Day 1: Creating Home

On our first day of the workshop, we visited three sites that described housing issues and solutions from the "expert" point of view and saw a public housing development up close. I framed the day based on a morning discussion at the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA): How do you plan for home? Themes related to this reappeared throughout the day, such as belonging, community, identity, and ownership.

At the URA, we watched a Singapore promotional video and were led through an exhibit about Singapore's development history. The URA definitely knew how to put on a show and amazed us with an incredible scale model of the city with an accompanying light show. Kelvin, our host, fielded many questions from us. I found it interesting that the URA has only just begun to include small scale public participation in its development process. In other international cities I've visited, the citizens would have been outraged by the notion of a government authority controlling how they live. Definitely, Singapore could not have developed without its highly controlling sociopolitical system (this is a country where about 80% of the population lives in subsidized housing and there are fines for littering and buying gum). I asked about the possibility of the organization of local government; the answer I received implied that this would not happen any time soon.

We visited the architecture offices of WOHA and ARC Studio, two firms that have designed high-rise, high-density public housing developments. Both firms designed solutions to address two of public housing's problems: lack of individual expression and lack of community. Singapore's public housing developments range from 4-5 story walk-ups to 40+ story high-rises. On the outside, the facades of all these units look identical. The inside configuration is also identical. WOHA's very conceptual designs included ways for the resident to make personal design choices, such as including a different type of window (e.g. bay window or balcony) and a different indoor configuration of walls to create rooms that are appropriate for gradually changing needs. ARC presented Duxton Plain, a public housing development that will be built and also includes a flexible interior. Both designs give the resident ways to express themselves, since public housing here is fairly standardized and homogenous.

High-rises can also easily lack a sense of community, since people live vertically and see and rely on fewer people. Both firms tried to address the issue of community space with sky gardens, or green spaces raised vertically. WOHA even experimented with this concept in its own office; we had a lot of fun walking into an outdoor garden that was almost enclosed in the middle of a building. In practice, we wondered if so many gardens could be maintained. Maintenance was a problem in the US's public housing developments; when a space belongs to everyone, people treat it as if it doesn't belong to them.

We finished our day with a walk around Tiong Bahru, getting a first-hand observation of public housing from the non-expert view. Tiong Bahru was one of the earliest public housing estates in Singapore, and gradually newer residential buildings were added to the original four story walk-ups. We were fortunate to see a fourth-story flat in a 1950s development that was owned by a grandmother who had lived there for 60 years. Her daughter said that there was nothing that she didn't like about her home, except that there was no elevator (although she has gotten used to it). The flat was spacious, and the family owned a nice computer and television (priorities?). We also saw the flat of a British expatriate, which was beautifully renovated. The expat said that community-building was difficult because of the housing development's incredible diversity. For example, there were 20 Chinese workers living in the flat upstairs, which was illegally used as a dorm room. I wonder how communities and the urban fabric will change as a new population moves into these older flats, which are fairly pricey.

And many other questions were raised throughout the day: In a socially engineered city, what will the long-term effects of extending public participation be? How do communities form naturally? Can they physically be designed for? Will parks and programming be enough to create community identity? How do architects balance designing efficiently and designing for community? Is giving residents an option to change the configurations of their home enough to fulfill the desire to express individuality and create self-identity?

Haruka, our TA, also pointed out that there are few items in our hotel giftshop that are uniquely Singaporean, except for the Merlion. What is Singaporean, anyway? The country is a very young ethnic melting pot; can its citizens connect with tradition or culture like other countries can? Does it need to in order to forge a strong sense of national identity? How will this sense of identity be altered with a projected high increase of foreigners?

Oh, yes. And food. Breakfast at the YWCA has been fantastic so far. Each morning there is typically a noodle dish, a rice dish, eggs, potatoes, and other sides. In the city, we typically eat in market/cafeteria areas, getting our food from stalls and sitting at tables with fans whirring above us. The eatery across the street from the URA was incredibly busy during lunch time. At these places that are lined with food stalls, I've learned that the best food comes from the vendors with the longest lines. So far, I've eaten a variety of food: Hainanese chicken rice, Indonesian food, fried carrot cake (egg with white radish), popiah (rolled up crepe with turnip, bean sprouts, and hoisin sauce), coconut cakes, lots of shaved ice, a flat noodle dish with oysters, and a few dishes I've forgotten the names of. It has all been quite yummy.