Sparch 2011 Annual Publication

8/2/2019 Sparch 2011 Annual Publication

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ShanghaiInternationalCruiseTerminalPhotographyby JohnCurran

Sparch is an independentarchitectural practice.

www.sparchasia.com

Recto Verso Issue No 2In Medias Res

BEIJING

Raffles City BeijingUnit 10051 Dongzhimen Nan DajieBeijing 100007 PRC

SINGAPORE

11C Mount SophiaOld School, Unit B1-16Singapore228461

t +65 6396 0328f +86 6396 0968

LONDON

48 Charlotte StreetLondon W1T 2NS

t +44 (0)20 3356 9755f +44 (0)20 3356 9755

11005

100007

t +86 10 8402 1240f +86 10 8402 1249

SHANGHAI

Studio 3204Block 3, Bridge 810 JianGuo Zhong LuShanghai 200025

108 3 3204

200025

t +86 21 6445 8041f +86 21 6445 0169


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Ice Breaker Contributors

MING YIN is a co-founding associate director atSPARCH. She graduated from the National University ofSingapore in 2004 and joined the Alsops Singapore of cethe same year. After working on the Clarke Quay project,she relocated to Alsops Shanghai of ce in 2005. Mingyinwas the project architect for the award-winning Raf esCity Beijing project. After the founding of SPARCH in2009, Mingyin was appointed to associate director. Shenow leads an array of projects from the Beijing of ce,contributes to business development as well ascommunicating SPARCHs design aspirations to potentialclients and developers.

STEPHEN PIMBLEY graduated from the Royal Collegeof Art London in 1984 where he was a Gulbenkianscholar. He started his professional career at RichardRogers and Partners. In 1990, he joined WilliamAlsops studio as project architect for the award-winning Htel du Dpartement des Bouches du Rhnein Marseille. In 2008 after seven years of working inAsia and along with former Alsop colleagues - Stephenestablished Sparch and is a lot happier to be part ofan independent business, his regret of workingpredominantly in Asia is that the rugby union is televisedat very uncivilised hours. Stephen is renowned amongst

his colleauges for his ability to remember useless facts.

FEI YIN is the founder of whiteismycolour - a graphicdesign studio as well as a paper design brand based inShanghai, China. Fei Yins work specializing in art direction,corporate identity, print and book design. Her internationalwork is known for a contemporary and crafted aesthetic.She is the designer for recto verso.www.whiteismycolour.com

Alex / UK PavilionI think its a very simple yetpowerful design, withoutbeing a huge building likemany of theothers.Itholdscomfortable spaces to restand enjoy of the view around.Mark / China PavilionI like the china pavilion TheCrown of the East, - becauseit re ects its identiy ofChinese Architecture and thatwhat makes them proud of.Sunny / UK PavilionNot just the building, but theperformance art inside and ofcourse, the SEEDS!Calvin / UK PavilionI like the UK pavilion simplybecause its beautiful. I likevery how the furry effectmakes the building seem todematerialize.Fanny / UK PavilionConceptualyandtechnologicallyMaggie / Spanish pavilionNot only for its architecture,but how with sounds, imagesand smells they managed tocreate a intense experienceof the Spanish culture, withsome sangria waiting for youat the end.Gabriel / SpainThe exhibition makes youwanna go!Simone / Vanke NantongGanzha sales of ce pavillionI love it!Jeanne: Vietnam pavilion.I like the material and thefeeling. I had a dream i couldhave a house made of bamboowhen i was young. So i wasexcited when i saw Vietnampavilion.In the future, if i can iwant to design my dreamlikehouse!Diana / Germany pavilionHighscientificandtechnologicalcontentLukas / CzechBecause I know the moststory of creating pavilion andalthoughitsmyhome pavilionthere was something new andsurprising for me.Andirus / UK PavilionStrong conceptualy andtechnologicallyAdrian / Netherlands

My favorite pavilion was theDutch Pavilion because I feltlike I was walking through theworld of Dr. Seuss and alsogot lunch with the sheepShufan / Spanish pavilionHaiwen / UK pavilionIts concept: a city should liveharmoniously with naturesymbolised by the seeds. Theseeds are our hopes for agreener environment for ourfuture generations.Stephen / Coach ParkNever seen so many coaches!Conyee: ChileIts really good have you seenit? nice progression, leadingone from the dark entranceinto a suspended capsule,then a big stepped open space

lled with diffused sunlight...everything made out of naturalwood, exposing the roughtexture of the Chilean wood.Wen Hui: Vanke pavilion

Cos it is one idea down tothe last detail. n its by someunknown local designer!Anonymously nice whats yourfav? Cant say British cos ihaven been insideAngie Ang / Korean pavilionlooks nice from the photos,I thought it was clever that itwas made up of han-geul, thekorean alphabetDarmaganda / UK PavilionBecause it is simple, pure,almost modular, yet alsofantastic and organic. And itis in the same principal as theUK ag graphic.Handoko / Spain PavilionI like their using of materials.For me its a combinationbetween old and new. Wickerweaving is representingthe tradition for both Chinaand Spain (old element).And the steel framework isrepresenting both countriesas a modern sophisticatedcountries with advance tech-nologies (new element). Andits complimenting each other,dynamic shape + traditionalmaterial = something newand eye catching.Bing Yang, Sunny / CzechRepublic PavilionSimple but fantasy andmeaningfulChristian Taeubert / MexicanPavilion A bunch of colleagues and Ihad a few pitchers of frozenMargaritas at the pavilionsrestaurant. The swerve to theleft after getting up felt justlike walking the loop of theDanish pavilionCary Cheng / ShanghaiCorporate PavilionIt was my friends project and IspentsometimeonsiteduringconstructionMingYinTan/ SpanishPavilionby EMBTFor its tactile qualities. Onecould sense, touch and smellthe unique quality of theinterior space enlivened bythe intricately woven wickerfaade panels.Cristina Perez Guillen / SpainBecause not only the outside

butalsotheinsiderepresentedSpain very well. The exhibitionwas very powerful, dynamicand showed the essence ofthe country. A Pavilion itselfhas to be a container, which isbasically a skin and the wickeris a typical material in Spain.The shape of the buildingis very dynamic too, which Ithink goes with the Spanishcharacter. An Expo Pavilion isa representation of a country,teaching the visitors about itshistory, culture, society, etc.I think the Spanish Pavilionwas the one that representedits country the bestTamara Hains / South KoreanPavilion CleverintegrationoftheKoreanculture into the faade itsalphabet forms the faadepanels. Its playful PacMan-like form creates a seriesof interesting spaces that

What was your favouriteShanghai EXPO pavilion?

CHRISTIAN TAEUBERT joined Sparch in early 2007and was appointed associate the following year. He ledthe curtain wall faade team for Raf es City Ningboand worked on several large-scale projects includingRaf es City Beijing and Zhabei Media Valley. Christianhelps maintain the integrity and consistency of Sparchsdesigns throughout project detailing phases. His extensiveexperience in carpentry allows him to contributepractical know-how on everything from the selection ofbuilding materials to the construction process. Christianreceived his Master of Architecture from the Universityof Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden. After working at

Morphosis and The Next Enterprise, he joined PlasmaStudio in 2003. In 2005, Christian moved to China wherehe worked for the of ces of MAD and Graft. In 2008, hebecame a registered member of the German Chamberof Architects.

ontKiaragraphyby MilkPhotographie

encourage people to explorethe entire structure. Itsclearly de ned methodologyfor colour treatment createsa strong visual expression- monochromatic on theexterior vs. coloured panels inthe cut-outsTze Aung Javen Ho / UKSitting on a nature like land-scape, it functioned beyondan ordinary pavilion but anextraordinary art piece foreveryone. Just look at itWei Lu / UKIt is a romantic dream cometrue in architecture wayEldine Heep / UKYeah, got to say UK. Reason:Over publicized, but still themost groundbreaking designof all the pavilions; some-where between installationpiece and architecture. At

least from outside, which ishow far I got at most pavilionsAndrew Lo / UKMost beautiful and mostinteresting architecturally,conceptually it worked andthe execution wasnt so badeither (considering its wasmade in china). The UK waswell represented by one ofits leading designers, with afresh/ innovative approachwhich avoided the dullness ofother theme-park pavilionsDominic Black / UKHavent seen any of them inreal life anyway And youdiscussed a few of the reasonthere already. Formally,conceptually, presenting aplace through it sheer varietyof things/ aspects etc

JOHN CURRAN John established the Shanghai Studio in2004, and co-founded Sparch in 2009. He has led numerousprojects including the Queen Mary Medical ResearchCentre in London, winner of the RIBA InternationalAward, and was responsible for the design and deliveryof Shanghais New International Cruise Terminal, ariverfront development on Shanghais North Bund,completed in 2010. As a well-published member of theAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Johngives presentations on the topics of space urbanism andthe cultural celebration of space. He has taught at theUniversity of Hong Kong, Shanghai Study Centre. Whennot working he attempts to star gaze through telescopesthat pick up very little through our murky city skies!


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Intro The sub heading for this the second issue of Recto Verso isIn Media Res (in the middle of things) a phrase denoting anarrative convention for starting in the middle of the story, asituation which often requires some back-pedalling to explainactions that occurred perhaps before the story began.

The writer must decide how to start a book, most startat the beginning of a story, working their way through the middletowards the conclusion. The story progresses in linear fashion,perhaps without re ection on what has occurred before.

Starting a story in medias res is a long held tradition inthe writing of novels, the earliest example of in medias resbelongs to Homer who begins The Odyssey in the middle of histale. The Odyssey starts with nearly all of Odysseus journey hometo Ithaca after 25 years of monster slaying and people greetingcomplete.

So not unlike Odysseuss and 25 years of monster slayingwe are starting our new story at the mid point of our collectivecareers, expository conversations relating the pertinent past onlyas immoderation, sights being rmly xed on the future.

The opening of Shakespeares Hamlet takes place afterhis father has died; beginning his narrative thus facilitatedimmediate action with a few snippets of dialogue devoted to whathad already transpired. We share with Hamlet our own fatherghosts of the past but can declare they are truly forever busted.

Sparch as of December 2010 is an independent businesswholly owned by its founding partners.

Thank goodness!When I say Thank goodness! this is not merely

a euphemism for thanking a superior being, I really do meanthank goodness!There is a debt of gratitude owed for the goodnessshown to us over this last 12 months. So a big thank you to ourstaff, clients, friends and family who have helped us on ourSparch Odyssey thus far.

In this the year of the rabbit the last word goes to BugsBunny.

I aint upside-down Doc,YOU are!

agshipStore.Lot10Kuala Lumpurgraphby TimNolan


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feature

John Curran Sparchs Shanghai studiors extraordinary design of three

pods suspended on cables from atable top structure at the centre ofnghai Crusie Terminal developmentompletion. The three amorphousd table top structure that hover over

c performance space have now beenand will be tted out by the iconiccar manufacturer Ferrari. The podsentually contain a destination visitoron including themed restaurants thatmazing views over the Huang Pu Riverdscaped river embankment.The steel framed pods engineered

R are clad in a varying palette of solid,and transparent materials that combinean exhilarating centrepiece of thisrk project.

Apart from the of ce buildings stretchingalong the river front that make up the dominantcomponent of the Cruise Terminal Sparchdesigned an events pavilion, a media garden,the Winter Garden featured opposite and theGallery building nicknamed the Peanutbecause of its distinct shape.

The partially elevated building is veryconspicuous due its extraordinarily shapedouter skin. Large triangular glass units, whichconsist of differentcolored panes, make thebuilding look like a work of art; an exhibitionpiece. In the interior of the building, the offsetstory levels and the unusual faade structurecreate astonishing spatial impressions andviews outside.

The unusual faade and the specialconstruction of the complex roof structurewas developed by RFR engineers. The Schcospecial aluminium construction enabledlarge span widths with the greatest possibleprefabrication and complete exibility in the

joints. This is the rst such three-dimensionalsculptural faade to be implemented in China.

Section through the Gallery and adjacentof ce building.

SHANGHAI

CRUISETERMINALWINTERGARDEN

SHANGHAICRUISETERMINAL

GALLERY

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1 0 OGRAPHY AND TEXTHN CURRAN

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXTBY SVEN STEINER


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CLARKEQUAYREVISITED

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OGRAPHY BY TIM NOLANBY STEPHEN PIMBLEY

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s after the of cial opening of Clarke Quay business is still booming with 100% occupancy of the restaurants and shop units and a of tenants waiting to take up available rental space.

e Quay continues to be one of the most iconic destinations in the city attracting tourists and locals alike testament to the ground breakingy installations and innovations in public space design by Sparchs founding directors Jan Clostermann and Stephen Pimbley.

Nolans recent photo essay of Clarke Quay shows just how vibrant and popular this place continues to be!

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I SPEND MY TIME TRAVELLING AROUND POPPING IN AND OUT OPLACES AND STAYING PERHAPS A FEW NIGHTS BUT I RARELY GTO KNOW THE PLACES OR THE PEOPLE. SPENDING SOME TIMSTEPPING OUTSIDE THIS ROUTINE AND DOING SOMETHING THAIS NOT SELFISHLY MOTIVATED IS LIKE GETTING YOUR BATTERRECHARGED BY SOME SORT OF ENERGY FAIRY GODMOTHER. I KYOU NOT THE SPIRIT AND GOODWILL OF THE STAFF AND KIDS FAI-FAH IS SO INFECTIOUS IT CAN CARRY YOU THROUGH MANDULL DAY WITH A PERMANENT SMILE ON YOUR FACE.

PERHAPS IM AT FAI-FAH FOR SELFISH REASONS AFTERALL? WE ALL NEED SUPPORT FROM TIME TO TIMEAND IN A WAY BEING AT FAI-FAH SUPPORTS ME, IT MAKES MFEEL GOOD! PERHAPS YOU CAN BE AN ARCHITECAND SMILE AT THE SAME TIME? FAI-FAH LESSON NUMBERONE!

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TEXT BY STEPHEN PIMBLEY

arch

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IN OCTOBER 2010 SPARCH WERE ASKED BY THE TMBANKING ORGANISATION IN THAILAND TO ASSIST WITH THEIR CSR

OGRAMME FAI-FAH (MEANS LIGHT-ENERGY)FAI-FAH IS A PROJECT THAT SEEKS TO CREATE CHANGE IN

AI SOCIETY BY WORKING WITH UNDER PRIVILEGED CHILDREN INEIR LOCAL COMMUNITY BY USING ARTS AND CREATIVE THINKINGSOCIAL TOOLS. THE AMBITION IS THAT THE CREATIVE ENERGY

ENERATED FROM THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES WHERE FAI-H OPERATES WILL GROW INTO A PROFOUND CHANGE FOR THAICIETY AT LARGE.

SPARCHS INVOLVEMENT WITH FAI-FAH COVERS THREFURBISHMENT OF 2 SHOP HOUSES LOCATED IN THE PRACHAUTDISTRICT OF BANGKOK. THE VARIOUS ARTS AND CREATPROGRAMMES CONTAINED IN THE CLIENTS BRIEF ARE ARRANGOVER 4 FLOORS AND INCLUDE: THE LIVING ROOM, A LIBRARYARTS STUDIO, A DANCE STUDIO AND MULTI-PURPOSE ROOF TWORKSHOP SPACE.

THE DESIGN WAS DEVELOPED AT INTERACTIVE WORKSHOHELD AT FAI-FAH ONE WITH MANY OF THE CHILDREN / TEENAGEVOLUNTEER ARTS STAFF AND MEMBERS OF TMBS CSR TEAM.

FAI-FAH TWO PRACHAUTIS WILL BE OPEN MID 2011.


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ners do not operate in a vacuum. They are i n uenced by subjectsare drawn towards, sometimes often subconsciously so. Wemulate a library of ideas in our heads (the worlds only real

cy), not really knowing how to archive, or how useful they maya designer, or someone interested in design, what is your passion?topics roll off the tongue without you dwelling on it? If we takea given interest, does it lean towards fashion, music, photography,ng..extreme crocheting?nts from Parsons University in New York visited Sparchs Shanghai

in November 2010 to discuss their thesis project. We had aating chat about the importance of allowing yourself to drift andupon unrelated elds that somehow delightfully feedback into

oryboard of the day.My eld of interest is Aerospace, considered by somean anorak topic, but if described in terms of dreamingup habitats for living in weightlessness, or ponderingspace urbanism, its a rather sexy anorak. But space asa topic is pie in the sky stuff right ! Maybe not. Considerhow space has opened up to private enterprise in recentyears. The American Robert Bigelow founded BigelowAerospace, and will soon place in atable hotels i n space,having already own a full scale prototype in orbit, calledGenesis 1. Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic, andwill soon roll out his eet of space planes, having already

ight tested the prototype called Spaceship 1. These willtake off from the purpose built spaceport completed inNew Mexico, designed by Norman Foster.

wealthy patrons have also set up their own private spacerises, after all, as the saying goes - No Bucks, No Buck Rogers.

Allen cofounder of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon, Elonfounder of Paypalthe list goes on. These extraordinary riskhave a common purpose, to open up space for public recreation,hing the government space agencies are unable, unwilling orrmitted to do. The passenger dream ticket costs a fortune, from200,000 to catch a ride on Bransons suborbital lick, up to USD 25

n to book a ticket to the International Space Station through theany Space Adventures. The theory goes that prices will plungeembryonic market matures, and both ground and space based

ations grow into a proper global infrastructure, like todaysercial jet airlines.

Some people are captivated by space exploration, andothers are not. My favourite quote comes from the early20th Century father of the Russian space program,Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who said The earth is a cradleof the mind, but we cannot live forever in a cradle. Onecannot help but be enthralled by the moments of shearbliss experienced by some of the Apollo Astronauts asthey peered out through their capsule window, the earth,the moon and the sun slowly rotating into view. AstronautEd Mitchell on his return from the Moon described havinga kind of epiphany, a spiritual feeling of connectedness,knowing that every atom in our body, the earth and themoon were all prototyped from an exploded star manybillions of years ago, and here is Ed, enjoying thisapparition of Brahma Creation.

Imagine zero gravity, no up no down to concernyourself with. Now imagine the wonderful possibiliti es new ways to get around (your ticket includesarm jets), new ways to eat, sleep and do the otherthings! Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon reallydoes come to life inside the Space A rboretum (seeadjacent illustrations).Going back to the point of this article, by allowingourselves to engage in Dream Research, we buildup a repertoire of ideas we can feed into our Artby Tuesday terrestrial deadlines. The prominentspace architects call it Spin Up & Spin Down. Asan example, environments in space are becomingsemi-closed life support systems that are environmentally green andsuper ef cient life is powered by the sun, captured by solar panels,waste water is recycled, air is even scrubbed of carbon dioxide andrecycled. Soon plants grown in space will form a staple diet. This led tothe Spin Down idea of Infrastructure Free abbreviated to INFRAFREEhousing on earth. This is particularly interesting when you considerthe devastation caused by the out break of cholera and other diseasesin the aftermath of an earthquake. If each house is a self containedunit free of physical infrastructure grids, there are obvious bene tsto humanity. If there is no power grid to break then homes remainpowered. If there is no fresh water and waste water grid to break thenwater will not become contaminated, and the spread of disease will becontained.A Spin Up example would be say in atable tech-nology, developed on earth from anything fromvehicle tires to pneumatic enclosures.In atables are the Holy Grail for achieving largepublic arena enclosures in space, a welcomedeparture from the tin can modules. In atablesare light and compact at launch, an importantconsideration when the price tag per kilogramto place something in orbit is approximately

USD20,000. NASA developed a space in atablecalled Transhab back in 1997. Unfortunately ashappens with so many good ideas, it was droppeddue to shortsightedness. But then the Texan Bigelowcame along, of Bigelow Aerospace mentionedearlier, and bought the patent license from NASA for a song (country& western style), and Heee-Haw, Genesis 1, his in atable hotel rodeinto orbit in 2006. Finally, architects are designing for space (someprominent ones shown adjacent), a eld released from the monopolygrip of the aerospace engineers. This is primarily because space is nolonger about ghter pilots sucking it up in cramped conditions. Theprivate entrepreneurs with a focus on space tourism recognize theyneed imaginative designers to deliver imaginative solutions for whatis a once in a lifetime human experience. The bugle horn blows for aspiringarchitects and interior designers interested in this eld, but alwaysgood to build up a portfolio of some personal Dream Research beforeknocking on doors. The vacuum of space await our ideas, and I startedthis muse with the statement: Designers do not operate in a vacuum,so now I end by contradicting myself and hoping more of us do!

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Johncurranheads upsparchsshanghaiof ce.Asamemberoftheaiaa(americaninstituteofaeronautics&astronautics), johnhas hadseveralpeerreviewedpaperspublishedbytheaiaa,including:skycity(atouristcityinlow earthorbit),base(bubblearchitecturespaceenvironments),alis(artlabinspace).Seeadjacentillustrations.

TEXT BY JOHN CURRAN

DREAMRESEARCH

SPIN UP AND SPIN DOWN

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For every building that we have built, for every masterplan studied, for everycompetition win, there are dozens of our other designs lurking in the shadows. The ones thatshould have been built but werent. The hopeful contenders that never passed Go because ofmany and varied reasons that elude rational explanation and in spite of our eloquent testimoniesand passionate conviction regarding the philosophic and social basis of the design ideas, theyare inevitably consigned to the server archive.

There are many examples we can refer to old and new, the competition entry forLaSalle School of the Arts in Singapore1 won by 2 blocks enclosing an open street designed bylocal Singaporean practice RSP, our proposal for Raf es City Shenzhen2 a civic scale proposalthat wrapped the edges of a new urban park won by the retail architect Benoy and most recentlyour proposed addition to the Shanghai waterfront at Suzhou Creek 3 a mixed use developmentthat sought to capture the spirit of its heritage location and provide a new destination for thecity, a new landmark but not another Bilbaoesque icon landed on the Shanghai skyline. The nalresult of our submission lies dormant, and our models gather dust whilst the client continuestheir crusade for fresh ideas.

This might all sound like an exercise in sour grapes from this moithered man buttake it for granted that some of our best architecture will remain un-built; it exists however asour own alternative world, a parallel universe of fruitful possibilities.

I nd that a cheerful thought, perhaps a womb of succor as the rancor of thecompetition loss takes hold and the inevitable self questioning keeps me awake at night.

All projects are about investigation and a process of learning, thehunting and gathering of the idea, the process of Suzhou Creek was no differentexcept it was coloured by a d esire to create a proposal that was quite theatricaland radically different from the rather mundane strategies previously developedfor the riverside location. An exercise of drawing together notions of city making,

putting on paper the types of spaces that you have felt happy in and that haveprovided some sort of visual / emotional pleasure. What sort of proposal couldstitch together the disparate existing buildings and vacant space?

Suzhou Creek was a particularly challenging project but one withsubstantially more content than developing from scratch the ubiquitous out oftown sites that have little or no context save themselves.

We witness in Asia many of these mega developments, instantcities created by whipping up some second world war powdered eggs into atasteless souf . The virtue of these projects paraded in front of provincialplanners with much puff but total lack of critical assessment especially whenthe pre x Eco is attached. The Greenwash credential all too easily providesimmunity from debate, the rolling pseudo sustainable bandwagon becomingvery quickly unassailable.

comment

In December 2010 Stephen Pimbley was invited to speakat the Thai Design Council, the following text formed the basis of talk.

SPARCH@TCDC

DECEMBER2010UTOPIAN

BROADACRE,SUZHOU CREEK

ANDTHE CONVIVIALTOWNSCAPE.

2

3

1

TEXT BY STEPHEN PIMBLEY

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Stephen Pimbley @TCDC with other guestspeakers and board members of TCDC


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have to declare I prefer the urban clutter and semi decay sitting cheek by jowl with the 1970sarchitecture found in Kuala Lumpur to its Straits jacketed neighbour Singapore. Wonderfullyambitious though Singapore is in its constant self reinvention from colonial outpost to Chinafriendly superstore and health resort, but the city lacks the smell and grime of a real city.Singapores once odorous shop houses, canals and Bugis Street (the naughty street of pimpsand transvestites) have been cleaned up, the Gob Stoppers and Love Hearts 11 have made way forSwiss herbal candy to be licked prudently under strict supervision.

The age of a tree is determined by examination of a section through its trunk, thetrees dendrochronology, Singapore to a certain extent has lost this direct trace of its past, itsalmost impossible to read its varied and interesting history, a history that articulates andinforms the street patterns of the real city.

Is Singapore is the embodiment of a modern planning and socialutopia? Implementing wholesale reconstruction and Social Engineering on acity state scale i.e. to design and rule a utopia, you need to be a serious controlfreak and have the political mechanisms in place to deliver the baby eithernaturally or in this case with an elephant sized epidural. It is essential to knowexactly where everyone is, how many there are, what they are doing, how manybabies they are making, what they are buying, where they are going, and how.

The Singaporean urban planners new broom has created a citymachine for a life, work, and surveillance, that is why Singapore has taken theform it has, at least parts of Mr Lees Singaporean vision although the envy ofmany of its South East Asian and Chinese counterparts should have remainedon paper. Real life leads to compromise and the Singapore plan of rapid shinygrowth in under 50 years stitched together by huge swathes of manicuredgreenery is not to be tinkered with. Its only redeeming features are the appleorchard like suburbs with road names like Chatsworth, of course ber English

and very Bournville12

although in Singapore there are no suburbs so no urbs tobe sub to. These urbs are home to fancy al freso eateries, the cosy black andwhite imperialist bungalows, Singapores super rich who live in landedproperty and not the mass market slab apartment blocks built by theSingaporean Housing Development Board where the hoi polloi hang out theirsocks to dry on very long poles.

Evolution of a city has to be preferred over wholesale reconstruction,where is the room for the sordid alley way, the rotten, the stink and the feted,the city that is accretive by accident, complicated and dif cult to navigate?

Have we totally given up or are we just rolling over in the riskfree drive towards gated communities and impermeable shopping blocks awayfrom the darker more interesting sides of the real city?

Bangkok where we now have a number of new projects is in myopinion one of the more interesting idiosyncratic cities that you have to get toknow to enjoy its secrets; sure it has suffered major infrastructural interventionsat the hands of clumsy traf c engineers and is now in part reminiscent of FritzLangs scary 1925 ctional Utopian lm Metropolis13. Sukhumvit, BangkoksOxford Street, Omotesando or Orchard Road has become a 3 dimensionaloperatic libretto about movement a living Technicolor Piranesi etching14.

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Large construction projects on virgin land as examples of sustainable urbanopment are perhaps a long way off, I rmly believe in following the philosophy of Richards who advocates the densi cation and repair of our existing cities as a more effective wayuring sustainable development. Rogers himself an inveterate utopian has however slippedre than once witness his 1990s masterplan for Pudong, his vision of Alphaville4 based on

dial plan of the romantic German university town Karlsruhe5. The much feted followingopments are no better, Fosters Xanadu (Masdar) in the Abu Dhabi desert or ARUPs ecose off the coast of Shanghai at Dongtan Island or the most gratuitous of them all the Palmof the coast of Dubai are a serious call to pick up arms like Orwell and make the trip to

onia and ght all those who resist working to repair the urban fabric that already exists inance.

Sustainable repair and renewal of our existing city fabric with contemporaryecture and new programmes to replace those that have been lost due to social or economicns has to be the objective of the 21st Century, this should not be read as advocacy forrvation, turning empty buildings into subsidised museums but rather a programme ofition of underused inappropriate building stock and replacing them either with open greenor new uses that enrich the quality of the city.

2 very successful and very different examples of tuned in regeneration are theerei in Leipzig, Germany a complete city block of old cotton factory buildings reinventedsts, as studios, small scale manufacturing units, galleries, cafes and restaurants and theLine in New York City by Diller and Sco do, a disused elevated railway line has beennted as an elevated park slicing its way between the cities real estate 6and7.

I sometimes nd myself thinking about Frank Lloyd Wrights Broadacre City8, FLWs had his nger on the zeitgeist button but Broadacre like all notions of the Utopian Citythe centuries was of classical origin, relentlessly geometrical and symmetrical, so

ete in itself, and so incapable change.It begs the question where is the rambling gothic Utopia that sustains growth ande and does not look like its all been designed in a single uniform unforgiving style?

I was determined that our strategy for Suzhou Creek would feel like a naturalion of the city, varied, layered, different components nestling and jostling with each other

osition, not a picture perfect classical plan but more of an assemblage of ideas, anectural variation of Marcel Duchamps La Bote-en-Valise9.

Suzhou Creek was in uenced by the cities I love; the cities I like to spend timeher than for their utopian vision, real cities like Hong Kong, Paris, Bangkok, London, thencial cities of France and Italy or the medieval cities of the Middle East. These cities seeme a habit of stymieing the best-laid plans; it is this that gives them an edge, an interestingposition of scale and style, of shifting perspective, of surprise and event. You are never quitewhat you might nd when you turn the corner or move from one arrondissement to the

hese are the qualities I wanted to bring to our vision for Suzhou Creek10. At this point I

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It would seems the perpetrators, the Para... Architects are becoming globallysuccessful, blogs and magazines abound with ever more complex organic and oating planetfriendly structures right off the story board of Avatar.

Dont get me wrong, I believe this geometric analysis of organic form is a fantasticallyimportant development in architecture, however the bandying and Gerrymandering of you mustdraw like this or you must behave like that is no different in purpose to Tatlins the Monumentto the Third International21 or Nigel Coates urban decomposition strategies during the briefperiod of 1980s NATO. All are about proclamation of ideas and a program of objectives, they arenot designed to worry us only hopefully engage our senses as we occasionally look over the topof the computer screen.

These days, there are no rules, no styles, you can make a building any shape youwant, the machines give us limitless choice, nothing is impossible. But just because somethingis possible, does not mean you necessarily have to do it, restraint is a virtue in architecture as ineverything else as David Chipper eld said of his award winning Berlin Neues Museum.

Suzhou Creek was not all about the next big icon building for Shanghai, it was ourown exercise in restraint a desire to t in. However, the d emand for new icons is unfortunately notas yet on the endangered species list in China, but Im pretty bored with the iconic projects andtheir peripatetic gang of designers, there is an clearly an epidemic of manic shape-making goingon, in which the Louis Sullivan mantra, form follows function, is all but forgotten. The BilbaoEffect (the self-conscious iconic structures that have sprouted up across the world since FrankGehrys Bilbao Guggenheim in 1997 ) is a minor Tsunami washing over Chinas varied topographywith Madame Hadid currently the most globally successful at giving good blob jobs.

The validity of the post-Guggenheim effect and the striving after landmark statusdepends on what you think the role of architecture ought to be. If you think it is merely a questionof selecting one style over another then ne, there is a plethora of choice. But if you think thatarchitecture should really be about providing fundamental solutions to human problems, needsand hopes as I do, then you start to worry.

Suzhou Creek attempted to elevate the discussion above style, our focus was oncontent and on the idea of place, our ambi tion was to create a garden, an urban oasis, a fragmentof a dream of what an ideal city could be: cosmopolitan, smart, cultured and cared for, a secretcity with a city.

I have been through the arguments in my head too many timesbut I keep coming up against an inescapable fact that perhaps we are just notset up to do this kind of architecture anymore, its not as the client would sayrisk averse or perhaps does not t within a known business model. The ideasof artistry or romanticism, qualities that bid us towards or repel us from placesare too easily forgotten in the search for the easily understood global copy catdevelopment mix.

Perhaps our type of proposed city making at Suzhou Creek isunfashionable, and died along with Londons Barbican?22 A city within a city,possibly unthinkable in an economy now based almost entirely on people lookingat screens only feeling comfortable eating and shopping in temperaturecontrolled boxes. So it seems that our strategies for Suzhou Creek will beforgotten like the street and wharf side activities that once provided the lifeblood of the Suzhou River.

The design of places that make people feel comfortable outsidethe glass of ce blocks and the subterranean shopping malls is one of thosethings requiring subtle skill and appreciation of cities that planners and secondrate developers seem thus far not to have dexterity to handle or rst handexperience of.

The paternalistic governments redevelopment of industrial and agricultural landwith whole swathes of real estate given over to the in uence and sway of the private developer isanother utopian equation that in Asia does not really add up, everything is happening all at onceits the Singapore syndrome but on a massive scale.

In one way, its terrifying, in another - whatever you think of the politics itsawe-inspiring. Last years Shanghai EXPO held under the moniker of better city better life hadfar reaching implications on the tidied up city beyond the pavilions landed like alien space craftfor the duration in Pudong, the ordinary folk of Shanghai were encouraged to stop clearing theirthroats and spitting in public and wearing their pyjamas in public for fear of offending thesensibilities of the visiting Lao Wai. The pyjama wearing residents in my opinion need a bit ofsupport here, they like the Bangkok telecommunication cables are one of the things that makethe city different, interesting and unique.

Utopias must be perfect, so comforted by this fact I can put our proposals forSuzhou Creek to bed, always to remain of paper like the for inspiration only Acid infusedpsychedelic dreams of Ron Herons Archigram23 group with their Plug-in, Walking and InstantCities, Pop Cultures Gothic sensibility combined with experiments in what was tomorrow, Imhappy to pretend to be in the camp of the discarded Utopians until the next time I have to join thereal world and make a buck.

God bless you Ron.

The gap between lm and architecture here is obviously very small, both are aboutive and surprise, the experience of being ushed through the city intestines at a modest

out into the bowls of the city superstores is quite pleasant.The masculine concrete pylons supporting the Bangkok Transit System, BTS have

er clumsy interface with the city creating lots of left over spaces convenient only for ad and surreptitious wee-wee, but in the spirit of Herr Langs utopian vision of the futurentral highways of Bangok have become a multi level city where people and modes ofortation are intertwined with the telecommunication and electricity cables strewn fromjacent buildings.

Bangkok residents seem not to like these cables, but they are just another layerstuff that makes this place unique, the American consumer products giant Proctor andle inventively used the matted web of cables to advertise a range of tangle free shampooThai market15.

Our proposals for Suzhou Creek16 and17 imagined a new Utopia inspired by theence of so

Documents

Sparch 2011 Annual Publication