Whampoa Makan Place

 The Circuit Breaker, following the epidemiological crisis in Singapore, instantiated on April 2020 swiftly reduced numerous public spaces into deserted areas reminiscent of ruinous ghost towns. Contextualising this phenomena for further evaluation, the report takes precedent from an architectural movement borne of crisis – Japanese Metabolism. Architect Arata Isozaki poignantly remarked that post-war Japan in ruins was truth that falsified all former conceptions and usages of space – the past was ephemeral. The rupture in the perception of former provided impetus to project new visions for urban planning in Japan.

Intrigued at the ironic observation that residents have remained, if not grown more attached to Whampoa Makan Place (WMP) after the lockdown, this report investigates the reasons accounting for such perceptual obstinacy. In doing so, it problematizes the modus operandi of the former lockdown and illuminates a pressing need to project another model of a lockdown.

The report quantifies certain parameters contributing to a strong attachment of space. It highlights the operational processes keenly pertinent to program (conscious reasons), sensorial analysis (subconscious reasons) and pedestrian movements (negotiation).

The analysis regarding the operational processes revealed that WMP functioned upon a day-night oscillation that accounted for peaks of human activity at various areas and compelled human movement, confirmed in the mapping of pedestrian activity. More importantly, it is worth noting that numerous operational processes that support formal programs (e.g. delivery, dispensation, preparation) often share same spaces used by consumers. This renders a distinct informality where the binary between ‘served’ and ‘servant’ spaces are consistently transgressed, where arbitrary rules of social decorum need not be heeded.

Furthering the analysis, the report quantified the sensorial implications of overlapping operational processes in WMP. The areas where most (fragrant) smells and sounds generated from the overlapping operational processes seemed to enjoy greater human traffic. This is consistent with Pallasmaa’s position where the stimulation of the auditory and olfactory senses rendered an “immersive” space that people would be drawn to. Semblances of greater human traffic incentivise existing programs (stalls or hawkers) to intensify services/output, thusly creating a positive feedback loop between operational processes, sensorial implications and negotiations in pedestrian movements. This multi-layered feedback loop accounts for strong attachments to the space, thereby reinforcing pre-lockdown conceptions of WMP.

Philosophically, the workings in WMP recognises and allows for the autonomy of agencies (residents) to be exercised. For this reason, it problematizes the paternalistic administration of a homogenised lockdown by the state. It overlooks specificities that contribute to both the necessity and enjoyment of certain spaces, and works only if the agencies aligned with the interests of a dominant agent (state) – necessitating a diminishment of autonomy.

Hybrid Scenario: Postulated in Circuit Breaker 2.0 (and beyond), the hybrid intervention addresses the aforementioned incompatibility between the modus operandi of the first circuit breaker and the autonomy of Whampoa residents. It hypothesizes itself as an architectural intervention that recognises the interests of different agents of WMP and postulates a successful lockdown predicated on agents acting in self-interest. It introduces to the site agents harbouring opposing interests (residents and quarantined personnel) so that a nett decentralisation of patrons in WMP can result from densification of both architecture and program.