Design My Place

A shout out to all passionate, fun-loving individuals who enjoy interacting with and inspiring youths through a series of creative design workshops which are planned for in May and June 2009. We are looking for 20 facilitators who have outgoing personalities as well as keen insights and a love for architectural explorations.

This series of workshops are built upon previous editions of Design My Place held in 2007 and 2008. Please visit http://designmyplace.blogspot.com/ to understand more about these workshops and see the fun everyone had! A recent article report on the event was published in the Singapore Architect magazine Issue 249.

In this latest edition of Design My Place, 2 workshops will be held in the months of May and June 2009. The first, DMP (Woodlands) will be held at Republic Polytechnic from the 29-31 May. The second, DMP(Bedok) will be held at Temasek Junior College from the 8-10 June.

If you are interested or know someone who might be, feel free to contact Project Coordinator, Joshua Teo at joshua@reallyarchitecture.org

CUBE or Challenge for the Urban and Built Environment was a competition that re:ACT organised for the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) under its Architecture and Urban Design Excellence programme (A.UDE) as part of its 35th anniversary celebrations. We based the event on our usual DMP workshop framework but threw in a healthy dose of competition to spice things up a bit and to spur the different schools to come up with innovative ideas for the Chinatown area. The result was, we had one of the most creative and stimulating workshops ever with students trying to outdo each other, what with their dramatic presentations and out-of-the-box ideas!

Mr Khoo Peng Beng, priciple architect of ARC Studio and also a great friend of re:ACT was brilliant as usual in his role as Chief Facilitator. Leading a panel of architects and urban planners, he pushed, prodded, shaped and expanded the minds of the young padawans from different schools to come up with 10 awesome strategies to improve the built environment around Chinatown.

In the end, there could only be one winner. Hwa Chong Institution impressed the jury panel the most and walked away with the 1st Prize of $2,000 cash. This was presented to them and the rest of the winners (Temasek Polytechnic - 1st Runner-Up and Serangoon Junior College - 2nd Runner-Up) at the 2008 URA Corporate Plan Seminar on 17 April 09. More photos after the link.

Media Coverage:
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090511-140723.html
http://wildsingaporenews.blogspot.com/2009/04/ura-to-spread-wings.html

A group of students from junior colleges and polytechnics, together with the assistance of aspiring architects and designers, were on a mission to ‘save’ Queenstown estate from its desolate present!”

Volunteering as facilitators for this edition of Design My Place, an urban design workshop organized by Really Architecture (re:ACT), we knew that it was going to be an unforgettable experience. Initially we felt scared and concerned, but at the end of the third day, we were extremely proud of the work that the student participants had produced. We were scared and concerned because they seemed quite lost at the beginning, but they managed to progress so much within a short period of time. Unpredictability is probably the best word to describe the workshop, as we were immersed in the company of wacky teenagers who called themselves either “12 funky bunnies in rugged jeans” or “we rock, pebble & roll!”.

Their ideas were shooting around like missiles in the air, but it was more hilarious than treacherous. They wanted to ‘zeng!’ (Their colloquial term for ‘inject life’) Queenstown in a number of radical ways. Below are two examples,

1. They proposed a cemetery in the estate since there were already so many old people who were approaching their afterlife. However, the cemetery was also meant to incorporate a restaurant or cafe as well. The older generation might like the idea of dining or hanging out with their deceased friends & family. The big plus was also that the living could be assured that after they had passed on, they would have visitors to their graves, assuming they had friends of course! Loneliness after life is cured.

2. They agreed that the older generation should still lead an active sex life, and even though the years were catching up with them, the old folks should not be deprived of a second chance in their love life. Thus, a dating agency for them was proposed, for the single or widowed amongst them of course! Having a mate keeps them happy & active.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg.

By the third day, the students had sacrificed probably a million brain cells, but they still persisted on despite the demanding requirements of the programme. They drew, they crafted, they argued & they acted to sell their ideas across; and were also able to withstand the harsh comments of the evil critique panel. It was indeed a commendable effort for these first-timers in urban design. We as facilitators felt that the objectives had been met, and we hoped that the student’s minds had been opened and their thinking challenged.

Finally, the best way to end off the workshop was watching a group of studious looking boys let their hair down, monkey around and practice their break dancing moves while we had our dinner. We (or rather, I) finally understood what it felt like when people say that old folks enjoy seeing children play.


Ong Sheng Hua

This is an article written by Lyn-Anne, the Managing Editor of Five Foot Way Magazine on the recent YUP. She did such a good job, we thought you should not miss it. Find out more about Five Foot Way Magazine here.

The Young Urbanist Programme [YUP] held on Monday 10th March 2008, was a 1-day workshop initiated by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and executed in collaboration with [re:act] and held at the URA Centre. It was an enrichment programme for primary school students during their school holiday and was attended by 30 P5 students from Radin Mas Primary School and River Valley Primary School. [re:act] was engaged by URA to plan, organize and facilitate the workshop, as well as to curate the exhibition. Through problem-based urban activities, the programme aimed to instill creativity and sensitivity in our future generation, while giving them a taste of being an architect or urban designer for a day.

The objectives of YUP were to raise awareness and educate students on the importance of a well-designed built environment, as well as to introduce simple Urban Design (UD) and planning concepts, so as to build up an urban design-conscious culture from young.

Matthew Chong, a teacher at River Valley Primary School, said it was important for the students to learn about their environment at a young age so they would be aware of their surroundings and be careful in the way they live.

The programme also hoped to encourage students to nurture a keen sense of observation and interest in their built environment and to inspire students to think, design and plan as architects and planners through a design exercise and presentation session. Using URA’s City Gallery as an aid to introduce Singapore’s urban planning & design and coupled with games to add interest to the learning, the workshop was intensive, fast-paced, energetic and creative.

Armed with the YUP Activity Booklet produced by URA, the students were broken up into teams of 5, each led by a facilitator and a teacher. They went on an outdoor site study in the vicinity of the URA Centre and returned to an art and craft session on model-making, site-planning and designing to simulate the real work of architects and urban planners. The students were all in laughter as they cut out pieces of cardboard windows and dabbed their Styrofoam trees with glue.

Claire McColl of Radin Mas Primary School said she learnt how to be creative with cardboard and plastic bottles and also how to work in a team.

The tasks given to the students helped to reinforce their learning and understanding of the built environment.

Teo Hui Ting, a student of River Valley Primary School, said that through the workshop, she finally understood how hard it was to plan and build a city.

At the end of the workshop, students got to present their findings and designs to professional planners and architects. Parents of these students were also invited to sit in the presentation to give encouragement and support to their children. As such, the workshop reached out not only to students, but also to teachers and parents.

Chong Keng Hua, of [re:act], said that they are in talks with URA to organize more of such programmes and they hope to include students from polytechnics, ITEs and even parents in future workshops.

FFW was at the workshop and we noticed that even though there were chaotic moments at times (kids will be kids), the students were genuinely serious about making their models as realistic as possible and almost did not flinch when they presented their works to the professionals at URA. This collaborative initiative by [re:act] and URA was a rousing success and everyone involved left with a greater appreciation of our city’s architects and urban planners and new friendships.

FFW applauds the efforts of [re:act] to introduce art and design to students at such a young age and we are looking forward to more of such inspiring initiatives.

Lyn-Anne is the managing editor of FFW and she loves photography and film-making.

Fun, great, cool, creative, interesting, crazy, scary, brain wrecking, spectacular, challenging, the best, excellent, shiok, record breaking, oh my gosh… This was how the primary 5 students had described the pilot YUP workshop yesterday. Held at URA Centre, the workshop was attended by 31 participants from Radin Mas and River Valley Primary School. The programme was really packed – it was like the 3-day Design My Place workshop (for JC students) compressed into 1 day! But somehow, it was still magically manageable.

Enjoy the photos!

We have just finished the Design My Place (Urban Creativity Workshop) over the weekend. It was nothing short of an amazing experience for the students, the facilitators, the organisers, and our supporters. It was very encouraging to see at the end how well received it was not just by the students, but also by our sponsors from URA, our supporters from Design Singapore and other guests that we invited as part of the jury panel.

Our greatest thanks and appreciation certainly goes to Khoo Peng Beng, our Chief Facilitator/ instructor/ teacher/ Aikido instructor, without whom, the whole workshop would have been less energetic, less inspiring, less passionate and less successful. More on the workshop in the next few days. For now, enjoy some pictures.

Service Providers... sigh... No luck with this group of people. That day, 20th Oct, a Saturday at Adam Food Centre, the cleaners and toilet guard I tried to approach didn't give me any useful responses. They are like these:

1) Cleaner #1 > spoke some dialect which I cannot understand. but he's quite sporting, he tried to write on the table the number of years the food centre has been existing, which is about 35-40 years.

2) Cleaner #2 > A Thai or Filipino guy. He can't speak English.

3) Cleaner #3 > A younger chap who just wants to be left alone to smoke in a corner and only speaks dialect

4) Cleaner #4 > a very busy and hardworking old man. He was always in the midst of the tables clearing. I felt bad trying to approach him and left him alone.

5) Toilet guard > SLEEPING!!!