A Little Wave Once Told Me

Even though Singapore’s biggest source of economic success can be attributed to the maritime industry, the trade is often out of sight and

out of mind. Due to her geostrategic location, Singapore has benefitted from being the port of the world. Being at the Southern tip of the island, Labrador park has seen the development of the maritime industry. The non-existent political pressures to correct harmful practices in the maritime trade means that common-folks should take responsibility to be educated and be critical about the industry.

The site has deep maritime ties,going back to the 1405 AD. Ships that pass through the Malacca straits are bound to pass by the site. Many sailors have included prominent features of the site as navigational way finders to help guide them. Long Ya Men, or Dragon Teeth’s gate, were 2 prominent outcrops framing the entrance to what is now known as Keppel Harbour, recorded first in Admiral Zheng He’s travelogue. However, after the british landed in Singapore, a Straits Settlement surveyor known as John Thompson, blew up the outcrops in an attempt to widen the channel to cater more ships in 1848. What stands on site today is a replica to commemorate Zheng He’s maiden voyage. [image taken from National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board]

The project examines the reactive property of water and aims to capture and amplify the “rouge waves” caused by passing boats, harnessing it as energy. The architectural envelope deconstructs the wave form, revealing the hidden patterns of the environment. The sporadic periods of light that enters the space sequences and frames the stories whispered by the sea.