Memory Vessels: Architecture as a Living Archive
Jia Jun's thesis explores the profound and intimate connection between memory and domestic space, using his mother’s recollections of her past homes in Singapore as both narrative and design framework. Drawing from oral history, everyday rituals, and material remnants of the past, the project reflects on the ways in which memory shapes, and is shaped by the spaces we inhabit. It confronts the fragility of memory and the transience of physical structures, asking how architecture might serve as a vessel for safeguarding personal histories. Rather than treating memory as something static to be recorded, the thesis approaches it as a dynamic, evolving force—one that can be spatialised, shared, and reinterpreted over time.
Through the process of recollection and storytelling, his mother’s memories are transformed from private, fleeting fragments into shared and co-constructed experiences. These recollections are embedded into the design of his current home, turning it into a living repository that enables architecture to function not merely as shelter, but as a medium of remembrance. The home becomes a site of emotional resonance, where past and present intertwine to allow memory to take spatial form and offering permanence to what is inherently ephemeral.
As his mother ages in place, the project takes on a heightened significance. The memory vessels act as sensory and symbolic anchors, ensuring that her lived experiences continue to be felt, seen, and acknowledged. In doing so, Jia Jun's thesis reimagines architecture as a tender act of preservation, one that honours the personal within the domestic and bridges generations through the quiet, enduring power of everyday space.
Jia Jun's thesis explores the profound and intimate connection between memory and domestic space, using his mother’s recollections of her past homes in Singapore as both narrative and design framework. Drawing from oral history, everyday rituals, and material remnants of the past, the project reflects on the ways in which memory shapes, and is shaped by the spaces we inhabit. It confronts the fragility of memory and the transience of physical structures, asking how architecture might serve as a vessel for safeguarding personal histories. Rather than treating memory as something static to be recorded, the thesis approaches it as a dynamic, evolving force—one that can be spatialised, shared, and reinterpreted over time.
Through the process of recollection and storytelling, his mother’s memories are transformed from private, fleeting fragments into shared and co-constructed experiences. These recollections are embedded into the design of his current home, turning it into a living repository that enables architecture to function not merely as shelter, but as a medium of remembrance. The home becomes a site of emotional resonance, where past and present intertwine to allow memory to take spatial form and offering permanence to what is inherently ephemeral.
As his mother ages in place, the project takes on a heightened significance. The memory vessels act as sensory and symbolic anchors, ensuring that her lived experiences continue to be felt, seen, and acknowledged. In doing so, Jia Jun's thesis reimagines architecture as a tender act of preservation, one that honours the personal within the domestic and bridges generations through the quiet, enduring power of everyday space.
Comment from External Reviewer Ar. Ko Shiou Hee.
"What I appreciate about him doing these things (the stacked memory vessels)...it's actually a 1:1 that occurs in the lived space...very sensitively touched on, not just a depository of memories, and then he walks around, talking about the space with the light, and all the things that an architect needs to think about."
"What I appreciate about him doing these things (the stacked memory vessels)...it's actually a 1:1 that occurs in the lived space...very sensitively touched on, not just a depository of memories, and then he walks around, talking about the space with the light, and all the things that an architect needs to think about."
The Epigenetic Landscape: Arrested-Animated Forms in the Architecture of/for Artificial Life
Richard Edrick's (M. Arch 2024) thesis is an ambitious rethinking of form and formation, and the relationship between the discreet and the continuous in computational design. Eschewing the conventional process, expectations, and outcomes of an architectural thesis in the department, Richard's work attempts to rethink the process of form generation as one of continuous evolution, which can manifest in diverse states, systems, and conditions. For Richard, the digital domain allows us to create new, artificial life forms from computer codes. Like biological life itself, these artificial life forms are governed by the constraints of the environment's epigenetic conditions, which, in his project, is interpreted as a grid of tiles that receive signals to perform based on a set of codes derived from Linea, a collection of cellular automata created by Bert Chan. The performance can continue perpetually or die in theory. Richard's work offers a brave, alternative path for a thesis project. His assemblage of (fragile) things does not point to an end, and we have to suspend questions of application. Instead, the openness and indeterminacy of his work invite us to think and reflect deeply on questions of architectural beginnings and their telos. The thesis is a continuous search that will raise more questions than answers.
Richard Edrick's (M. Arch 2024) thesis is an ambitious rethinking of form and formation, and the relationship between the discreet and the continuous in computational design. Eschewing the conventional process, expectations, and outcomes of an architectural thesis in the department, Richard's work attempts to rethink the process of form generation as one of continuous evolution, which can manifest in diverse states, systems, and conditions. For Richard, the digital domain allows us to create new, artificial life forms from computer codes. Like biological life itself, these artificial life forms are governed by the constraints of the environment's epigenetic conditions, which, in his project, is interpreted as a grid of tiles that receive signals to perform based on a set of codes derived from Linea, a collection of cellular automata created by Bert Chan. The performance can continue perpetually or die in theory. Richard's work offers a brave, alternative path for a thesis project. His assemblage of (fragile) things does not point to an end, and we have to suspend questions of application. Instead, the openness and indeterminacy of his work invite us to think and reflect deeply on questions of architectural beginnings and their telos. The thesis is a continuous search that will raise more questions than answers.
Echoes of Existence: A Manifesto for Digital Legacy
Clarabelle Pun's (M. Arch. 2024) thesis is a bold, speculative project that believes in the twin powers of architecture and digitalisation. Set in the future, the project looks at the phygital archiving of Tuvalu's tangible and intangible heritage. The archive, which consists of a floating structure surrounded by a cluster of smaller buildings, provides the setting for digitalising Tuvaluan’s cultural artifacts and way of life as the nation faces impending demise due to rising sea levels. As a building, the floating archive also serves as an essential symbolic centre for preserving the nation's identity and maintaining its cultural legacy through annual pilgrimages. Clarabelle envisages a digital archive to complement its physical presence. Over time, it becomes the digital platform to connect the Tuvaluan diaspora and sustain the nation's digital afterlife. The thesis offers a timely and provocative future on the nexus of collective memory, legacy, and heritage conservation in a phygital society.
Clarabelle Pun's (M. Arch. 2024) thesis is a bold, speculative project that believes in the twin powers of architecture and digitalisation. Set in the future, the project looks at the phygital archiving of Tuvalu's tangible and intangible heritage. The archive, which consists of a floating structure surrounded by a cluster of smaller buildings, provides the setting for digitalising Tuvaluan’s cultural artifacts and way of life as the nation faces impending demise due to rising sea levels. As a building, the floating archive also serves as an essential symbolic centre for preserving the nation's identity and maintaining its cultural legacy through annual pilgrimages. Clarabelle envisages a digital archive to complement its physical presence. Over time, it becomes the digital platform to connect the Tuvaluan diaspora and sustain the nation's digital afterlife. The thesis offers a timely and provocative future on the nexus of collective memory, legacy, and heritage conservation in a phygital society.
Haw Par Villa: A New Narrative
Gareth Seah (M. Arch. 2021) proposes a new relationship between humans and livestock that provide our daily meat consumption. In his project, this relationship can only occur if we experience how it feels like to be an industrialised, farmed animal subjected to daily exploitation and cruelty. He choreographed an intricate and meandering journey that viscerally presented the emotional and physical pain inflicted by animals on humans in a re-imaged Haw Par Villa, which was a popular theme park in 70s Singapore that aimed to convey Chinese mythology, beliefs and values to the visitors. The reversal of roles journey starts from the Ten Courts of Hell in Haw Par Villa. It continues through different spaces and programmes that gradually reveals a more compassionate relationship between humans and animals and ends at the Goddess of Mercy statue.
Gareth Seah (M. Arch. 2021) proposes a new relationship between humans and livestock that provide our daily meat consumption. In his project, this relationship can only occur if we experience how it feels like to be an industrialised, farmed animal subjected to daily exploitation and cruelty. He choreographed an intricate and meandering journey that viscerally presented the emotional and physical pain inflicted by animals on humans in a re-imaged Haw Par Villa, which was a popular theme park in 70s Singapore that aimed to convey Chinese mythology, beliefs and values to the visitors. The reversal of roles journey starts from the Ten Courts of Hell in Haw Par Villa. It continues through different spaces and programmes that gradually reveals a more compassionate relationship between humans and animals and ends at the Goddess of Mercy statue.
Resurrecting Architectural Ghosts
Kai Xiang's (M.Arch 2021) project proposes a new, bottom-up architecture archiving system utilising the three facets of space, time and energy, and the gathering of micronarratives through a large-scale public event. By proposing new material strategies, methods and principles of architectural preservation, his project offers a bold, haptic and spatially memorable archiving system. It also permits the partial resurrection of buildings demolished in the past, which visitors can re-live their experiences and share memories with friends and loved ones.
Kai Xiang's (M.Arch 2021) project proposes a new, bottom-up architecture archiving system utilising the three facets of space, time and energy, and the gathering of micronarratives through a large-scale public event. By proposing new material strategies, methods and principles of architectural preservation, his project offers a bold, haptic and spatially memorable archiving system. It also permits the partial resurrection of buildings demolished in the past, which visitors can re-live their experiences and share memories with friends and loved ones.
Aukang, Not Hougang
Sean Yeo’s (M.Arch. 2019) project addresses the issue of memory and identity. He proposes a new method of archiving a neighbourhood’s history in urbanised Singapore and in the process reclaiming its grassroots heritage independent of official narratives. As the Aukang has a long and rich historical root in the Catholic faith, the new designs are framed by the trinitarian relation of the parish, the school, and the neighbourhood. Spaces for archiving objects, documents, and ephemera are distributed across the trinity of spaces, and anchored by the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Sean Yeo’s (M.Arch. 2019) project addresses the issue of memory and identity. He proposes a new method of archiving a neighbourhood’s history in urbanised Singapore and in the process reclaiming its grassroots heritage independent of official narratives. As the Aukang has a long and rich historical root in the Catholic faith, the new designs are framed by the trinitarian relation of the parish, the school, and the neighbourhood. Spaces for archiving objects, documents, and ephemera are distributed across the trinity of spaces, and anchored by the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Orchestrating the Spectrality of Nature
In his thesis, Melvin Lim (M. Arch 2019) explores the ambiguous relationship between the natural and artificial. New territorial islands continue to emerge in contemporaneous times, whether as a product of volcano eruptions, melting glaciers, or mud-spewing landforms. Envisaging the expansion of Singapore’s territorial boundary by employing three dispersed apparatuses under the guise of existing site narratives, they project the spectrality of emerging ‘natural’ coral islands and choreograph a seemingly natural emergence of islands around the city-state.
In his thesis, Melvin Lim (M. Arch 2019) explores the ambiguous relationship between the natural and artificial. New territorial islands continue to emerge in contemporaneous times, whether as a product of volcano eruptions, melting glaciers, or mud-spewing landforms. Envisaging the expansion of Singapore’s territorial boundary by employing three dispersed apparatuses under the guise of existing site narratives, they project the spectrality of emerging ‘natural’ coral islands and choreograph a seemingly natural emergence of islands around the city-state.