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All in Site Visits
The newfound love for Brutalism is symbolic of a new appreciation for its place in history as a cheap method of providing housing during a period where young people are having an increasingly difficult time finding homes. In this vein, the Barbican reminds us that it will take people fighting against the odds with the government for there to be any significant change in the urban landscape.
If it wasn’t for a leaf and a nut, Singapore would not be what it is today, and I learned this by looking at Emerald Hill Road. This history starts with the introduction of colonialism to Singapore in 1819, connecting the small tropical island with the European economy. Once the profitable relationship with the East India Company became available, colonizers and Chinese Immigrants alike took to the disastrous task of deforestation to satiate the demand for gambier leaves and nutmeg seeds. By fitting in the middle of three distinct periods, the history of Emerald Hill represents how suburban Singapore is connected to the colonial origins of the nation through agricultural deforestation, suburbanization, and urbanization.
This weekend, I joined for Nor Syazwan Bin Abdul Majid’s Kampong Clean-Up. Wan is responsible for Wans Ubin Journal, an online community organization motivated by his desire to maintain the community that lives in the Malay Kampong on Singapore’s last rural respite, the island of Pulau Ubin. Today's post brings more photographs captured this weekend, and posits a possible answer to the question posed last week; how can Pulau Ubin survive in the face of Singaporean Modernity?
What’s that in the cover photo? No, it is probably not a UFO parked on an office building. The official story, if you believe it, is that the dome is the symbolic crescendo for the new Supreme Court and the focus of today's post. For today, you can expect me to go into the research behind the building’s history and symbolic intent.
How could a building possibility hold cultural value? Architecture is not just about bricks and mortar. The structural design imbues ideologies and beliefs into our built environments, and from that our human responses are what define us. Culture comes from the peculiar habits and ongoings that are afforded by the places we call home, which is why Dakota Crescent is of such great significance to the history of architecture.
SINGAPORE—Toa Payoh has an outsized role in the history of Singapore’s urban planning. When construction started in 1964, it was expected to set the course for the future of public housing, which is now how 80% of the citizens are housed. The aesthetics, form, and planning for the area have set the tone for the Singapore heartlands. It followed Queenstown’s lead by becoming the second public housing satellite town, and the first to be planned and built entirely by the Housing & Development Board (HDB).
SINGAPORE—For today’s post, I have what amounts to two short essays and one rant. I’ll go through a few old and new HDB blocks, I research a bit about the policies behind public housing, including the ethnic integration policy in Singapore, discuss the unique urban landscape in Singapore, and of course, I start of with the haze. It’s ruining my lungs and the marketability of these images, but also I’ll be damned if I can’t admit that it makes for some damn good atmospheric perspective.
SINGAPORE—Today’s post will go in chronological order of an unsuccessful location scouting for views of Singapore’s Tanjong Pagar Terminal on the 9th of September. The terminal has been cleared of containers in Singapore’s process of opening up the new self-described mega-port at Tuas. This clearing, of course, will have major implications for the future of the area. The vast waterfront area will become the site of new development. The URA has had sealed lips regarding what’s going to happen next, so I’m excitedly waiting for any information. Locals do not necessarily feel so excited though, I was told by one resident. She aired some anxiety about the possibility of her 1977-built HDB block going en bloc and being demolished. With this as context, I was hoping to do two things. The first was to document the areas around the port, and the second was to get an establishing view of the port. I had some success with both points.
