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DESIGN STUDIO ERIK G L’HEUREUX ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

AR5103, AY 2013/2014 M.ARCH 2, SEMESTER 1

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GOH WEIXIANG XU LANJUN QUEK JIA YAN SAMANTHA LEE XIAO LING LYNN CHEONG WAN YING ATREYEE SANDILYA MAYURA PATIL CHEN JIAHUI LI JINMU ERICA CHAN HENG CHEN SIN EPIPHANIE BARLI LIE ONG WEE JIN AMANDA WONG LIANE EE PENNY NG TAN QIAN ROU

ESTELLE SIM FU ZHUO JOE SHI YANJIE MARISA KUEH LI NA LAN YIKANG GEE MING WEI CHONG WEN JIN YEO KIA LENG ADELENE JASON TAN JOEL TAY GUANG HUA AZIZUL IZWAN B ROSLAN PEH SZE KIAT IVEN GRETA VARPUCIANSKYTE NICHOLAS GOMES NI CHIA MIN LEOW CHENG TING ANTHONY

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL OF DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENT NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

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01 02

01 INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHIES

02 REGIONAL TOPOGRAPHIES

THE ARCHITECTURE OF INFORMAL LANDSCAPES

SINGAPORE METROPOLITAN REGION AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF BORDERS

p.06 Remediating Baseco’s Coast

p.11 Stone Appreciation: Biophilic Center With a Journey of Sense

p.07 Post-disaster Tansitional Settlement p.08 The Social Amalgamation Project

p.09 Resilient Amphibious Territory Reconstucting Regeneration through Sustenance Security

Pirkology

p.12 United Straits: A Journey to Unity Straits of Johor p.13 Aqua Lines p.14-15 Neighboursheds Land Thievess

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03 04 03 LOCAL PLOTS

04 POST-TROPICAL

THE ARCHITECTURE OF ATMOSPHERES

NEW MODES OF READING

p.17 50 Centimeters per Second

p.25 Head in the Point Clouds - Feet on the Ground

The Problem of Thermal Comfort in Climatic Design

Tropical plaza for a Pedestrian Culture

p.18 Aerodynamic Porous Architecture Rethinking Urban Residential Typologies

p.26 Urban Ecological Research in Singapore Cool Living Heritage in Qatar

Marine X

Thermal Modernity and Architecture

p.19

p.27 Building Shade Affects Light Environment and Urban Greenery in High-density Residential Estates in Singapore

Climatic Link-way: Justaposition of the Back Alleys Sensory Waterscape: Integrating Water in the Urban Context p.20 The Veiled Chandelier

Pulau Jubin (Ubin) Granite Island / ‘chieo suar’ p.21 Trinity Dual Exoskeletons p.22 Orchid R&D and Export Biomedical Strip p.23 To The Lighthouse

Photosynthetically Active Radiation and Comparison of Methods for its Estimation in Equatorial Singapore p.28 Passive Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) Conference International Conference of Urban Climate (ICUC9) Seminar: University of Navarra Solar Declathon University of Florida p.29 Wheelwright Prize Presentation and Winner p.30 03-FLATS p.31 Tropical Pockets Thermal Delight in Architecture p.32-37 Publications p.38-41 Events

SWEAT / 02 Climate+Territory

A by-product of hardwork, sweat is hot, slippery, and sometimes smelly. It is the consequence of the friction between physical exertion as well as the conditions of our climate. Living on the equator creates a special relationship with sweat—we secrete it after mere few minutes being outside. Indeed, it is what defines tropical living with all of its pleasure and occasional annoyance.

Department of Architecture School of Design and Environment National University of Singapore 4 Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566 Tel: +65 6516 3452 ISBN: XXX-XXX-XX-XXXX-X

The Climate+Territory Design Section at the Department of Architecture at NUS illustrates its own sweat in this simple pamphlet. The intent is to make visible the questions of architecture and landscape that keep us awake and thinking late at night while we navigate the massively changing territories of South East Asia.

© Individual Contributors Front Cover by: Erik G. L’Heureux All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher.

The publisher does not warrant or assume any legal responsibility for the publication’s contents. All opinions expressed in the book are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National University of Singapore.

The work is rudimentary, the pamphlet a collage, the designs inchoate. But the ambition is clear and simple: to render visible the sweat in the Climate+Territory design section to the public, with the hope and promise that future work will get better, more articulate, and more refined.

Erik G. L’Heureux Climate + Territory Design Section Leader

Department of Architecture School of Design and Environment

Climate + Territory The Climate + Territory Design Section focuses design and research efforts on the relationship between environment, territory, and urban architecture located in the hot and wet tropical regions of South East Asia. Efforts are directed particularly towards the interface between the mediums in the construction of architecture and landscape: atmosphere, water, land-form, nature, and buildings that constitute the hot and wet Asian Mega-City.

The research ambition is to develop robust design strategies that incorporate the natural and built environment as a cohesive and complex whole within the contexts of rapid population growth, social and material inequalities, and cultural and global identity in a tropical territory of rapid change.

The Climate + Territory Design Section has ten unique design academics with cross-disciplinary expertise and interests. Their individual foci include architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, history and theory. Students benefit not only from the rigorous and lively debate within the Climate+Territory Design Section but also from the faculty’s extensive networks in South East Asia. Past collaborations include design research located in Manila, Jakarta, Bangkok, Mumbai, Cambodia, Johor and Batam with partner institutions including the FCL/ETH Zurich, Tongji University, Pratt University and Washington University in St. Louis.

Faculty: Erik G. L’Heureux Oscar Carracedo Abel Tablada Chang Jiat Hwee Teh Kem Jin

Tomohisa Miyauchi Rafaella Sini Joerg Rekittke Hwang Yun Hye Tan Puay Yok

01

INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHIES

The Architecture of Informal Landscapes

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Remediating Baseco’s Coast Baseco, Manila Goh Weixiang and Xu Lanjun (AR4101/ Assistant professor Hwang Yun Hye) In Manila, one of the most rapidly growing megacities, nearly one-third of its population suffers from poverty and the lowest employment rate in the Philippines. This lack of basic livelihood needs for low-income people is in contrast with the rising property values of Manila as a ‘global hub’. Situated on 57 hectares of reclaimed land off Manila Bay, which is only 5 km from the city center, Baseco has been regarded as home for 47,000 urban poor immigrants, including the first official slum relocation site under a national initiative “Out of Poverty” that was established in 1986. Settlements are displaced as a result of the floodprone and polluted lands, and a lack of land resources give rise to a high degree of financial dependency along with limited social and economic opportunities.

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Post-disaster Transitional Settlement Japan Quek Jia Yan Samantha (MArch\ Assistant Professor Abel Tablada) The thesis is a response to the current planning and design strategies in postdisaster transitional houses in Japan in which only constructional and safety considerations are taken. This may lead to the extension and worsening of the emotional health of survivors after a disaster.

A prototype of a transitional temporary settlement is then projected for the northern region of Japan. The aim of the design proposal is to explore the potential of architecture and community planning to go beyond the provision of four walls for sheltering and storage of people, hence, to be a driver to manipulate the environment and human sensation in order to enhance emotional recovery after a disaster.

Conflicting and difficult-to-measure aspects like soul-nourishing, emotional and psychological well-being, social interaction versus isolation, public and privacy perception, and healthy and healing spaces are core in the design process by the creation of a matrix which account for the type of family nucleus and their needs. However, other utilitarian considerations like the use of low technology, quick, efficient and cheap material and construction are also considered in the establishment of a catalogue of predesigned modules that can be configured for many different sites and needed programs.

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The Social Amalgamation Project Mumbai Lee Xiao Ling Lynn Chen Jiahui Cheong Wan Ying Li Jinmu Atreyee Sandilya Yazid Ninsalam (Teaching Assistant) Mayura Patil Associate Professor Dr Jörg Rekittke Mumbai exhibits a good deal more informal settlers than formal residents. The city has been built on an urban peninsula geographically constrained by the sea.

One of the most interesting characteristics of Mumbai is its obvious and self confident acquiescence of a kind of architectural anti-image generation. Most likely there are not many places in the world where large-scale poverty, informal city growth, societal separation and heedless class mentality are more visible and forthright than in Mumbai. At daytime all these busy servants smartly move within decent neighbourhoods and living environments, at night they return to their customary housing type – the genuine slum. No private ‘employer’ in Mumbai would gaynsay or bemoan this – and we, on our part, deliberately abstain from any moralizing.

We work on a design study that we baptised the Social Amalgamation Experiment (Mumbai). We try to develop a vision for novel housing typologies that can accommodate those who are able to afford good quality housing and those who work for this propertied class. In our fieldwork and analysis we focussed on historical and modern mass housing types such as chawls from 19th century and recent buildings by the city’s Slum Rehabilitation Authority – as well as on the eye-catching contrast between the fast horizontal growth of informal settlements for the poor and the rapid vertical growth of housing types for high-income residents.

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Resilient Amphibious Territory Reconstructing Tacloban’s Fishing Industry

Erica Chan (M Arch\ Senior Lecturer Tomohisa Miyauchi) In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan struck portions of Southeast Asia and left the Philippines particularly devastated. Typhoon Haiyan affected 14 million Filipinos, killing approximately 6,300 people and displacing more than 6 million residents. One of the harshest-hit areas of this disaster is the City of Tacloban in the Eastern Visayas region.

Tacloban is the capital city of the province of Leyte and was developed from a small fishing village to what it is today – major economic drivers of the city are its port and fishing industry. The lethal effects of the Typhon saw homes, communities and public infrastructures in Tacloban destroyed and damaged. Livelihoods were also disrupted. Consequently, the city faced massive humanitarian crisis such as, lack of shelter, food, clean water and medical supplies. The strong storm surges of Typhoon Haiyan also destroyed the port and crippled the fishing industry and its economy.

Regeneration through Sustenance Security Kumbharwada, Mumbai Leow Cheng Ting Anthony (M Arch\ Assistance Professor Oscar Carracedo) Slums and squatters are the by-products of rapid urbanization in developing countries. Mumbai, transforming from a fishing village to now the economic capital of India, best represents the territorial conflict between centralized developments and autonomous settlements. Although the stem of urban informal settlement is a manifestation of inadequate provision of affordable housing, solution to emphasize the “efficiency” of direct housing provision should not overpower the importance of such “effectiveness”. While more than half of the population in Mumbai is living in such unsatisfactory condition, fully reliance on either government or private investors to achieve a replicable model of rehabilitation is unrealistic.

Under an assumed cooperative framework among government, private investors and slum dwellers, and architects/architecture, this thesis uses Kumbharwada, a pottery village in Dharavi as a proposal for concept change and shift in practice to balance the redevelopment. Instead of providing a “complete but useless house”, a “functional module” is proposed to facilitate and catalyse an autonomous redevelopment that has been observed. In contrast to the convention onesize-fit-all solution, the design strategy developed several devices which react to specific conditions in micro scale and aims to reconcile the diverse needs from within.

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02

REGIONAL TOPOGRAPHIES Singapore Metropolitan Region and The Architecture of Borders

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Stone Appreciation

at Pulau Ubin Biophilic centre with a journey of senses Heng Chen Sin (M Arch\ Senior Lecturer Tomohisa Miyauchi)

Design Intent: to get people to learn more about ubin’s industrial heritag through the celebration & appreciation of stones Design Concept: to celebrate the appreciation of stones by engaing human’s 5 senses: touch, smell, sight, sound & taste Design Strategy: to create an architecture that will act as a backdrop to bring out the beauty & essence of the stones Inspiration: design for this biophilic centre is inspired by sculptor, pinuccio sciola’s, works, where he carved stones to create music, making something “dead” come “alive”

Pirkology Pulau Bulan & Singapore Epiphanie Barli Lie (MArch\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux) “It was a thing as tremendous as the universe—the laws and ways of its working no more than the universe to be questioned or understood.”

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle The contract between humans and food; humans and animals; and Singapore and her hinterland is wrought with ethical, political, and spatial dimensions.

This thesis uses architecture and spatial strategies as means for checks and balances to increase the interaction and visual connections between people and livestock animals so that the operations behind food provision and private enterprise are made accountable not only to the state but also to the public.

Published in SA Magazine #287

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A probe into the subject - of coasts and of the region. Identifying quirks, anomalies, and trends. Uncovering operations and ambitions.

United Straits: A Journey to Unity

A singular thriving hub. Highly connected, highly supported. City cores of Singapore and Iskandar merge via an extensive network of surface and subterranean links. Access from one to another is direct and convenient, served by adequate and expansive infrastructures of road and rail alike.

Straits of Johor, Singapore and Malaysia

The Johor Strait is re-conceptualised not as a dividing line of tension but rather a unifying territory and a liquid asset. Its fingers reach into both sides and bind them as one. It shifts from being a barrier to glue.

Ong Wee Jin (MArch\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux) City cores of Singapore and Iskandar merge via an extensive network of surface and sub-terranean links. Access from one to another is direct and convenient, served by adequate and expansive infrastructures of road and rail alike.

At the center of all this lies the strait as an emerging third space, the binder of once divided soverignities. A softer union can be read as having always been present - the geographical basin formation that feeds into the strait.

A series of barrages are implemented at strategic points along the western Strait.

These double up as four additional crossings put in place between the current Tuas and Woodlands causeways. Key economic activities and ecosystems such as the Pasir Gudang Port and Pulai/Johor Rivers are left relatively uninterrupted.

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Aqua Lines Changi, Singapore Amanda Wong (MArch\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux) In Singapore, the state consciously and continuously denies its citizens of access to the sea. The central metaphor of an island is erased by the state’s prodigious land reclamation, and subsequent denial to the sea. Most of the island’s edges are cordoned off by massive sea walls or owned by the state for economic development.In addition to the formation of a clean territory, the hard edge also amplifies divide, leaving small point of porosity between the land and sea. This thesis is interested in studying these last interfaces, these liquid territories that connect land and sea.

The built environment is systematically cleaned, maintained and replaced as a form of resistance towards tropical forces of decay. The “architecture of leaks”, in this regard, operates like a form of parasitic-growth, that allows the island to purge itself of waste and water. It carves, diverts and tunnels, aggressively altering the landscape, creating a network of infrastructural territory that is untouched by any other form.

This infrastructure serves primarily as a form of resistance towards climatic conditions, to control and overcome tropical forces such as rain and floodwater for short periods, and divert its forces into the sea. It latches onto the natural and the built alike, becoming an essential part of its survival against the tropical forces. This form of architectural infrastructure is thus crucial in creating a “sterilized and clean” environment on which we build and live.

The series studies the “architecture of leaks”, creating a taxonomy varying from transport, conveyance, diversion to filtration. Multiple systems connect and to one another to form an intricate web of systems. However, with the extensive amount of roughly 200 ongoing and upcoming projects, this system is bound to experience points of splintering, where connecting points become disjointed or incoherent.

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NORTH

BATAM

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TOPOGRAPHICAL

MAP

NEIGHBOURSHEDS THE

B AT U

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URBAN

WATERSHED

A M PA R

B E N G K O N G

S E I

PA N A S

N A G OYA

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i B

a

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S E K U PA N G B ATA M S E I L A D I

LEGEND Political Boundaries Wa t e r s h e d B o u n d a r i e s

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Neighboursheds

Land Thievess

North Batam

Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Estelle Sim (MArch\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux)

Fu Zhuo Joe (MArch\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux)

A watershed is conventionally known as an area of land that captures and drains water to a common point of discharge. It is a system where topography governs the flow of water through the landscape. Against an increasingly urbanized world, however, it is evident that this traditional notion of the watershed has not been displaced fast enough or far enough to accommodate human activity. In many cities today, the urban environment and watershed are two distinct territories, linked together by a series of pipe networks. The urban grid and site design bears no semblance to the actual natural watershed.

The direction of this thesis emerged from the research that delves into territorial disputes between formal developments and the existing informal habitations.

My thesis seeks to define a new form of watershed, using the concept of “neighboursheds” – a term I use to describe a neighbourhood-based watershed.

Each neighbourshed is defined by the perimeters of a neighbourhood community and has its own grammar of collecting and managing water. Strategies employed are site-specific calibrations to the different financial, topographical and pollution realities in each neighbourshed. The “neighboursheds” scheme is a system of distributed water infrastructure located at the community level. It intermediates between two extreme scales in Batam’s urban water system – the large, highlycentralized city reservoirs and the small, household level of domestic wells.

Like the situation in Kampung Skudai kiri, the ferocious erection of towers along the coast creates a Duo city tension that contrasts the Iskandar masterplan with the sprawling nature of Johor Bahru. The existing masterplan’s zoning and programming methodology denies the city’s nature of informal growth.

Therefore, through architectural form, the project takes on the position to manifest the open-system originally present in the sprawling nature of JB, and to design a robust piece of the city that challenges the traditional way of planning (zones and programs), which sees any form of informal growth as a threat to the city’s formal structure.

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03

LOCAL PLOTS

The Architecture of Atmospheres

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50 Centimeters per Second Jalan Besar MRT Station Redesigned Shi Yanjie (MArch\ Assistant Professor Rafaella Sini ) The project focuses on the relationship between nature and the city, using nature as the tool to weave the ecologies of urban fabrics into a cohesive whole. The threads are not only physical, but more importantly, are the spirit(s) of the site, history, heritage, religions, cultures.

We consult with the spirit of water for the project to reconcile how life is possible with the existence of water on the planet earth. The proposing Museum of Water in Singapore is to facilitate and promote such understanding and hydrophilicity (a strong affinity for water) among people of different backgrounds.

Tropical Plaza For A Pedestrian Culture Dhoby Ghaut-Bras Basah Marisa Kueh Li Na (MArch\ Assistant Professor Abel Tablada) Dominance of vehicular traffic, particularly in fast-paced cities, has become prevalent over the years and Singapore is no exception. Hence pedestrians become subservient to motorised vehicles, resulting in spatial fragmentation that compromises the accessibility of public spaces for pedestrian activity. The thesis seeks to explore an alternative approach to designing public spaces for a more vibrant and pedestrian friendly urban environment, suited for the tropical conditions and site characteristics – The Tropical Plaza.

The thesis proposal pushes the notion of a central tropical urban node, equipped with public facilities to catalyse various urban events and festivals while still accommodating the circulation of motorised vehicles. Located in central Dhoby Ghaut-Bras Basah precinct, the site was chosen for its high vehicular and pedestrian traffic and proximity to major cultural institutions, each with its own series of cultural events that occur throughout the year.

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Aerodynamic Porous Architecture Bidadari Town Centre Lan Yikang (MArch\ Assistant Professor Abel Tablada) The project seeks an alternative design of the Bidadari town centre with the primary aim of promoting thermally comfortable semi-open spaces by improving natural ventilation in a series of interconnected zones with different degrees of openness.

Given the complexity of the building program, the project focuses on the exploration and manipulation of possible morphologies through the interaction of the highly permeable podium level with the residential towers and the surrounding buildings and natural assets.

The geometrical and morphological variations were partially guided throughout the whole design progression by a series of Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations without minimizing the importance of functional and aesthetics and other environmental considerations.

Marine X Singapore Gee Ming Wei (MArch\Senior Lecturer Tomohisa Miyauchi) The project impetus is led by a series of pragmatic motives. As with coastal cities worldwide, Singapore is vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. An imminent sea level rise renders permanent inundation. Heavier precipitation directs ever larger areas of land to water drainage and peak overflow storages.

Existing island topography and increasing human population result in a shortage of new building land for city expansion. Progressive large scale coastal reclamation induces adverse effects on the marine environment.

As MarineX designs, constructs and launches floating resorts, the architecture advances the concept of prefabricating buildings on water and capitalises on human scale floatation technology to establish marine footprints, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on aquatic territories. Production comprises incubators for research & development, an assembly line and pontoon fabrication chamber while Exposition exhibits a range of resolution from individual to single and multi-family units.

The initiative creates a new paradigm in conceiving flexible spaces with the vision of living on water transforming into reality in phases progressively.

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Climatic Link-way: Juxtaposition of the Back Alleys Singapore Chong Wen Jin (MArch\ Senior Lecturer Tomohisa Miyauchi) As a critique to the unsustainable nature of daily operations of a city, the thesis propose an urban link-way that exposes its users to the realities of the operation of a city by juxtaposing the heavy pedestrianized link way onto the back alleys and at the same time intensifying these back alleys which are the manifestations of climatic sustainability issues of a city.

Sensory Waterscape: Integrating Water in the Urban Context Rochor Canal, Singapore Yeo Kia Leng Adelene (MArch\ Senior Lecturer Tomohisa Miyauchi) By allowing water to inspire and guide an architectural project and its programs, a more synchronised integration between water and the urban context can be generated. The regard for water as an element would allow users to experience and be conscious of importance of water. This thesis aims to explore the possibilities offered by the pliable nature of water and probe for the potential to improve the relationship with water in order to realize the “wedding between water and urban space.” Architectute becomes a mediation to augment and enrich environmental education in Singapore with the introduction of water’s vitality into the urban public spaces of everyday life in Singapore.

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The Veiled Chandelier Robinson Road , Singapore

Jason Tan (Year 4\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux)

The transformation of John Graham’s AIA Building is one of a climactic exterior as well as a contrasting interior. The gradated stretch and twist of the envelope reacts to the solar path resulting in an East-West impenetrability and a NorthSouth porosity. This gradient mitigates the tower’s overall solar exposure by densely shading the upper levels that receive more solar radiation and opens up the lower to allow in more light and air. The relentlessness of its employment goes to the extent of concealing the entrance, therein creating the effect of the veil. Interior air-conditioned spaces are incrementally recessed towards the lower levels to further mitigate spatial heat gain - naturally ventilated spaces consequentially increase. The glassed volumes are hung from primary floor slabs and seem to descend from above creating the effect of the chandelier.

Pulau Jubin (Ubin) Granite Island / ‘chieo suar’ Landscape Focus Design Studio (Year 3\ Assistant Professor Rafaella Sini ) The exercise used a number of tools necessary to engage in a critical reading of context: techniques of representation such as mapping, sketching, comparative visual analysis are explored, to conceptualize, imagine and convey the complex, layered landscape strata, its range of interpretation and possibilities.

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Trinity Ayer Rajah Industrial Estate, Singapore

Joel Tay Guang Hua and Azizul Izwan B Roslan (Year 4\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux) The elevation is composed of three main envelope: the ‘outer’, the ‘inner’ and the ‘non-structural’. The ‘outer’ is made up of alternating rows of light shelves and tables to allow diffused light and keep out direct sunlight. The ‘inner’ is composed of triangular folds that act as sunshades, keeps the rain out and directs the view downwards. The ‘non-structural’ envelopes sport a discontinuous vertical element segmented by rows of light shelves. The depth of each envelope is calibrated by their positions on the inside-outside and east-west direction. Despite the difference, The three elevations are read as a unified whole characterized by their vertical elements, proportions and materiality.

Dual Exoskeletons Ayer Rajah Industrial Estate, Singapore

Peh Sze Kiat Iven and Greta Varpucianskyte (Year 4\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux) The diagrid structural exterior directs the load to the envelope. The definition of envelope is usually accompanied with preconceptions such as surface, boundary, shell, skin or façade. In order to push the interpretation of envelope, firstly, a secondary filigree structure is devised as the envelope for the existing building and the structure for the new addition. Secondly, instead of viewing the envelope as a surface, this endoskeleton is a volume within a volume (the exoskeleton). In order to accentrate the secondary volume, circulation cores are carefully positioned between the outer and inner envelopes. Lastly, the envelope becomes a form of inhabitation.

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Orchid R&D and Export Jurong, Singapore

Nicholas Gomes (Year 4\ Associate Professor Abel Tablada) The 2030 vision aims to integrate industry, demographics, and nature through being sensitive to the side of Jurong Hill. The sales of orchids is a large global market, and Singapore in particular is one of the largest exporters or orchids in the world. A programme of hotels and service apartments, together with exhibition spaces and educational facilities, are proposed to complement the business. R&D facilities aid in improving the workflow of production, and this ties in with the educational intent of promoting nature. Through this, an urban realm is created for the otherwise contained orchid export industry, to allow the public to learn and gain appreciation for orchids, Jurong Hill and nature. This public space is the orchid nurseries, located at the breezeways of the project whereby wind from both directions is manipulated with a screen. The nurseries also act as a filter for the industrieal N-E wind.

Biomedical Strip Jurong, Singapore

Ni Chia Min & Penny Ng (Year 4\ Associate Professor Abel Tablada) The 2030 Jurong Biomedical Strip is an integrated facility that is situated to the south of Jurong Hill. It seeks to explore a new building cluster typology that combines the verticalitu of Mixed Use Developments with the industrial concept of Bench-To-Bed that can allow for integration on the horizontal axis. By allowing better ventilation conditions, the wind strategies applied on the masterplan level helped to activate key urban nodes allowing this development to not only be an innovative place to work in, but also a comfortable and ideal place to live in.

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To The Lighthouse Pedra Branca Tan Qian Rou (M Arch\ Assistance Professor Lilian Chee and Zdravko Trivic) The idea of the fragment- of memory and image, as being more powerful than the actual entity of the lighthouse reflects the sort of territorial identity which can be discerned from Pedra Branca. Horsburgh Lighthouse, much as the lighthouse in Woolf’s description, becomes primarily empowered through a collective cultural image. The lighthouse becomes significant because it is a allegory; of place-memory, of familial relationships, of growth, and of territory. It acquires

importance beyond itself because of the narrative that is used to perceive it, and thus in turn becomes a tool to engage concepts which concern those narratives.

Horsburgh Lighthouse hence becomes an allegory to describe not only Singaporean territory, but the role of architecture in territorialisation as well.

Named for Woolf’s novel, this thesis demonstrates through the same starting point of a lighthouse that architecture is not only a tool to territorialise, but that through instances of image, representation and the allegory, multiple territorial definitions may be ascribed to architecture. In its endeavours, this scheme looks to the lighthouse for both architectural and territorial context; in doing so, suggests a structure which is simultaneously architecture and territory. Where for Woolf the image becomes the architecture, for the thesis, the image becomes the architecture, becomes the territory.

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04

POST-TROPICAL New Modes of Reading and Research

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Head in The Point Clouds - Feet on the Ground

The Problem of Thermal Comfort in Climatic Design

Associate Professor Jörg Rekittke, Doctoral Researcher Yazid Ninsalam

Assistant Professor Chang Jiat Hwee

There is no need for soothsayers to predict the future of digital technology for the purpose of site-specific landscape architectural terrain analysis, measurement, and documentation. It will be handheld, respectively mobile and light, broadly affordable, and will allow digital landscape capture in the form of three-dimensional data progressively in high precision, high density, and geo-referenced manner.

Landscape data of that ilk, which emanate from high-capacity depth cameras as well as terrestrial laser scanners, can be made available with high visual clarity and aesthetic allure. A common result of the capture technique is their interim, respectively final transformation into point clouds, contingent upon their way of generation, purpose and application. Point clouds of every occurrence and scale at present become the most relevant digital slug as well as virtual modelling clay of the landscape architectural design discipline. With our heads in the point clouds, operating as research-oriented landscape architects in the context of academic design projects, we insist upon the necessity of working in situ and putting our feet on the ground.

Buildings are responsible for a large percentage of the record levels of energy consumption and carbon emission in the Anthropocene epoch, and significant proportion of these are associated with mechanical cooling. In face of peak oil and climate change, many advocates are calling for a reduction in our reliance on mechanical cooling and for us to turn to non-air-conditioning technologies.

For many architects, historians and theorists, not only do mechanical cooling (as provided by air-conditioning) and “natural” cooling (through sun-shading and ventilation) represent contrasting technologies and philosophies, the architectural forms associated with these technologies are also seen as diametrically opposed physical and cultural entities: productform versus placeform, active cooling in contrast to passive cooling, conservative mode against selective mode, etc.

This axiom enables us to do fieldwork in undocumented or data-poor megaurban environments, often under the urban canopy and in urban canyons where remote sensing technology fails to act. We experiment with all sorts of independent measuring and urban terrain data gathering technology that can be carried in the field. We continue to advocate the creative utilisation of inexpensive, ordinary tools and off-the-shelf technology. Having said that, the grasp at more sophisticated, more expensive, and more flamboyant technology remained appealing during the past years of our research. When such costly state-of-theart technology became available to our university department, we took them to harsh megacity environments and tested their capacities and limits. This move signified a review of the theses and methods inherent to our general concept of Grassroots GIS – inclusive surprises and reassurances. For example, working in crowded informal narrow city layouts makes operations with laser-beam emitting terrain scanners Gordian. While the use of unmanned aerial vehicles carrying powerful cameras does not always have to end admissibly. These are the moments when the reliability of mature and frugal technology, as well as improvisation and tinkering skills, may steal the show.

Published in Peer Reviewed Proceedings of Digital Landscape Architecture 2014 at ETH Zurich. 198-207.

This paper questions these oppositions. Examining the emerging discourse of tropical architecture in the British imperial contexts of the 1950s and 1960s, this paper argues that, like mechanically cooled architecture, tropical architecture was underpinned by a mechanistic and reductionist understanding of the complex relationships between human well-being, climate and society.

Looking at the research and teaching by figures such as Otto Koenigsberger and George Atkinson at the Department of Tropical Architecture at the AA and the various Building Research Stations in the British Empire, this paper shows that thermal comfort, as established in early twentieth century by the airconditioning researchers associated with ASHVE and industrial physiologists, was the “fundamental principle” upon which tropical architecture was constructed. Thermal comfort experiments, however, assumed human beings as passive biological receptacles of environmental stimuli and reinforced the old colonial perception that tropical climate was a source of thermal stress. Thus, tropical architecture ignored how comfort was not an environmental-biological attribute but an achievement inextricably linked to social practices and cultural perceptions. The subsequent failure of tropical architecture can be attributed to these oversights.

Presented at “Architectural History of the Anthropocene” session, Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference April 2015 in Chicago.

^ Source: Winslow, C.-E. A, and L. P. Herrington, Temperature and Human Life, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949.

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Urban Ecological Research in Singapore and its Relevance to the Advancement of Urban Ecology and Sustainability

Cool Living Heritage in Qatar: Sustainable Alternatives to Airconditioned Urban Development

Associate Professor Tan Puay Yok and PhD Candidate Abdul Rahim bin Abdul Hamid

Interdisciplinary team: Prof. Tim Winter, Deakin University (lead PI), Dr. Trinidad Rico, Texas A&M University Qatar (Co-lead PI), Prof. Donald McNeill, University of Western Sydney, Dr. Russell Hitchings, University College London, Dr. Jiat-Hwee Chang, National University of Singapore

The drastic changes in the natural environment of Singapore from the beginning of recorded settlements to the present day present numerous opportunities for understanding how urbanization has affected the ecology of the island city-state.

On the one hand, the almost complete clearing of the original tropical lowland forests and the ensuing catastrophic extinction of the original biodiversity, suggest how cities ought to avoid the same developmental pathway. On the other hand, the relatively high percentage of vegetation cover that the city has achieved due to effective urban greening policies suggest that opportunities still exist to restore functions associated with a healthy urban ecosystem. This paper reviewed urban ecological research on Singapore conducted between 1991 and 2012, and summarized the key findings according to the state factors of an urban ecosystem. The review showed that the large majority of the studies were focused on biodiversity, and were on the ecology in a city. It revealed gaps in urban ecological knowledge of Singapore, especially in relation to how studies

In response to the rapid uptake of air conditioning in Qatar and across the Gulf, this project seeks to promote more culturally and environmentally sustainable forms of urban development through the revival of a ‘cool living heritage’. For most countries around half of all carbon emissions come from buildings, and in Qatar and throughout the Gulf a significant proportion of that energy consumption is associated with electronic cooling.

Published in Landscape and Urban Planning 125 (2014): 271-289.

Addressing such issues, this project’s interdisciplinary methodology will first integrate a diverse array of material culture designs - spanning architecture, furniture, clothing, fanning and gardens - with examples of everyday customs, habits and social practices from Arab culture. From there the project will aim to critically appraise the possibilities and limitations of inserting this low-carbon ‘cool living heritage’ as an alternative to the energy intensive, climate control paradigm of electronic airconditioning. Particular focus will be given to such issues in the context of those mega-projects in Qatar, most notably Msheireb Downtown Doha, which identify cultural heritage as a key mechanism for achieving the twin goals of cultural sustainability and a more environmentally responsive form of urban development. The project brings together researchers from Australia, Singapore, and the UK, to work in collaboration with UCL Qatar.

Funded by Qatar National Research Foundation (USD 722,000.)

Thermal Modernity and Architecture Assistant Professor Chang Jiat Hwee Chang Jiat-Hwee, Tim Winter This paper develops the concept of thermal modernity in order to offer a more detailed understanding of air conditioning and the historical role it has played in transforming urban and built space. An analysis oriented by the insights of Science and Technology Studies stresses how the international ascendancy of air conditioning has been contingent upon certain socio-political forces and cultural changes that occur at the local level. The productive example of Singapore—often referred to as the ‘air-conditioned’ nation—is given to reveal the entanglements between indoor comfort provision, economic development and post-colonial nation-building. At a broader level, the paper points towards the importance of understanding air conditioning’s impact on the spread of international modernism in analytically expansive ways, such that we can more fully appreciate how it has acted to remodel the built environment at different scales and reconfigure indoor and outdoor relationships. ^

Source: SIAJ: Journal of Singapore Institute of Architects 51, 1972

Published in The Journal of Architecture 20, no.1 (2015): 92-121.

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Building Shade Affects Light Environment and Urban Greenery in High-Density Residential Estates in Singapore Associate Professor Tan Puay Yok, Research Assitant Mirza Rifqi Bin Ismail

Urban green spaces are an important component of the urban ecosystem of cities as they provide a range of ecosystem services that contribute to sustainability and livability of urban areas. The extent to which such services are provided is influenced by limitations on biological processes that underpin such ecosystem services. A poorly understood limitation in the urban environment is the effects of shade created by buildings on the adequacy of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) for plant growth. We examined the effects of building shade in high-density, high-rise residential estates in Singapore on the level and distribution of PAR, and how PAR might in turn be correlated with growth of plants in community green spaces nested within these estates. Our estimates showed that high-rise and high- density buildings reduced daily PAR by almost 50% when compared to fully exposed conditions. The reduced PAR levels were

correlated with lower vegetative and reproductive growth of several species of shrubs, and increased slenderness of two tree species. The shade environment created by buildings was differentiated from shade under vegetation canopies by longer periods of high instantaneous PAR during a diurnal cycle. There was also evidence of higher red to far-red ratio in the spectral composition of PAR. We suggest that an understanding of the spatial and temporal characteristics of PAR is necessary for appropriate selection of plants, particularly to match daily PAR received on site to daily light integral requirements of plants for improved delivery of ecosystem services

Published in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 13, no. 4 (2014): 771-784.

Photosynthetically Active Radiation and Comparison of Methods for its Estimation in Equatorial Singapore Associate Professor Tan Puay Yok, Research Assitant Mirza Rifqi Bin Ismail Urban green spaces are an important component of the urban ecosystem of cities as they provide a range of ecosystem services that contribute to sustainability and livability of urban areas. The extent to which such services are provided is influenced by limitations on biological processes that underpin such ecosystem services. A poorly understood limitation in the urban environment is the effects of shade created by buildings on the adequacy of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) for plant growth. We examined the effects of building shade in high-density, high-rise residential estates in Singapore on the level and distribution of PAR, and how PAR might in turn be correlated with growth of plants in community green spaces nested within these estates. Our estimates showed that high-rise and high- density buildings reduced daily PAR by almost 50% when compared to fully exposed conditions. The reduced PAR levels were

correlated with lower vegetative and reproductive growth of several species of shrubs, and increased slenderness of two tree species. The shade environment created by buildings was differentiated from shade under vegetation canopies by longer periods of high instantaneous PAR during a diurnal cycle. There was also evidence of higher red to far-red ratio in the spectral composition of PAR. We suggest that an understanding of the spatial and temporal characteristics of PAR is necessary for appropriate selection of plants, particularly to match daily PAR received on site to daily light integral requirements of plants for improved delivery of ecosystem services on tropical architecture.

Published in Theoretical and Applied Climatology (2015):1-11.

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Passive Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) Conference

International Conference of Urban Climate (ICUC9)

Ahmedabad

Toulouse

Assistant Professor Abel Tablada

Assistant Professor Abel Tablada

Increasing food and energy self-sufficiency in residential areas is one of the key measures to reduce greenhouse gases emissions as well as to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The objective of the study is to verify the impact of building typologies and urban forms with relative high density on sunlight availability. Computational tools are employed to obtain quantifiable indicators of the potential of each variant for energy and food harvesting. Twenty five point block cases were assessed in terms of solar access by using three density and geometry parameters: plot ratio, site coverage and building height.

Urbanization process in Asia is increasing at an unprecedented rate. New towns are built in the cities’ outskirts occupying farmlands and therefore making urban population more dependent on food produced farer away or from overseas.

Therefore, the integration of farming areas as part of the urban tissue should be considered as one of the design parameters for new residential districts in Asian cities. The paper deals with sunlight availability in relation to urban form, density and latitude. The objective of the study is to quantify the sunlight availability in 27 cases with a series of densities and urban morphologies located at three different latitudes in Asia: Singapore (1.3°N), Hanoi (21°N) and Beijing (39.9°N).

Seminar: University of Navarra

Solar Declathon University of Florida

Spain

USA

Assistant Professor Abel Tablada

Assistant Professor Abel Tablada, Students Kew Xun Long , Verna Ho Jing Yu , Ng Kah Yee , Ong Hui Sian, Ong Bao Quan, Chris Jing Ren Seah

Assistant Professor Abel Tablada was invited by the Director or Master’s Degree in Environmental Design and Building Management Asst Prof Ana María Sánchez-ostiz Gutiérrez from the School of Architecture, University of Navarra to deliver a series of lectures, including a public lecture and to conduct a workshop related to the topic of Low-Carbon Architecture in the Tropics in the week of 16-20 May, 2015. The workshop was attended by local master students and by visiting students and a senior lecturer from Cardiff University. In total, 24 students – not familiar with tropical architectural and urban design – developed three schematic proposals for three sites and latitudes: 1.

Nusajaya (Malaysia) 1.5° N / 103° E 2.

Phnom Penh (Cambodia) 11.5° N / 104° E 3.

Mariel (Cuba) 23° N / 82° W The workshop objective was to explore and design preliminary city block massing for a new town near industrial areas for low-middle income residents to promote daylight, natural ventilation and self-sufficiency in terms of energy and food. The design process was supported by solar analysis and wind simulations.

NUS Department of Architecture joined the School of Architecture of University of Florida to participate in the Solar Decathlon 2015. Six students from NUS, accompanied and supervised by Dr Abel Tablada, participated in a workshop during June-July 2014 at U-Florida. The workshop was led by Assistant Professor Bradley Walters from U-Florida. During their stay the NUS and local students attended a series of lectures and contributed to the design development of the solar house.

Solar Decathlon 2015 NUS Department of Architecture joined the School of Architecture of University of Florida to participate in the Solar Decathlon 2015.

Six students from NUS, accompanied and supervised by Dr Abel Tablada, participated in a workshop during June-July 2014 at U-Florida. The workshop was led by Assistant Professor Bradley Walters from U-Florida. During their stay the NUS and local students attended a series of lectures and contributed to the design development of the solar house.

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Wheelwright Prize Presentation and Winner Harvard University Graduate School of Design April 2015

Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux As the equatorial city’s relationship to climate becomes an increasing imperative; the program will research the atmospheric mediums of hot & wet architectures sited in five dense cities on the equator. Three features guide the work: saturated urbanisms, deep envelopes, and thick roofs. The focus is directed at modes of atmospheric calibration at the urban scale verlooked by traditional representation in drawing and photography. Humidity, temperature, breeze, sound, smell, rain and their impact on the city and architecture alike; from urban to building, landscape to material, habitation to interior will expand our repertoire beyond the optic and iconic to the climatic and atmospheric.

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03-FLATS Assistant Professor Lilian Chee Singapore’s public housing programme - an inclusive space that prioritizes families and intergenerational living - is arguably the most successful in the world. Amidst this backdrop, 03-FLATS follows the dometic experiences of three single women who are at different stages of their lives. Looking from within each flat, the film moves between the women’s distinctively lived interiors and the ordered public spaces beyond. It records how domestic resilience might resist the ennui of mass housing, turning housing into home. 03-FLATS is a key filmic output of a research initiative led by Dr Lilian Chee (Department of Architecture, NUS). Chee conceptualised the project and made the film in collaboration with award-winning Singaporean director and filmmaker Lei Yuan Bin (13 Little Pictures) to probe how domesticity - a critical component wherein home is produced - may be viscerally represented and experientially encountered. 03-FLATS was in competition at the Busan International Film Festival (2014) and won the best ASEAN documentary at the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival (2015).

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Tropical Pockets Epiphanie Barli Lie (MArch\ Associate Professor Erik L’Heureux) From Classical Architecture, to Baroque, Renaissance, and later Modern Architecture, there is an accumulation of knowledge recorded in written accounts, drawings as well as buildings and ruins that still stand proud up to this day. Much of these form what we know as the history of architecture—though perhaps one which revolves around the temperate region—with its established manners of representation and methods of understanding architecture.

On the other hand, close scrutiny on tropical architecture—at least in the Southeast Asian regions—comes much later than that of temperate architecture, probably sometime after the onset of colonisations just before the arrival of Modern Architecture that would in time overrode much of the existing vernacular traditions. Those constructed using traditional materials quickly perish and it does not help that in many communities building knowledge are passed verbally, rather than in drawings or writings. In contrast to drawings as a tool of designing prior to the construction of an architectural project, drawings of the vernacular architecture are often done as attempts at representing and recording by third parties, rather than by the designers or the builders.

This paper selects the critical few of the vernacular buildings that are particularly helpful in explaining the tropical enclosure with the prospect that the findings could be of help in understanding other strains of vernacular architecture found in the region. Eventually, by putting into question the unchallenged mode of presenting and understanding architecture predicated on the temperate conditions, it is hoped that some robustness could be injected into the presently languid discourse on tropical architecture.

Thermal Delight in Architecture: From Climate Responsive to Climate Production Liane Ee (MArch\ Assistant Professor Chang Jiat Hwee) Building codes worldwide refer to thermal comfort standards for the design of indoor climate. This has led to a normalization of indoor environments, characterized by air-conditioned thermal monotony and aimed at minimizing thermal sensations. This dissertation posits that indoor climate can drive new architectural experiences and should be explored as an expressive component of architecture. This dissertation argues that the current approach to climate regulation does not explore the potential for indoor climate to be experiential.

By charting the emergence of a new type of air-conditioned space that departs from the usual comfort standard, I show that climate production can be a way to celebrate thermal experience in architecture. I postulate a shift from climate regulation to climate production due to rise of the experience economy, using Singapore as an example of how economic aspirations influence the way air-conditioning is used. Air-conditioning played a huge role in Singapore’s modernization, by eliminating thermal discomfort and increasing productivity, and now it is being employed to create differentiated experiences for recreational purposes. A sign that indoor climate production is not merely a thermal novelty, but has wider influence on the way we experience and consume architecture and the urban environment.

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01 Here Art Grows on Trees by Simryn Gill, 2013 02 Picturing the Tropics Within by Lilian Chee 03 The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design by Graeme Brooker and Lois Weinthal, 2013 04 The Private Interior: Constructing The Modern Domestic Interior in Singapore’s Public Housing

by Lilian Chee 05 06 Asian Cinema and the Use of Space by Lilian Chee and Edna Lim, 2015 07 08 Naturban by Adolf Sotoca and Oscar Carracedo, 2015 09 10 Vertical Garden City Singapore by Tan Puay Yok, 2014 11 12 BASECO 2014 Urban Revitalization Strategies for Low-Income Communities in Manila by Hwang Yun Hye and Oscar Carracedo Garcia-Villalba 13 Imperial Contagions edited by Robert Peckham and David M. Pomfret, 2013 14 ‘Tropicalizing’ Planning: Sanitation, Housing, and Technologies of Improvement in Colonial Singapore, 1907-42 by Chang Jiat Hwee 15 RIBA The Journal of Architecture volumn 21 no 1, 2015 16 Thermal Modernity and Architecture by Jiat-Hwee Chang, Tim Winter 17 Southest Asia in Question; Questions in Southeast Asia’s -- Architecture 1st SEAARC Symposium , 2015 18 Architecture, Society and Power, Chair: Chiang Jiat Hwee 19 New Urban Configurations edited by Cavallo, R., Komossa, S., Marzot, N. , Berghauser Pont, M., Kuijper, J. 2014 20 Integrating Design, Use and Operational Complexities in High-Density Urban Space Environments: ‘Tool for Urban Space Analysis (TUSA)’ by Im Sik Cho and Zdravko Trivic 2122 Ti Lian Seng, a+u Issue 528, Chief Editor Tomohisa Miyauchi, 2014 23 24 Innovating the “Hub-Ecosystem” for Healthy Strategic Growth: Singapore Sports Hub, a+u AsianEdition, Chief Editor Tomohisa Miyauchi, 2015 25 26 Past Wisdom in Future Design by Tomohisa Miyauchi, 2015 27 28 1000 Singapore: 8 Points of The Compact City Curated & Designed by: Khoo Peng Beng, Erik L’Heureux and Florian Schätz 29 Detail in Contemporary Residential Architecture 2 by David Phillips and Megumi Yamashita, 2014 30 Details of Stereoscopic House by Erik L’Heureux 31 32 Deep Veils by Erik L’Heureux, 2014 33 34 Dirty Little Secret Thesis Studio Research 35 36 Hot, Wet & Breezy Studio 37 Hot & Wet Studio 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Climate + Territory Section Posters

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SHELTERED: documents for home exhibition at NUS Museum opens from 10 September 2015 to March 2016.

Event plublicity poster by NUS Museum, photos courtesy of Olivia Kwok.

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03-FLAT Screening for NUS Architecture Students at White Room, the URA Centre 3rd floor on 16th July 2015, Photos courtesy of The Architectural Society (TAS)

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BACK TO BASICS is the theme of the NUS Architectural study trip to Malaysia, held from 19 to 23 May 2015, covering architectural interests in the states of Johor, Selangor and Perak. The study trip was led by

Associate Professor Cheah Kok Ming, Senior Lecturers Tomohisa Miyauchi and Kazuhiro Nakajima.

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L to R: Fu Zhuo Joe, Assistant Professor Lilian Chee and Senior Lecturer Tomohisa Miyauchi (falling asleep)

L to R: Arvind Roy, Theresa Chua, Samantha Chia, Stanislaw Butelski, Professor Bobby Wong Chong Thai, and Law Jia Hao

L to R: Associate Professor Bradley Walters (University of Florida), Leo Huang, Joel Tay, Phang Hui Ling, Azizul Izwan, Shawn Teo and Iven Peh

L to R: Iven Peh, Tang Hsiao Ling, Bij Borja (JTC) , Aloysius Iwan Handono(JTC) , Abel Tablada

Department of Architecture School of Design and Environment

Climate + Territory Issue #01 [Semester 1 AY2013/2014]