From Thesis to Global Stage: Eugene Tan's Pedra Branca Map Triumphs

Department of Architecture alumnus Eugene Tan Wei Jie from the Master of Architecture (MArch) class of 2023 has achieved international recognition for his design thesis under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Lilian Chee. His drawing ‘Archatographic Map of the Incomplete Landscape on Pedra Branca,’ developed as part of his thesis, emerged as the Digital Category Winner – The Architecture Drawing Prize at the 2023 World Architecture Festival. The drawing was showcased during the festival from 6 to 8 November 2023 at Marina Bay Sands and later featured at the Sir John Soane Museum in London in January 2024. 

It has also recently won the student prize at the 2024 AR Future Projects Awards.

The thesis reflected on the nature of disputed islands, in particular the island of Pedra Branca and how their political significance meant they were more important as strategic sites or territory. As a protected island, the island was inaccessible to the public and could only be designed from a distance through archival material and scientific studies. 

The proposition depicted in the drawing is of Pedra Branca as a landscape for public enjoyment, the proposition sought to defy the political polemic of the island. Reflecting on this, the drawing is a way of seeing the island not as territory, but as an object with a rich ecology and qualities unique to itself. It was a way of challenging the value of land as territory.  

Inspired by the medieval mappamundi, the drawing’s presents multiple perspective that juxtaposes both aerial views, along with multiple elevations that construct the surrounding context. It invites viewers to imagine themselves in the middle of the map, looking from the inside out to the neighbouring islands; simultaneously, it also presents the seasonal and cyclical nature of the site and its rich ecology. By allowing viewers to embody being at Pedra Branca, the drawing seeks to bridge the distance that separates the viewer from the island. It seeks to deconstruct the political narrative, and to change the way we can care for this beautiful island.  

Whereas his animated film, ‘Incomplete Landscapes: An Architecture of Co-production,’ has also been celebrated with several accolades, including the Excellence Award in the Moving Images Category (General) at the 2023 Asia Digital Art Award Fukuoka. Additionally, the film earned the Merit Award (2nd Ranking) in the Graduate Category at the 2023 World Landscape Architecture (WLA) Student Awards. It also received Special Mention in the Long-Form Video Category, Student Creator of the Year, and the Computer-Aided Drawing Category at the 2023 Architizer Vision Awards. 

The film presents a speculative scenario where coproduction is imagined as a guiding philosophy in the development of the site. Spanning a period from 1965 to 2100, the proposition questions how a landscape can by passively designed to respond to the site’s heat, humidity, salt, tides and bird excrement – often “unwanted”, unproductive elements that architecture tends to insulate from. By closely looking at how these unproductive elements, it reveals that notions of ruination often take on human-centric perspectives. In designing for the site as a coproducer of architecture, alternative typologies and construction techniques are proposed in the form of a Coccolith Well, Weathering Perch and a Sunken Reef.  

These interventions are co-produced by humans, architecture and non-human actants to form more land mass, a tourist destination and an ecologically rich site; all while asserting sovereignty of the state without the need for overdevelopment and the maximisation of territorial space.