Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) announces the launch of Singapore ArchiFest 07, to be held in Singapore from 27 November to 8 December 2007.
The theme "Aspiration to Realisation" provides a focus for the inaugural Singapore ArchiFest. The festival events will centre on the unique challenges faced by Singapore as a small city with high density living and scarce land resources.
Representatives from different parts of the world will be invited to share their journeys in realising their aspirations, through presentation of ideas and philosophies, in the context of the growing city and its living environment.
Professionals from all the design and construction fields are invited to interact and encouraged to engage in a fun, friendly and free atmosphere, which will allow for discussion of the most critical challenges facing architecture, society and the city.
Throughout the two-week festival, a myriad of exciting events including Exhibitions, Forum and ArchiTours will be unveiled at various locations. Celebrate the diverse talents in local architecture and uncover the dreams behind the façade, with activities and happenings for all to participate in.
Visitors can also look forward to the many public events at Singapore ArchiFest 07. The exhibitions at the City Hall will feature winning designs from Design Ideas Competition for Marina South Residential District and the National Art Gallery, while the guided ArchiTours will involve exploration of some of the most iconic buildings in Singapore.
Singapore Archifest 07 is an initiative supported and co-funded under the Architecture and Urban Design Excellence (A-UDE) Promotion Programme by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
Exhibitions
The collection of exhibitions will be held at the City Hall, featuring award-winning works from various architectural competitions as well as internationally acclaimed urban designs.
+ Design Ideas Competition for the Marina South Residential District
Jointly organised by SIA and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the Design Ideas Competition invited architects, planners and students to submit fresh, innovative ideas for a unique waterfront-garden residential district in Marina South located at Singapore's Marina Bay. The ideas will serve as an inspiration and catalyst for the planning and urban design strategies to be adopted for the development of the district. Submissions will be exhibited at ArchiFest. Competition information attached separately.
+ "S3: Steel. Space. Structure" Ideas Competition
Jointly presented by SIA and BlueScope Steel, S3 is a platform for designers with imaginative ideas to create steel building designs that not only demonstrate strong levels of innovation and functionality, but also inspire those who will see and use the space. Participants are to design and detail a steel pavilion located beside the visitor centre at Orchard Road, accommodating a cafe, retail space and an exhibition space. The winning design stands a chance to be built and realised on site in 2008 and outstanding submissions will be exhibited at ArchiFest.
+ National Art Gallery Competition
The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) has launched an architectural design competition to seek world-class design ideas to transform two important heritage buildings - the City Hall and former Supreme Court - into Singapore's National Art Gallery. The winning entries have been selected by an international jury panel and will be exhibited at ArchiFest.
+ Special Exhibition
Specially curated for the Singapore ArchiFest, the exhibition will feature exceptional works from established architects from different parts of the world.
Forum
The two-day Singapore ArchiFest forum brings together a stellar lineup of speakers who will be addressing the challenges of urban architectural design. "Aspiration to Realisation" sets the theme for the forum, where 12 speakers from different parts of the world will be invited to share their journeys in realising their aspirations through presentation of ideas and philosophies, in the context of the growing city and its living environment. The interactive and thought provoking sessions will inspire all, offering excellent opportunities to exchange experiences and gain valuable new perspectives.
Dr Manabu Chiba / Chiba Manabu Architects / Japan
Dr Manabu Chiba was born in Tokyo in 1960; he finished the University of Tokyo, specialty of architecture, in 1987. He worked in various designing firms for a long time and in 2001 the architect founded his own firm Chiba Manabu Architects. Dr Manabu Chiba is also Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering at The University of Tokyo.
The main creative credo of Dr Manabu Chiba - use all local possibilities, while having uphold respect for the environment. Such position, as well as extremely accurate designing receive recognition for the architect - he was awarded as the author of the best dwelling house in 1995, the best young architect in 1998, and in 2002 he became a winner of award for the best dwelling house in Tokyo. He was awarded the Architectural Institute of Japan Award in 2003 and the 21st Yoshioka Award in 2005. For two consecutive years in 2005 and 2006, he bagged the Good Design Award. He recently clinch the Prize of Japan Society for Finishings Technology in 2007.
Works of Dr Manabu Chiba have common features: all of them attract by subtle grace and sense of proportion. Some of his recent projects include Tokyo House UNAGI001, Taito-ku, Tokyo (2005); Japan Guide Dog Centre, Fujinomiya, Shizuoka Prefecture (2006); Studio Gotenyama, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo (2006); Platform, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture (2006).
Kerry Hill / Kerry Hill Architects / Singapore
Since graduating from the University of Western Australia in 1968, Kerry Hill spent the past 30 years working as an architect in Southeast Asia, establishing his own office in Singapore in 1979. He has received numerous design awards within the region including the inaugural Kenneth F. Brown Asia Pacific Culture and Architecture Design Award in 1995, The 2001 Aga Khan Award for Architecture and the 2006 R.A.I.A Gold Medal.
Kerry Hill has been a guest speaker at the Universities of Hawaii, Western Australia, Queensland, Singapore and at National Conventions in India, Sri Lanka and Australia. The practice is currently working on a range of projects in Southeast Asia, India, Bhutan, Australia, Japan, Turkey and Croatia. He is currently a visiting Professor of Architecture at the University of New South Wales.
Ma Yansong / MAD / China
Born in Beijing, China in 1975, Ma Yansong obtained AIA scholarship for Advanced Architecture Research and graduated from Yale University School of Architecture in 2002 with a Master's degree in Architecture In 2001. An outstanding graduate, he also won the Samuel J. Fogelson Memorial Award of Design Excellence. Ma was later awarded the Architecture League New York Young Architect Award in 2006.
Ma has worked with many established firm including Zaha Hadid Architects and Eisenman Architects as project designer before his return to China. In 2004, Ma founded the MAD office in Beijing China and is now its director and also taught at Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.
Ma's works, WTC Rebuilt - Floating Island in New York City was exhibited in Beijing Architectural Biennale and collected by the National Art Museum of China in 2004. His local projects include the Guangzhou Solar Plaza and the Shanghai Digital Art Center. His art installation "Ink Ice" and "Fish Tank" were featured in Chinese Calligraphy Art exhibition in 2005. In 2006, MAD held "MAD in China" exhibition in Venice during the Venice Architecture Biennial, and "MAD Under Construction" exhibition at Tokyo Gallery in Beijing.
Under Ma's leadership, MAD won an international design competition to design a 50-story residential tower, Absolute Tower in Toronto Canada. This makes MAD the first Chinese-based architects to ever win a competition outside of China.
Now with several other international projects under their belts, MAD is poised to become the first international and global Chinese practice.
Dr Hitoshi Abe / Atelier Hitoshi Abe / Japan
Dr Hitoshi Abe was born in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan in 1962. He studied architecture at the Tohoku University in Sendai and in 1989 obtained his Masters in Architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, in Los Angeles, USA.
Dr Abe maintains a practice in Sendai, where he located in 1992 after winning first place in the competition to design Miyagi Stadium. Before opening his own atelier, he worked for Coop Himmelblau in Los Angeles. In addition to teaching at the Tohoku Institute, Abe has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, and at the Miyagi National College of technology.
He is among the most important architects of the current Japanese generation, known for his work that is spatially complex and structurally innovative. Among his best-known public works are the Miyagi stadium in 2000, the Reihoku community hall, for which he received the 2003 Architectural Institute of Japan Award, and the Sasaki Office Factory for Prosthetics which won the Good Design Award in 2005.
Hitoshi Abe currently chairs the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). The 45-year-old architect went to Los Angeles by way of the Tohoku Institute of Technology, in Sendai, Japan, where he was professor in charge of the Architecture and Urban Design Laboratory and director of the Architectural Design Education Committee.
Takaharu & Yui Tezuka - Takaharu + Yui Tezuka Architects/ Japan
Takaharu Tezuka was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1964, graduated from Musashi Institute of Technology in 1987 and obtained his Masters in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. He worked at Richard Rogers Partnership Ltd for 4 years till 1994. He also assumed teaching posts at the Musashi Institute of Technology from 1996 - 2003; Salzburg Summer Academy in 2005 as well as visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 2006.
Yui Tezuka was born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1969. She graduated Musashi Institute of Technology in 1992 and attended Bartlett School of Architecture, University College of London in 1993. Yui also taught at the Salzburg Summer Academy and the University of California, Berkeley as a visiting professor in 2006.
With similar background and a common passion for architecture, husband and wife team Takaharu Tezuka and Yui Tezuka established Takaharu + Yui Tezuka Architects in 1994. Their projects such as Soejima Hospital, Light Gauge Steel House, Kawagoe Music Apartment were recognised with the Good Design Gold Prize from Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization. While the Roof House was awarded the 2002 Yoshioka Prize, Yoshioka Foundation; JIA Prize, Japan Institute of Architects and the 2003 Annual Architectural Commendations, Japan Institute of Architects.
With spatial designs that are skillfully integrated with the outside environment, their designs range from private houses to community buildings. Their most important works are the Roof House, in which daily life expands onto the roof, and the Echigo Matsunoyama Museum of Natural Science, which can be buried under 5m of snow. The Fuji Kindergarten, undertaken in cooperation with art director Kashiwa Sato, takes the form of a 200m-circumference oval-shaped roof space. A total of 38 works have been collected in "Takaharu Tezuka + Yui Tezuka Architecture Catalogue".
Kevin Mark Low / Small projects / Malaysia
Kevin Mark Low earned a bachelor's degree in architecture and a minor in architectural history from the University of Oregon, Eugene in 1988. In 1991, he obtained his Master of Science degree in architecture from MIT in Cambridge, UK. He has worked in architectural practices in the United States; SRG Partnership, Portland, Oregon in 1988 and GBD Architects, Portland, Oregon in 1989. Low lectured at the department of planning and architecture at MIT in 1990 and has been lecturing at the University of Malaya since 2002.
Low joined GDP Architects upon his return to Kuala Lumpur in 1992 where he stayed for the next ten years, running the research and design.
Smallprojects was established in 2002. Current work includes the BritishIndia Corporate Warehouse - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2007), Overhang House - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2007), Gardenshell House - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2007), Gardenwall Offices - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (ongoing), Cemetery - Surabaya, Indonesia (ongoing).
Angelene Chan / DP Architects / Singapore
Angelene Chan is a director of DP Architects. Since joining the firm in 1990, Ms Chan has been involved in the design and construction of a wide range of projects from residential, industrial and institutional projects to large scale office and retail developments in both Singapore and overseas.
She has recently completed the S$400-million Republic Polytechnic campus in Singapore, in partnership with Mr Fumihiko Maki and his office, Maki & Associates. At present, Ms Chan is working on The Dubai Mall which will be the largest mall in the world, and its adjacent 800- room Dubai Mall Hotel. Both projects are due to be completed in mid-2008.
Concurrently, she is also working on the Resorts World integrated resort in Sentosa, Singapore in partnership with Mr Michael Graves and his office, Michael Graves & Associates.
Prior to joining DPA, Ms Chan was working with Woods Bagot Pty Ltd. in Canberra. Ms Chan is a registered architect and is a member of both the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) and Malaysia Institute of Architects (PAM). She graduated from the University of Adelaide with first class honours in architecture.
Chan Soo Khian / SCDA Architects / Singapore
Chan Soo Khian is the founding principal and design director of SCDA Architects, which he established in 1995. SCDA has major commercial residential and master planning projects in South-East Asia, China, India, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and the United States.
The firm's numerous honours include the Royal Institute of Architects' Worldwide Award (2005), the Gold Award at the Miami Biennale 2005 International Competition. The Gold Award for the Arcasia Awards for Architecture (2005-2006), the Chicago Athenaeum 2006 and 2007 International Architecture Awards and the Honourable Mention in the 2007 Kennet F Brown Asia Pacific Culture and Architecture Design Award.
Chan has taught and conducted seminars at the National University of Singapore, was a visiting professor at Syracuse University, and has lectured at the Paris Belleville School, French Society for Architecture, Notre Dame University, School of Architecture in Indiana and Tamkan University in Tamsui, Taipei.
The firm's work has been published extensively in international books and journals, including Architecture Review (England), Architectural record (USA), World Architecture (Great Britain), Monument (Australia), Lotus (Italy) and Space (Korea). In 2003, Architectural record named SCDA as one of the 10 Design Vanguard firms reshaping the globe.
Mr Chan obtained his Master of Architecture degree at Yale University in 1987 and Batchelor of Arts, Major Architecture, from Washington University in 1984. In 2006, Washington University honoured Soo Khian with a distinguished alumni award.
Sonny Chan / Chan Sau Yan Associates / Singapore
Chan Sau Yan, Sonny was born in 1941 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He had his primary, secondary and tertiary education in Malaysia and the United Kingdom, graduating as an architect in 1963 from the Northern Polytechnic of London and did post graduate Tropical studies at the Architectural Association in 1964.
Thereafter, he practised in London with Arup Associates. He returned to Singapore in 1965 to continue his practice and established Chan Sau Yan Associates in 1993, after 29 years in his previous firm as a senior partner.
His experience encompasses a wide range of residential, commercial, institutional, recreational and tourism related projects in the region as well as internationally. His extensive experience in resorts and city hotels span over 39 years working with international chain operators including Hyatt, Sheraton, IHG, Mandarin Oriental, Hard Rock Cafe.
His firm has won many awards for design excellence. In 2001, he was awarded URA Heritage Award for 45 Emerald Hill, Innovators Award for Hard Rock Cafe Bali and top prize in the competition to design the Singapore Embassy in Bangkok. The project Hotel Maya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia won Malaysia Interior Design Award 2005, SIA Architectural Award 2006 and PAM 2006 Award.
Not contented to simply evoke our senses through his signature creations in locations from Abu Dhabi to Bali, Sonny Chan is also a teacher true to his calling, sharing with aspirants the world over his knowledge and understanding of designer concepts and urban development challenges. He has been an external tutor and associate professor at the School of Architecture, National University of Singapore. He was also a founder member of the Singapore Planning and Urban Research Group and has served in the professional and government institutions, acting in various capacities.
Max Fordham / Max Fordham Consulting Engineers / United Kingdom
Max Fordham is a one of the UK's foremost authorities on environmentally friendly engineering. He studied physics at Cambridge before completing a postgraduate engineering conversion course. He worked at Weatherfoil Limited and Ove Arup Associates before he founded his own partnership, Max Fordham & Partners in 1966. The firm, now Max Fordham LLP, currently employs more than 100 engineers and has contributed to some of the most advanced buildings of the past 40 years.
Max believes that the servicing of buildings should contribute to their design, rather than detracting from them. His firm specialises in developing sustainable solutions for building services, including heating, water and electrical installations, which will have a relatively low impact on the environment. Some of the high profile projects his firm has worked on include the Hackney Empire in London, The Poole Arts Centre, the Tate Gallery in St Ives, the National Botanic Garden of Wales and the revamped Festival Hall on London's South Bank.
His firm has won countless awards such as the The Queen's Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development (2004) and the RIBA Sustainability Award for the Heelis, the HQ for National Trust in Swindow (2006). In 2006, Max was voted into the Building Industry Hall of Fame - 40 figures who have "done most to change the built environment for the greater good since 1966". He is the only building services engineer on the list. In 2007 Max receives the Sustainability Award from the Association of Building Engineers in recognition of his contribution to sustainability in the built environment.
Dr Chris Luebkeman / Arup / United Kingdom
Dr Chris Luebkeman refuses to be categorized. He has constantly, and consistently, occupied the 'spaces between' professions. He continues to utilize his broad interests and enthusiastic belief in our zeitgeist in his current position as Director for Global Foresight and Innovation at the Arup headquarters in London.
As a third generation educator who has been formally educated as a geologist, structural engineer and architect who believes that successful design cannot be separated from breadth of knowledge and steadfast inquiry. He taught in the Departments of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [ETH] in Zurich, the University of Oregon, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT]. As an active facilitator and motivational speaker, Chris also lectures widely [40 cities in 19 countries in 2003/2004]
on the future, sustainability, and innovation, as well as on research at Arup.
Since joining Arup in 1999, Chris has facilitated the creation of an eCommerce strategy, initiated a series of research projects on the future and is constantly encouraging lateral thinking. He is a member of Arup's Design and Technical Executive which promotes the highest standards of design and technical skill to ensure that Arup is one of the world's leading practitioners in its chosen fields.
Chris' vast experiences have enabled him to specialize in being a generalist with a view to being "in league with the future." He was listed as one of the ten futurist speculators and shapers "who will change the way we live", in Wallpaper Magazine, July/August 2002.
Chris is currently spending most of his time and energy building a better understanding of the way in which the driving forces of global change should be incorporated into more effective global business strategies. His current projects include Drivers of Change - a project examining the most significant drivers of global change and their implications on the built environment; including water, demographics, energy, China, digital connectivity, spirituality, climate change and anti- Americanism.
Seah Chee Kien / RSP Architects Planners & Engineers / Singapore
Mr Seah studied architecture at the National University of Singapore and joined Tangguanbee Architects from 1990 to 1995. He went on to Jurong Consultants (JTC Corporation), serving as chief architect from 1997 to 2006, before joining RSP Architects Planners & Engineers as a director in July 2006.