DOMESTIC CAPITAL:
Care, Labour, and the City

Studio Tutor
A/P Dr. Lilian Chee and Wong Zihao

Level
NUS, M.Arch (1), AR5802

Academic Year
2022/2023, Semester 2

Type
Design Studio

Students
Chiam Yong Qin, Daryl Ang Sheng Kong, Liu Anyi, Liu Diancong, Manifah Wani Bte Abdul Rahim, Teng Fengshi, Tong Man Yu Miranda, Turki Youssef, Zhao Wangyue

Reviewers
Ar. Adrian Lai, Director, Meta Architecture
Lin Derong, Senior Architectural Designer, FARM Architects
Adj Asst Prof. Peter Sim, Director, FARM Architects
Tham Wai Hon, Director, Tacit Design

Ribbon Image: Liu Diancong

SELECTED WORKS

  • by Daryl Ang Sheng Kong

    This project engages with the invisible issue of food waste in our cities, beginning with food compost- ing in and around the home/neighbourhood. Through the design of games, it encourages children to develop an interest in vermicomposting, and following that, proposes a design for a modular vermi- composting system that can be easily installed in urban schools and community gardens.

    While the games are designed to teach children about the importance of composting, the different types of waste that can be composted, and how to care for the worms, the system also includes a dig- ital platform that allows children to track the progress of their compost and share their experiences with others.

    The project not only tackles food waste but also promotes environmental education and sustainable behaviour in children. By making vermicomposting fun and accessible, the project inspires a new generation of eco-conscious citizens who are committed to reducing their environmental impact.

  • by Liu Diancong

    Influenced by social media, “digital content creators” have become a trendy form of work, allowing people to share their lifestyles and even businesses to be created. It seems most of these types of work are made and experienced digitally, result- ing in disembodied relations of people and workplaces. Yet, digital content creators are always on the look out for cheap and flexible work accommodations, affording and negotiating their working needs at basic levels: for example, a working desk.

    My project is anchored at a mixed-use podium of an old HDB (public housing) typology in Chinatown, where housing units are built on top of the podium. The podium is occupied by stores that are mostly outdated and falling out of synchronization with the surroundings; the shopkeepers are either struggling to sustain the rent or unable to afford the long-term lease. My project explores how to create a flexible spatial presence for those creators with lower prices, and in the process, I find a way as well for these business provisions to be shared with the residential community. What follows is thus a reinvention of the often segregated relationship of private(businesses)-public(residential), working-home, and podium-flats, typologies of Singapore’s older housing blocks in the city.

    With this housing block in Chinatown, my project test beds this reinvented business/neighbourhood typologies through the design of manipulable spatial elements for the future digital city (of movable walls, shelves, crates, and planter boxes), that in fact double up as neighourhood facilities when not rented by content creators (as a landscape park, fitness corners, public forums, flea market, and library).