

CONSERVING ASIAN MODERN HERITAGE IN THE CONTEXT OF CHANGE Tutor: Johannes Widodo “…we affirm Asia as a dynamic source of our identities and recognize the numerous experiences that we share with the rest of the world. Industrialization, urbanization, westernization, colonization, decolonization, and nationbuilding—these phenomena have variously defined Asian modernism.” — Modern Asian Architecture Network, Macau Declaration 2001 Conservation is a process of managing change and permanence that is directly related to ecological sustainability and cultural authenticity. In 2012 the United Nations released 17 Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) as a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for the world by 2030. Cultural heritage conservation was identified as one of these goals, SDG11.

With the conservation of our cultural heritage recognised as a key priority for the world’s sustainable future, this thesis offering will examine the recycling of old buildings in Asia and the adaptive reuse of modern heritage, and how this may be undertaken while maintaining high levels of cultural authenticity, architectural integrity, economic viability, and social continuity.

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MAKING CONNECTIONS Tutor: Wong Chong Thai, Bobby The thesis offering examines architecture as a matrix of pathways, networks and connections, both existing and emerging. Architecture is often about making connections; it is in making connections that significations occur. These are moments where thoughts or actions are virtualised or actualised. Like a throw of the dice, diverging and converging forces collide, producing singularities. At that point, the old is refreshed, or morphed into new emergence. For Nietzsche, this emergence represented the way to truth. We will examine architecture through this lens, putting aside notions of pre-existing cultural values or preconceived perfect absolutes, and look instead at the production of sense prior to language, codes or identities.

DEFINING THE VISCERAL Tutor: Wu Yen Yen Architecture-urban history philosopher Manuel De Landa proposes in his book, A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History, that there exists an alternate understanding of history and cities through a materialist ontology; one that is counter-anthropocentric, self-organising, non-linear and set apart from scholars’ prevailing factual understanding of the world. This thesis offering will critically derive an individual conviction of a built environment shaped by matter, materiality, force and energy, through self-motivated investigation. Viable, socio-physical trajectories posited may range from agriculture animal biomass transference, to integration of machine data-mass, to organic self-organisation of institutions, and other solutions. These will contribute to students’ generating a new architectural syntax to describe the existent but abstract, complex, unseen physical systems in our lesser-known organic past and future.

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CLIMATE-SENSITIVE DESIGN: LIVEABLE AND SUSTAINABLE CITIES Tutor: Yuan Chao With rapid urbanisation and climate change, the key challenge facing urban architects is clear: how can we strike the difficult balance between sustaining the unstoppable human drive for development and minding the finite environmental carrying capacity of cities?

This thesis offering will engage students in exploring new approaches to climate-sensitive design and the creation of buildings that are more human-centric and environmentally responsible. The impact of environmental analysis in the design process will be emphasised, and the knowledge delivered in this studio will allow students to not only develop climate-sensitive design concepts and ideas, but also practice corresponding design strategies and skills.

Picture credit: Tiaw Zuo Eng, Joanne

ARCHITECTURE OF THE SHARING CULTURE Tutor: Zhang Ye A sharing culture offers a sustainable and equitable way of living together in an increasingly fragile urban world. In sharing culture, individuals participate in sustained practices of togetherness characterised by the co-creation, co-management, co-ownership and co-consumption of resources. Crucial to this sharing process is the recognition of architectural spaces as both a shareable asset, and an enabler for more effective sharing activities. This thesis offering will explore the important question of how we can design an entire space sharing system to embody the culture of sharing itself, and how we can harness architectural design to facilitate the continuous production of new socio-spatial relations and new modes of gathering and interaction in sharing activities.

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R E S E A R C H C L U S T E R S: A N A SIA RESE A RC H FO C US At DOA, our advanced research delves into critical issues of architecture today and tomorrow. In particular, we anticipate and observe new demands and novel forms of buildings, cities, environments, and nature that are emerging throughout Asia and the equatorial region.

DOA research clusters coalesce creative practice, technology, urbanism, landscape, preservation, and the specific expertise of our faculty members into a productive synergy and alignment between teaching and research.

The following five clusters drive the M Arch I Design Research Studio Options sequence, the M Arch II Design Thesis and the graduate level elective offering across our Master of Architecture programme. These are nonetheless included in the BA Arch programme booklet so that students may understand the various research interests of their faculty.

RESEARCH BY DESIGN The Research by Design (RxD) cluster develops translational research approaches through creative practice. It emphasises the impor tance of rigorously engaging critical and creative practice in making, writing, and thinking in architecture. RxD strives for innovation and influence in the built environment through its research outcomes. To date, a number of these outcomes have won awards and made considerable impact.

RxD focuses on design in Asia and around the equator, and on research into contemporar y concerns as well as the identification of speculative future directions.

Members work in a range of design modes from sole authorships to collaborative and interdisciplinar y configurations. As a group, RxD leverages its combined creative exper tise, teaching within design studios and graduate elective modules. Research outcomes include leading buildings, texts, exhibitions, installations, films, drawings, photographs, and object-making, alongside design monographs, edited volumes, and research papers.

RxD ’s commitment towards integrative and translational creative practices empowers design research with intellectual and critical bearings, for a discipline in transformation.

Erik G. L’Heureux (Cluster Leader) Lilian Chee (Cluster Co-leader) Francois Blanciak Cheah Kok Ming Joseph Lim Shinya Okuda Ong Ker-Shing Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic (Minor) Tan Beng Kiang (Minor)

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HISTORY, THEORY AND CRITICISM The Histor y, Theor y and Criticism cluster develops critical capacities to examine questions of built environmental production and consumption within the historical and contemporar y milieu.

Taking architecture and urbanism in Asia as a primar y focus, members work in interdisciplinar y and transnational modes. Our members conduct research into a wide range of topics against the context of colonial/postcolonial and modern/postmodern Asian contexts, teaching these with the aim of encouraging historical literacy and consciousness in students, to enable them to understand how the present is historically sedimented.

Besides teaching, members also publish widely and in diverse forms, organise and par ticipate in major conferences and workshops, curate key exhibitions, and advise both governmental and non-governmental organisations in related fields around the world.

Chang Jiat Hwee (Cluster Leader) Simone Chung Ho Puay Peng Nikhil Joshi Tomohisa Miyauchi Tsuto Sakamoto Alex Young II Seo Johannes Widodo Wong Yunn Chii Francois Blanciak (Minor) Lilian Chee (Minor) Thomas Kong (Minor) Erik G. L’Heureux (Minor) Lee Kah Wee (Minor)

TECHNOLOGIES The Technologies cluster investigates environmentally per formative or sustainable building forms and systems, and generative-evaluative processes for designing liveable environments.

It employs traditional and emerging technologies that contribute to a new understanding of the human ecosystem, and emerging computational methods and techniques for discovering the relationships between form and per formance.

Members investigate the relationship between human and natural landscapes, at ever y scale, from the building component scale to the urban scale. Special emphasis is placed on the examination of high-density Asian cities, and on application of design and building technologies in a tropical context.

Rudi Stouffs (Cluster Leader) Filip Biljecki Patrick Janssen Nirmal Kishnani Lam Khee Poh Lau Siu Kit, Eddie Swinal Samant Yuan Chao Oscar Carracedo (Minor) Joseph Lim (Minor) Shinya Okuda (Minor) Zhang Ye (Minor)

LANDSCAPE STUDIES The Landscape Studies cluster under takes research to generate new knowledge of landscapes as socio-ecological systems, and promotes the use of knowledge in governance systems and landscape design to improve the well-being of humans and enhance the ecological integrity of the environment.

The geographic focus is primarily high-density urban regions in Asia; however members of the cluster also work in the transitional zones within the rural-urban continuum, where urban regions are expanding at a rapid rate and encroaching into rural landscapes.

The overall research approach is both interdisciplinar y and transdisciplinar y. The cluster looks not only at advancing theoretical concepts and knowledge, but also applying the knowledge in practice and public policy, to shape the environment. Areas of research span a wide spectrum of the socioecological dimensions of landscape: from landscape science and landscape management, to design research and sociobehavioural studies.

Tan Puay Yok (Cluster Leader) Jessica Cook Kenya Endo Hwang Yun Hye Lin Sheng Wei

(Minor) indicates a secondar y membership

URBANISM The Urbanism cluster aims to contribute towards development of sustainable resilient models and innovative advanced urban strategies to cope with various environmental, social, economic and technological challenges facing Asian cities today and in the future.

The star ting point for this research is a comprehensive understanding of the complexity and distinctive characters of emerging urbanism in the region. Against this backdrop, members investigate emergent urban design issues related to community and par ticipation; conser vation and regeneration; ageing and healthcare; well-being and built form; modelling and big data; and resilience and informality.

These issues are examined from multiple perspectives and through both inter-disciplinar y and transdisciplinar y collaborations, in order to question conventional norms and conceptions and establish new visions for a progressive and human-centric sustainable urban future.

Ruzica Bozovic-Stamenovic (Cluster Leader) Oscar Carracedo Cho Im Sik Fung John Chye Heng Chye Kiang Tan Beng Kiang Zdravko Trivic Zhang Ye Lee Kah Wee (Minor) Johannes Widodo (Minor)

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D E S IG N S T U DIO R E V I E W C A L E N D A R:

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SEMESTER 1

WEEK

D AT E

Orientation

0

3—8 Aug 2020

Instructional Period

1

10—14 Aug 2020

2

ACTIVITIES

SEMESTER 2

WEEK

D AT E

ACTIVITIES

0

1

11—15 Jan 2021

17—21 Aug 2020

2

18—22 Jan 2021

3

24—28 Aug 2020

3

25—29 Jan 2021

4

31 Aug—4 Sep 2020

4

1—5 Feb 2021

5

7—11 Sep 2020

5

8—12 Feb 2021

BA Arch Year 2: Interim Review 1 (Monday) BA Arch Year 3: Interim Review 1 (Wednesday) BA Arch Year 1: Interim Review 1 (Thursday)

6

14—18 Sep 2020

6

15—19 Feb 2021

M Arch II: Interim Review (Tuesday) M Arch I: Interim Review (Thursday)

Recess Week

-

19—27 Sep 2020

Recess Week

-

20—28 Feb 2021

Instructional Period

7

28 Sep—3 Oct 2020

Instructional Period

7

1—6 Mar 2021

8

5—9 Oct 2020

8

8—12 Mar 2021

9

12—16 Oct 2020

9

15—19 Mar 2021

10

19—23 Oct 2020

10

22—26 Mar 2021

11

26—30 Oct 2020

11

29 Mar—2 Apr 2021

12

2— 6 Nov 2020

12

5 Mar—9 Apr 2021

13

9—13 Nov 2020

BA Arch Year 1: Final Review (Wednesday) BA Arch Year 2: Final Review (Thursday) BA Arch Year 3: Final Review (Friday)

13

12—16 Apr 2021

BA Arch Year 1: Final Review (Wednesday) BA Arch 2: Final Review (Thursday) BA Arch 3: Final Review (Friday)

Reading Week

14

14—20 Nov 2020

M Arch I: Final Review (Friday) M Arch II: Final Review (Saturday)

Reading Week

14

17—23 Apr 2021

M Arch I: Final Review (Friday) M Arch II: Final Review (Saturday)

Examination (2 weeks)

-

21 Nov—5 Dec 2020

Examination (2 weeks)

-

24 Apr—8 May 2021

Vacation (5 weeks)

-

6 Dec 2020—10 Jan 2021

Vacation (12 weeks)

-

9 May 2021—1 Aug 2021

Instructional Period

BA Arch Year 2: Interim Review 1 (Monday) BA Arch Year 3: Interim Review 1 (Wednesday)

MArch II: Interim Review (Tuesday) MArch I: Interim Review (Thursday)

BA Arch Year 2: Interim Review 2 (Monday) BA Arch Year 3: Interim Review 2 (Wednesday)

M Arch II: Interim Review (Tuesday)

BA Arch Year 2: Interim Review 2 (Monday) BA Arch Year 3: Interim Review 2 (Wednesday) BA Arch Year 1: Interim Review 2 (Thursday)

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VISITIN G PRO FESS O RS & M A R C H E X T E R N A L R E V I E W E R S

Visiting Professors (For AY20/21)

Picture credit: Ong Chan Hao

CJ Lim Professor of Architecture & Urbanism, The Bartlett, University College London Hsin-Ming Fung Picture credit: Candice Chen

Professor, Southern California Institute of Architecture External Reviewers Over the course of each academic year, DOA also invites leading international practitioners and experts in the field to serve as external reviewers.

The M Arch external reviewers for the 2019-2020 academic year included: Ernesto Bedmar Director, Ernesto Bedmar Architects Randy Chan Principal Architect, Zarch Collaborative Peter W. Ferretto Associate Professor and Director, Masters of Architecture Programme, School of Architecture, The Chinese University

Picture credit: Ong Chan Hao

of Hong Kong Mike Lim Director, DP Design Liu Yuyang Picture credit: Ong Chan Hao

Founder, Atelier Liu Yuyang Look Boon Gee Managing Director, LOOK Architects Pte Ltd Sandra Karina Löschke Associate Professor, Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning Seah Chee Huang, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, DP Architects

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C O N TA C T S National University of Singapore Department of Architecture NUS School of Design and Environment 8 Architecture Drive SDE4, #04-03 Singapore 117356 Tel: +65 6516 8736 www.sde.nus.edu.sg/arch Instagram: NUS Department of Architecture | @aki.nus DOA 2020 Showcase | @archival_2020 Facebook: www.facebook.com/nus.aki

For more information on our programmes and on the DOA in general, please feel free to get in touch with the following persons: Teaching Assistant M Arch I & M Arch II Fawwaz Bin Azhar Email: fawwaz.1@nus.edu.sg Bachelor of Arts in Architecture Master of Architecture Master of Urban Planning Contact: Wendy Tan Email: wendytan@nus.edu.sg DID: +65 65167737 Bachelor of Landscape Architecture Master of Landscape Architecture Master of Science in Integrated Sustainable Design Master of Arts in Urban Design Contact: Jonathan Leong Email: akijlw@nus.edu.sg DID: +65 65163454 Other Higher Degrees by Research Contact: Liu Jia Email: sdelj@nus.edu.sg DID: +65 65163558 Department Updates & Other General Enquiries Contact: Ires Cheng Email: akisec@nus.edu.sg

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