Writer: Justin Zhuang
Public seating in Singapore’s hawker centre has become barriers because of social distancing measures. While the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged how we share spaces in the city, sharing will persist. “As a matter of fact, it will challenge us in discovering and designing new ways to share,” said Dr Ye Zhang and Dr Jeffrey Chan. They and other designers and citizens are delving deeper into the different ways in which we share spaces in our city, with one another and with nature. These efforts are presented at the 17th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition Singapore Pavilion from May to September 2021, which feature 16 built and speculative projects, based on the theme of “to-gather: the architecture of relationships”.
We catch up with some of them.
Both Sides, Now
It is sometimes said, with both candour and a tinge of macabre humour, that the two main events which bring families and friends together, are weddings and funerals. A humanised city must give dignity to death and dying. Despite its significance, conversations around care, grief, and dying are often considered taboo in Singapore. Both Sides, Now is a project that uses artistic processes to normalise end-of-life conversations in public spaces.
Both Sides, Now is a multidisciplinary arts-based community engagement project that seek to create end-of-life friendly communities. Presented by Lien Foundation, Ang Chin Moh Foundation, Drama Box and ArtsWok Collaborative since 2013, the project has created and installed work with various diverse communities in Singapore on living well and leaving well.
www.bothsidesnow.sg
Kok Heng Leun, Artistic Director of Drama Box and Ngiam Su-Lin, Executive Director of ArtsWok Collaborative reflect on how important the subject is and how physical spaces can influence how people are coming together to support each other.
End-of-life matters are highly personal. Why is it important for communities and the whole city to manage this together?
Su-Lin: Dying is a very relational act and we are all part of communities. So, how can we create a space to feel like we’re not alone in this? Community engagement allows us to learn from one another, and the arts offers a space to practise having these difficult conversations.
Heng Leun: Cities tend to only talk about how to live well. I think it must also learn to embrace dying in order to respect the human being. That’s why it is important that it’s not just individuals, but the whole city must recognise the importance of living and dying with dignity. The COVID-19 pandemic has also shown why we must acknowledge dying in a very real way.
A past film screening by Both Sides, Now. Image credit: Both Sides, Now
What is the role of the urban environment in bringing people together?
Su-Lin: Going into residential estates was key for us to get to the heart of communities in Singapore. By bringing end-of-life out into the open and literally to people’s doorsteps, we made the issue visible and safe to engage with. Death and dying is part of the everyday and we wanted to remind people that it is natural.
Heng Leun: In Chong Pang, they had readily available spaces that were well used for communal gatherings, so the residents were already comfortable with one another when we came in. Thus, we focused on facilitating discussions on end-of-life issues and creating opportunities for the residents to talk about it with their family members back at home.
Telok Blangah did not have readily available spaces that residents naturally gathered around. This made it difficult for us to talk to them at first. We began engaging the residents by asking them how to improve the communal spaces, and even convinced one to open her house for neighbours to be part of a cooking programme.
How does your project reflect the theme of “to gather”?
Su-Lin: Heng Leun created a participatory theatre piece, “Last Dance”, where audiences could respond to a personal story about a mother and son working through the loss of his father. There were many layers of gathering: the community sat around a public performance space to watch the show; they could participate at various points to unpack what happened; while other audiences listened to what they had to say.
There were also those residents who simply sat outside the performance space and watched throughout. So, it was a space designed for many layers of people to gather.
Heng Leun: Our work in Telok Blangah moved from the communal to the personal with one of the elderly residents. At first, she did not want to interact with me, but over time, she opened up and now even welcomes me to her house when I visit.
It says a lot when a stranger gives you access to their space. It’s no longer an art project, but about building relations. Isn’t urban planning about organising space so that sociality can happen?
What are some principles to consider when designing spaces for people to gather?
Su Lin: People want to create their own presence in a community. It can be temporary or relationships in space, but we need space to do that. It’s not about creating comfort like having tables and seats, but more consideration for social engagement to happen.
Heng Leun: Many public spaces with high footfall have been turned into commercial spaces. We need to rethink this because it takes away social interactions.
We also need space for things to be slightly messier and trust people to organise their spaces. We created a mural in Telok Blangah for our project and were initially worried it would be torn down after we left. Today, it is still intact. We also left a huge table at the void deck and some of the residents have taken up the responsibility to clean and use it.
Architecture of Sharing Culture
In a 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 a shareable asset and an enabler for more effective sharing activities.
The NUS-Tsinghua Design Research Initiative for Sharing Cities seeks to bring together scholars, students, experts and professionals to study emerging space-sharing practices and explore new dedicated typologies of shared spaces in the city. It is a collaboration between the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore (NUS) and the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, in partnership with DP Architects.
www.nt-drisc.org
Dr Ye Zhang and Dr Jeffrey Chan reflect on considerations and implications for architects and designers in creating spaces that motivate sharing and build stronger communities.
Dr Zhang is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore and Dr Chan is an Assistant Professor with the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences cluster, Singapore University of Technology and Design.
What are “sharing cities”?
Ye and Jeffrey: The city is a geographical configuration where human activities congregate. The activities are highly differentiated because of the division of labour and specialisation, but they also overlap in a great number of ways. Their juxtapositions generate new interactions, negotiations, co-operations, and collaborations — the richness that enables sharing activities and practices.
Sharing does not always naturally occur even when many different and overlapping enterprises are pooled in one place. To share effectively or more efficiently, we need to plan or design for an enabling infrastructure. For example, tool-hobbyists may want to share a collection of tools with others near them, but how would they reach out to these prospective people?
By using digital platforms or other means to organise the sharing, the good could then foster new social relations and new social capital, which are among the key values of “sharing cities”.
A speculative future envisioning hypothetical urban realities that encourage and cultivate sharing. Image credit: NUS-Tsinghua Design Research Initiative for Sharing Cities
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our understanding of sharing. How might we rethink the design of “sharing cities”?
Ye and Jeffrey: It is the central concern of our recently published book, Sharing by Design1. We argue that humans are the only species that can synchronously design and share at the same time — what American psychologist, Michael Tomasello, refers to as “shared intentionality2”. We not only share resources, but also ideas that can improve how we share them. When present configurations no longer work — for instance, because of the pandemic — we can modify and reshape them to enable sharing in more effective, efficient, ethical and beautiful ways. The pandemic has revoked some of our most deeply cherished ways of sharing space. In our hawker centres, “social distancing” has turned what used to be a seat into a barrier-in-place.
The pandemic is challenging existing paradigms of sharing space, but it does not, and cannot, revoke sharing. In fact, it will challenge us in discovering and designing new ways to share.
Ye and Jeffrey: Our book discusses a handful, one of which is that architects and designers must go beyond the design of cartesian, geometric and material space by envisioning architecture as one of the many components of a far larger system.
To paraphrase architect and activist Stavros Stavrides’ remarks, without changing the spirit of his words: while inventive architectural solutions can contribute to the creation of sharing configurations (for example, co-working or co-living spaces), architecture alone cannot guarantee that these spaces continue to motivate sharing.
What features and conditions can be designed to ensure that a shared space can aspire to a sharing practice? In our book, we recall the concept of the “guarantor” by American philosopher and systems scientist C.W. Churchman (1913 - 2004)3. A guarantor aims to guarantee the performance of a system in the direction envisioned by the designer.
In the context of sharing, a possible guarantor is to situate the sharing configuration in a larger system of other reinforcing relations and programmes. For instance, if given a brief to design a co-working space, the architect may counter-propose to add a makerspace to create a self-reinforcing ecology that can in turn attract other sharing activities. The architect may also become involved in the design of the governance and operation of this newly formed community. Regardless of the form the guarantor may take, it must augment the architecture to go beyond its materiality towards the performance of some collective good.
Pulau Ubin Lives
Pulau Ubin is an offshore island that sits northeast of mainland Singapore. The settlements on Pulau Ubin are called kampung, a term which comes from the Malay verb berkampung (coming together). The houses on this island have functioned as gathering spaces and actively facilitate dialogue across diverse sections of society. The opportunity for Dr Imran bin Tajudeen to document the architecture of some of the Malay houses on Pulau Ubin in 20184 has reaffirmed the value of such houses, not just as a historical and architectural record but for encouraging communities to gather in shaping the island’s cultural landscape.
Dr Imran is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Department of Malay Studies and Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore. He researches on architectural and urban histories in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
singapurastories.com/2020/04/studio-do
Dr Imran reflects on how these kampung houses are integral to the island’s cultural history and why those that survive continue to serve as living community spaces today and into the future.
Why is Pulau Ubin a “socio-cultural green vernacular”?
Dr Imran: Pulau Ubin’s significance is more than just a space for adventure and greenery. It is also a cultural landscape, encompassing a variety of examples of timber architecture, communities and place histories. Although we nowadays talk about the island as a nature park, it has historically had a thriving population — at its peak, there were thousands of residents — who lived in kampung houses.
Many of these homes were abandoned or demolished in the 1990s. Today, a small group of residents still live in what was once a large Malay village in the island’s eastern part.
Dr Imran (in white shirt) and his team, together with Madam Kamariah Abdullah at the 760D kampung house. Image credit: Studio DO: PULAU
How have the surviving kampung houses been turned into community spaces?
Dr Imran: Each house has its own history. Two of the houses we studied host activities that are part and parcel of why people visit Pulau Ubin today. Since 2003, house 760D owned by Madam Kamariah Abdullah hosts cooking classes that use the surrounding herbs and plants.
After taking over the house when her grandmother passed away, she teamed up with her sister and some friends to run these classes to financially sustain its upkeep.
Another house, 488A, is owned by Ahmad Kassim, who runs a drinks stall, hosts regular school and tour group activities, and is one of the last residents with knowledge of constructing traditional vernacular houses. He is also familiar with different types of wood as well as the island’s trees. His is the kind of embodied forms of knowledge found in a community that would be lost if not properly documented.
Why is restoring the kampung houses important to Pulau Ubin’s community?
Dr Imran: Cultural landscapes are interconnected and all encompassing. You cannot divorce a place setting from community memories, so there is no point in talking about Pulau Ubin’s cultural history without these houses.
The future of Pulau Ubin will probably see a combination of residential and retreat settings. It brings to mind offshore islands elsewhere, such as Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, both in Massachusetts, United States, where old wooden houses and shops form part of the reason to visit.
Pulau Ubin contains reminders and living entities of a settlement that you cannot find on the main island. It becomes like a historical record, an architectural record and even a landscape record.
A drawing of 760D kampung house as part of Dr Imran’s documentation. Image credit: Studio DO: PULAU
Dr Imran: Since the late 1970s, the notion of “kampung spirit” has been used to stand for an old sense of community and contrast with a perceived lack of sociality in modern public housing in Singapore. The way we invoke it suggests people are nostalgic about how residential communities gathered together more easily in the past.
One reason people living in a kampung were closer knit is because you gathered as a community out of your own volition. In many cases, you build your own houses, so the sense of ownership is stronger; some of the streets are even named after one’s grandparents.
Singapore Pavilion at Venice Biennale
These projects are part of the 16 built and speculative projects that are presented at the 17th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition Singapore Pavilion, based on the theme of “To gather: the architecture of relationships”. These projects explore how designers, academics, artists, citizens and others are forging new spatial contracts and paradigms on what it means to be living well. The Venice Biennale is a global platform that presents emerging and new architectural ideas and projects from around the world. Singapore has been participating in the Biennale since 2004. The 2021 event is from 22 May to 21 November 2021. to-gather.sg
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Top image: A past Both Sides, Now exhibition and art festival, entitled Closer, held in Chong Pang in 2018. Image credit: Zinkie Aw
1 The book, "Sharing by Design", by authors Jeffrey Kok and Ye Zhang, published in March 2020, is a guidebook that connects sharing with design. With urgent environmental issues and scarce urban resources, sharing could be the new approach to sustainability. The book explores considerations, principles and ideas for designers in purposefully designing sharing systems in the urban environment.
2 Shared intentionality enables humans to share goals and other mental states with others and at the same time coordinate their individual roles and perspectives within acts of collaboration and communication. It is this shared intentionality and the cognitive infrastructure supporting it that may be the crucial feature that makes humans unique.
3 C.W. Churchman pioneered the “systems approach” in 1968 as a way of thinking about the ways in which human organisations work, change and interact with their environments. It is interdisciplinary and an approach to problem solving and decision-making.
4 In 2017, the National Parks Board initiated concerted efforts together with the Friends of Ubin Network to restore five kampung houses on Pulau Ubin for community use in the short-term in continuing to shape the communities and heritage on the island, keeping its idyllic charm for future generations.