Acknowledgements
This thesis is represents my take of what it means to live in the city, a city such as Singapore. My impressions of the city do not stem simply from the glorified imagery of skyscrapers and lush grenery but the importance of the image of the everyday. The notion of an everyday to you and I mean completely different experiences compared to those of the disadvantaged and marginalised. In this case, having fallen within the cracks of city life, I envision how new connections and ecologies of some of the most overlooked people in Singapore come together, and in each other’s presence, heal and mend society in their own small but powerful ways.
To Dr Lilian Chee, thank you for your unwavering support throughout this entire year, from opening my eyes to see that small is truly powerful, to the knowledge and expertise that I have gained from you in exploring architecture beyond the conventional.
To Dr Constance Lau and all whom have mentored me before, I am blessed to have been able to have learnt and grown so much from all of you the past 5 years of architectural education, your guidance has enabled me to be where I am today. It has truly changed the way I view the world and supplemented my life long curiousity of how the world comes together in all its complex ways.
To Zihao, Derong, Rifqi, Jeremy and Si Qi, I am so grateful to have met all of you and to have had you on this year long journey with me. Thank you for your support, for the calls and for trying your best to help when things got tough.
To my Friends, I really would not have made it this far without your weekly messages of support and for listenting to my multiple rants.
To Grandma, who was so happy to have been able to participate in my thesis towards the end and for always cooking for me to make sure I had good food to eat, I am grateful.
Abstract
Pushing back against the waste of mass commodification, this thesis engages the acts of repair and (re)making in the architectural interior. It speculates how a burgeoning ‘Do-It-Yourself’ culture that encapsulates a making-do spirit reframes the role of repair in architecture, shifting from the scale of object intervention to spatial configuration. Going beyond conventional scopes of building crafts/tradespeople, the thesis enlists the skillsets of seamstresses, gardeners and bookbinders, as itinerant and make-do ‘architects’, demonstrating how they might mend spaces occupied by Singapore’s disadvantaged society.
Jalan Kukoh, a symbol of growing inequality, emerges as a marginalized zone where the manifestation of repair through (re)making will occur. Focusing on elderly residents, a speculative scenario is imagined where Mdm Phua’s HDB flat becomes a canvas for the make-do ‘architects’. Scattered around the flat, the devices installed are designed to assist her in her daily tasks, consisting of three humid zones that create microclimates and four types of body braces with an integrated textile pulley-conveyor system. Here, (re)making brings about empowerment and autonomy – ground up initiatives that encourage the reclaiming of space and progress of society.
Keywords:
Repair, Crafts/Tradesmen, Itinerant ‘Architects’, ‘Making-do’ Spirit, the Disadvantaged
A Journey of Chance Encounters
Uncovering the Crafts/Tradesmen
A Journey of Chance Encounters
My investigations were built upon my earlier work, focusing on alternative ways of exploring the city. It started off with an enquiry into Jalan Besar through the lens of the Situationists’. In utilising games of chance as represented through these maps as a means of exploring the site, I uncovered a frequently overlooked repair economy that exists within Jalan Besar as a seen in fragment 2 & 6 of the site map.
Uncovering the Craft/Tradesmen
Further research into this repair economy reveals a dwindling population of the craftsmen and tradesmen who used to populate and is still existing within the area, occupying the shophouses within Jalan Besar.
Legend:
1) Ong Tiong Kang Hardware Pte. Ltd.
2) Hup Yick Engineering Pte. Ltd.
3) Chye Seng Huat Hardware
4) Hup Seng Huat, Chop Huat Kee
5) Koh Khoon Electrical Pte. Ltd.
6) Lucid
7) For The People
8) Wayman Enterprise
9) Wah Joo Seng International Trading Pte. Ltd./Red Eye Smokehouse
10) Jalan Besar Stadium
1) Ong Tiong Kang Hardware Pte. Ltd.
2) Hup Yick Engineering Pte. Ltd.
3) Chye Seng Huat Hardware
4) Hup Seng Huat, Chop Huat Kee
5) Koh Khoon Electrical Pte. Ltd.
6) Lucid
7) For The People
8) Wayman Enterprise
9) Wah Joo Seng International Trading Pte. Ltd./Red Eye Smokehouse
10) Jalan Besar Stadium
The scope of repair within this minor shrunken ecology of craftsmen and tradesm pertains mostly to auto-car repair and carpentry, highlighting the obsolescence of other trades that used to exist within the area such as rattan weaving or cobblers.
Further enquiry into the expanded network crafts and trades in Singapore reveals an enduring group who continue to thrive. Each with their own unique skills and assets, this thesis enlists the skillsets of these craft/tradesmen - the seamstress, the gardener and the bookbinder, as itinerant and make-do ‘architects’, demonstrating how they might mend spaces occupied by Singapore’s marginalised and disadvantaged society.
Jalan Kukoh’s Elderly
The Remade Interior Landscape
The (Re)Making
Jalan Kukoh’s Elderly
Jalan Kukoh is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Singapore. It does not seem to match the economic dynamics and to be outside of the Singaporean narrative of ongoing progress. Such sites become symbols of growing inequalities and emerge as marginalized zones.
The residents in Jalan Kukoh can be categorized into 3 main groups, the lonely elderly, the deprived families and the lost youths. I have decided to narrow my focus on the elderly, in hopes to also address the issue of a rapidly aging population in Singapore. This is supported by documentaries on Rice Media1, where they have interviewed of residents living within the estate.
1 Rice. “The View from Kukoh: Mary.” RICE, December 11, 2019. https://www.ricemedia.co/view-kukoh-mary/.
To a certain extent , most of the residents in Jalan Kukoh have most of their basic needs taken care of by the government. It’s not much, there is a roof over their heads; they have discounted or even free medical care; there are well-meaning organisations who provide their meals. Rather, what they lack is being able to meet their social and emotional needs.
Thus, this thesis aims to create a means to help these people effectively cope with the challenges they face, and find their way out. Here, repair of society starts with the most vulnerable members first - how a cast of non-professionals (architectural) seek to fix aspects of society from the ground up.
Here depicts the scene of the HDB (Housing Development Board) flat of Mdm Phua, an elderly woman in Jalan Kukoh with mobility problems. A warped perspective of sections of the flat were stitched together, highlighting the unfolding of everyday events that occur. It is reimagined as a canvas for the itinerant ‘architects’, where each type of space is redesigned through remaking to better suit her needs. The scenes from left to right illustrate the various devices made by the seamstress, gardener and bookbinder together, occuring within the toilet, laundry, kitchen, dining, living and corridor spaces respectively. At a more fundamental level, it is but a peek into how acts of making can cultivate the well-being of individuals and communities through changing our relationships with the domestic environment and social systems in our lives through ground-up initiatives.
(click to view)
The (Re)Making
Scattered around the HDB flat, the devices are designed to assist Mdm Phua in tasks such as bathing, cooking, taking care of her house plants as well as to help her train her mobility and soothe her knee pains. They can be categorised into three humid zones that creates microclimates within the home and four types of body braces, with an integrated pulley-conveyor system as a means of engaging with the devices . Each device is made using the specific skills and assets of either craft or a combination of all. Through such acts of making, the process of repair is already occurring, both physically and metaphorically. It requires her to remain at all times within the process of constant maintenance of the home environment, challenging the conventional use of domestic spaces through different modes of engagement.
Humid Zones:
1. Laundry-Planter System
2. Deployable Shower System
3. Herbal Hydroponics System
Textile Pulley-Conveyor System
Body Braces:
5. The Cooking Brace
6. The Showering Brace
7. The Walking Brace
8. The Gardening Brace
1. Laundry-Planter System
2. Deployable Shower System
3. Herbal Hydroponics System
(click to view)
(click to view)
5. The Cooking Brace
6. The Showering Brace
7. The Walking Brace
8. The Gardening Brace
(click to view)
The Seamstress
The Gardener
The Bookbinder
Route of the Mobile Units
Mobile units of travelling crafts/tradesmen will beconstructed with the emptied shipyard at Kwong Soon & Co. Engineering in Jalan Besar, it also acts as a parking space. As the machines are mobile and deployable, they will travel across different areas in Singapore to intervene in the daily lives
of citizens.
Currently, the route they would take is from Jalan Besar, where they will collect materials and set up the mobile units, to Jalan Kukoh.
(click to view)
(click to view)