collageThe Master of Science, Integrated Sustainable Design (MSc ISD), is a one-year, post-professional programme that addresses the global sustainability challenge by tackling both the building and urban scales, and integrating knowledge from the disciplines of architecture, engineering, landscape design, planning, urban design and biological science. The curriculum delves into material, technical, spatial and social systems, linking them directly to the urbanisation of Asian cities. Students come from varied disciplinary and cultural backgrounds; most are from Asian countries, with a few from Australia, Europe, North and Central America.
Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
University: Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
Exhibition title: Sustainable Design for a Better World
Course: Master of Architecture
Pillar: Architecture and Sustainable Design
School statement:
“Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) is pleased to present exemplary student work from the recent graduating class of December, 2020. These Master of Architecture students, while enrolled in the Architecture and Sustainable Design program, have embarked upon investigative architectural projects that address salient needs of multiple levels of societies in serious need of shelter, stability and architectural solutions. Concerned students represented in this sampling demonstrate the intellectual rigour and care which Singapore University of Technology and Design theoretical Master of Architecture projects embody.
“These 10 proposed architectural solutions strive to help humankind in Southeast Asia and across the globe. The thinking, planning, digital drawing and visionary solutions demonstrate how a Master of Architecture student’s mind matures while mentored in the Architecture Sustainable Design program at SUTD” – Daniel Whittaker, senior lecturer.
The Makers Museum by Chia Sheng Wei
The Makers Museum is an exploration in rethinking the typology of a museum as more than just a repository of artefacts showcased in gallery spaces, but also a space for the act of creation. Chia Sheng Wei harnessed the use of artificial intelligence, working in tandem with human stakeholders, to ensure that this future museum is a product of: a) high-intelligence generative processes, b) collective decisions and c) specialist interventions. This forward-looking project’s intention is to feature the new museum’s architecture as the zeitgeist; the museum reconfigures itself over time to suit the needs and desires of the age, through a series of modular inter-connected components.
Student: Chia Sheng Wei
Award: DP Architects Design Excellence Award (Master’s)
Thesis advisor: Immanuel Koh
Rebuilding Paradise by Ng Wen Qi
As urban habitats and natural landscapes become increasingly intermixed, wildfires that are capable of devastating entire towns and communities have become commonplace in wildland-urban interface areas. Ng Wen Qi’s thesis takes a critical relook at wildfire resilience by understanding the wildfire crisis in the Californian context, where the pursuit towards aggressively fortifying urban habitats has become modus operandi.
This thesis project deconstructs the adaptive features and time-specific mechanisms that make up the ecological model of fire-adapted ecosystems. As a result, a new prototype for its urban-architectural equivalent is envisioned. This prototype takes on the form of a strategically vulnerable, regenerative suburban community situated in Paradise, a town left crippled by one of California’s most destructive fires. This thesis project is a rebuttal against the typically loss-adverse, hyper-defensive narrative for resilience, proposing instead an approach of targeted loss and architectural and ecological regeneration.
Student: Ng Wen Qi
Award: Master of Architecture, winner of two Thesis Awards – Representation and Social Innovation
Thesis advisor: Peter Ortner
Repoldergramming by Poon Weng Shern
Global population growth and its concomitant infrastructure networks grow, in tandem, polders as reactions to climate change and polders as state establishment. The lack of critique towards this infrastructure arises from the skewed perception of these as purely “technical” constructs of engineering rather than messy assemblages or cyborg complexes. Site Testbed, Hai Phong City, the port city of Hanoi, in Vietnam, served as the prime site of this thesis investigation. The infrastructure component of the breakwater is re-investigated in terms of how new aquaculture-centred activities can enable greater food production and efficient harvesting to feed an ever-growing population demanding greater nutritional intake to sustain such growth.
Student: Poon Weng Shern
Award: Master of Architecture Thesis Award – Research
Thesis advisor: Eva Castro
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