#FOTM - Intimate Oddities

by Darien Wu Junhan

Studio Wu Yen Yen

Y3S2 Design Studio 6 2022

Ghosts of our tropical landscapes

Manifesto

The definition of “normal” is constantly shifting in today’s modern age, with the digital-focused culture, the prevalence of posthuman spaces emerges to cater our demands for technology. The alteration of our cultural norms due to the increased dependence on digital technologies have induced a rapid digital transformation. This digital surge has triggered the resurgence of outdoor recreational activities, where it has led us to seek forms of escapism within nature.

Intimate Oddities searches for reconciliation and humanizing of posthuman spaces through the atmospheric phenomena of intimacy resulting from nature’s veil, mist. The project celebrates the intimacy of the mist, through the containment of humidity in its in liquid and gaseous states to allow for variations in the manifestation of this phenomenon by passive and mechanical induction. The interplay of the unnatural and natural reflects the paradox of this emergent conditions in the proposed tropical data centre + recreational facility.

Mood Images + Inspirations

The selected climatic element chosen is humidity and how it brings about the phenomena of intimacy. Much like data, how we perceive and interact with humidity is rather peculiar, an invisible veil that surrounds us, it’s not nonphysical and fleeting presence being “ghosts”.

Climatic "ghosts"

An individual expedition into Clementi Forest with my significant other to investigate this climatic phenomenon and attempt to catch a glimpse of “ghosts”.

Site Analysis + Design Process

Local data collected on-site informs a climatic code for design generator and stigmergy simulation. Programmatic and conceptual diagrams of intended site strategies and target zones of interventions. The two conflicting demands for outdoor recreation and infrastructural provisions contradicts itself, causing a paradox of these emergent conditions. By using technology to humanize spaces and create an interplay between the natural and unnatural, to blur and blend the posthuman spaces through programmatic and cultural integration.

Spatial + Climatic Augmentation

The atmospheric augmentation and opacity variations due to the containment and creation of humidity within recreates the phenomena of intimacy while embracing the ephemeral and transient qualities of the mist.

Interplay

The passive induction through the architectural form cools the human users and naturally creates the mist that is contained by the neighbouring mangrove, while the mechanical infrastructures adding a secondary layer of man-made “mist”.

Climatic watchpoint

The proposed facility also caters to emerging recreational and technological hybrid activities like e-sports competitions, technology symposiums and conferences.

Special thanks to Darien Wu Junhan