At home in a mall

An uncalled-for memory was called up by two things I read in the Straits Times yesterday and today: first, some readers had complained about the bright lights of Singapore’s three newest malls, the Ion Orchard, Orchard Central and Iluma@Bugis; and second, the release of Red Cross volunteer, Italian Eugenio Vagni, from his terrorist kidnappers in the southern Philippines.

The memory: summer of 2000, working at Trumpets Playshop to save up for the ridiculously expensive thesis year of my architecture degree.

That summer I was at the Shangri-la Plaza mall Monday to Saturday, from 9am to 9pm, working mostly as a theatre workshop administrative assistant, then as children’s musical theatre teacher three hours each day. I survived this high-energy job on banana milkshakes, frappuccinos, double cheeseburgers and Broadway music.

That summer, too, every morning entailed a metal detector body search and bag-sniffing by bomb-detection dogs before entering the mall. When we set up the makeshift classrooms throughout the mall (for the most part, we used shop spaces that weren’t occupied), security briefed us on the measures they were taking to keep mall visitors, especially the children, safe as there were bomb threats and rumours of bomb threats floating around.

Even as the days of April and May flew by, and no bombs exploded yet, fear was palpable in the chilled air of most Manila malls. For our students, children from the age of three, the bomb-detection dogs became familiar sights, the bag and body searches a “normal” everyday occurrence.

Then towards the end of May, mayhem erupted at two of the metro’s biggest malls. A bomb blew off in a ladies’ washroom in SM Megamall, and within a handful of days, Glorietta mall in Ayala Center also experienced a major blast. Some mallrats died. Other parts of the country also seemed under siege, and there were talks of the need for martial law.

We considered suspending the rest of the summer workshops, including the students’ end-term performance shows. But this is theatre, and the show must go on, if only to not break our budding thespians’ little hearts. And the utterly dependable security staff of Shangri-la Plaza assured our safety.

The year 2000 capped off with five more fatal bomb blasts on December 30th. None of them occurred near or in the Shangri-la Plaza. In January 2001, a bomb- and incompetence-weary Philippines deposed another president. I went back to the mall for another round of summer theatre workshops in 2001, as did most of our faculty and students.

Today I live in a city of sparkling – and more importantly, safe – malls. But Shangri-la Plaza will always be my favourite, because for that one summer, it was the safest place in Manila to be.

Mmmm, nice

Grabbed this from Daddy Likey because who can resist?

It's called Pink House on Scott Street, an Etsy postcard

Hero worship

This totally eclipses meeting Robert Powell.



I was dumbstruck, starstruck, and he wasn't even the I'm-a-star-kinda-guy like Karim Rashid or Marcel Wanders (or some architects I know). Oh no, Ken Yeang was self-deprecating, and yet shatteringly brilliant.

Yes, the Ken Yeang.

Of this:



And a lot more other buildings that, even if I my only input were to make miniature models or draft purlin details, I would so love to be a part of.

I would have easily given up Architecture school if my dad hadn't brought me to KL to see Ken Yeang's works that silly summer break when I thought I would much rather study something else.

So, yes, finally hearing his design principles in person, from him...changes things.

Singapore Houses & Robert Powell

I was going to blog this much earlier, although without the commentary within the parentheses:

Listening to Robert Powell is like taking a crash course on the history of Singapore residential architecture. Not only has he been writing about the local – and the regional – built environment since most of us were in early primary school, but the former associate professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the National University of Singapore has worked with three generations of this country’s designers. He certainly knows what he’s talking about.

When Robert first came here, he said the highest building in the Shenton Way area was the OCBC Centre. Today, the trio of UOB Plaza, OUB Centre and Republic Plaza overshadows it. “The rate of construction in Singapore is so fast that there are new exceptional homes for us to write a book about every three to five years,” the prolific author said.

Robert himself was involved in the development of our urban landscape. He came here in 1984 as a young architect working on the MRT line and stations from Bukit Merah to Clementi. About his newest publication, Singapore Houses: “The great pleasure of writing this book is tracing the roots of innovation in Singapore’s residential architecture and that I personally know each one of the architects featured here.”

For the MRT, he worked with one of Singapore’s old-establishment architects, Tay Kheng Soon (met this pioneer architect at the Asian Megacities Database Conference we organized in UPCA, woohoo!). After that, Robert became a lecturer at NUS and mentored the likes of in-demand architect Aamer Taher, and the up-and-coming such as Randy Chan (who, I can say, are both nice and easy to talk to).

As a lecturer, Robert’s new job included publishing books. He humbly acknowledged the patronage of his friends William Lim, another pioneer architect, and Lena Lim of Select Books, for opening doors for him to first start writing for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and leading up to his series of design books with noted architectural photographer Albert Lim KS by Periplus Publishing.

Yet despite his prestigious connections and work in the architecture industry, Robert has an easy-going, down-to-earth way of speaking about houses as if they – and not just their designers – were intimate friends. In Singapore Houses, Robert chronicles a brief history of Singapore contemporary residential architecture in 26 abodes...

(one week later)

And then I drew a total blank. Because I opened the book and started to really read his work - and now, why don't most architects write the way they speak? Interviewing Robert was so easy, he didn't talk over my head (not like certain architects in whose cars I don't like riding) and he was so accessible. But when you read him, suddenly you need a dictionary by your side. And this is supposed to be a coffee table book!

But I do like the book, because it has some kinda chismis factor - insider backgrounds on the architects who built the houses featured. Robert really knows them; so much so that at the book launch, Singapore's starchitects came in full force.

You know what really impressed me, though? When I asked him what he was currently working on, he gave me his name card and told me about his projects under Ken Yeang of TR Hamzah & Yeang and Llewelyn Davies Yeang, the Ken Yeang.

And to think a certain former editor of mine once said Robert was a hack.

Iluma at Bugis

So I finally went to Iluma at Bugis yesterday, because I had less than an hour between my interview with Robert Powell (more on him later) and the lecture/launch of his new book with Albert Lim, Singapore Houses (not enough time to go back to the office and say hi and then go to the National Library again).









I am not surprised to learn that this new mall was designed by WoHa Architects.

When I first met Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell at their office near Central@Clarke Quay, it erased that initial impression I had - a result of an email rejection to my request to feature their residential projects - immediately. They are both low-key yet very knowledgeable architects, with a great respect for the site on which they're building, and a fun and innovative approach to tropical design and construction materials.

The eye-catching facade of Iluma matches its name so well. As I don't know what went first, the design or the name of the mall, I'll have to assume the architects captured the brief nicely. The interiors indicate how this is a place for young people, with its wavy ceiling contours echoing the painted floors (I know some older people who will complain about getting a headache looking at this).

I liked the metal mesh covering up the raw cement columns and walls. Again, I don't know if this had to do with the design brief, but I think it's a way-cool solution to deal with budget constraints and still look edgy.

I didn't get to snap a pic of the washroom, because the ladies were looking at me strangely as I admired the open walls. The washrooms are not airconditioned. The walls (not the cubicles, of course) have floor-to-ceiling cut-outs that allow you to view the building across the street (the red Bugis Street and Bugis Village) and allow natural light and ventilation into the washroom. It may not be as user-inclined as the renovated washrooms in Paragon and Raffles City, but it's among the best mall washrooms I've seen here.

This is why copycats are big-time schmucks

If you are fortunate enough to visit the Panton exhibit at the National Museum, you will see how the Danish furniture and interior designer Verner Panton developed the S chair from 1968 onwards.

He painstakingly experimented with many permutations of the molded plastic chair, previously in wood then fiberglass, so that the famous cantilever can support weight on its own.







Some copies today are so good that they don't need the fins to support the cantilever; some copies still do. But none of them went to the lengths Panton did to get it right. What gives them the right to profit from his work?

Once more with feeling

Went to the Christian Lacroix the Costumier exhibit on its last day at the National Museum today. It's been a total of four times that I've seen it: the media preview, to watch Airs d'Opera by the Singapore Lyric Opera within the exhibit, while waiting for the media preview of the Panton exhibit to begin, and today with some friends who were visiting from Manila.

I cannot get enough of this couturier's brilliance. Costumes like his fuel princess-dreams and amateur stage actors' ambitions. And during such a time as this, it's a gift to be able to escape to this fantasy world.