taspublications
- Feb 28, 2022
- 2 min read

#FOTM - MICROCOSMIC FRAGMENTATION

by Toh Eu Juin

Studio Federico Ruberto

Y2S1 Design Studio 2021

The “societal shift from technocratic, utopian planning to increasingly privatized economic development” as mentioned by William O. Gardner has transformed a managed society as that of Tokyo Bay to control space. Likewise, Singapore is also at its crossroads when defining domestic living.

Architecture has ‘always served colonisation’ – Pier Vittorio Aureli. Hence, it also has the potential to decolonise. Microcosmic Fragmentation seeks to leverage on the spatial potentials of collaborative spaces generated as required by the users (i.e. workshops/ communal kitchen) in each designated cluster, so as to promote collaboration intra and inter-clusters. More importantly act as a firm statement to resist the limitations of space making in a highly regulated Singapore.

In light of ‘sharing’ between units by means of programmatic/ self-demarcation in collective housing, a series of explicit deconstruction and reconstruction needs to be done on both a micro and macro scale simultaneously – tectonically & typologically. First stripping the role of a house to its pure user function. Compartmentalising essential functions into discrete units of individual function-specific space and collaborative units. Upon reconstruction, ‘in-between’ void spaces are constantly exploited for an incremental spectrum of public spaces, to form a self-sufficient organism (aggregate).

The Entrance

Restructuring Co-Operative Housing

Concept and Operation

Axonometric

The call for a mixed typological collective housing is further exacerbated by the limiting physical space due to isolation speculating about post Covid-19. There is an urgent need for the segregation of spaces to address the health concerns arising out of 24/7 work culture. This is coupled with the evolution of ‘home’ (ends) vs. ‘domesticity’ (means) to one that caters the increased demands of a ‘home’.

Decolonising Architecture

A subsequent discretisation of units, through prefabrication, aims to “include inhabitants to participate in co-production” -- Mollie Claypool. Such inclusive and participatory model takes caution to maintain the integrity of the ‘home’ (Singapore’s ‘nuclear family’), whilst liberating the agency of the architect.

Microcosmic Fragmentation aims to resolve the dichotomy of unity and diversity, ensued through means of inhabitable, lived and even outlived voids.