Staff

TUNG Yan Janice | Assistant Professor (Practice Track)

Janice Tung is an urban designer and landscape architect, and her current research investigates how the cultivation and exchange of botanical commodities have structured spatial, political, and material relations across scales, shaping urban and territorial formations. She brings experience from both the public and private sectors, having served as Assistant Director at Gardens by the Bay, where she was involved in technical advisory and long-term strategic planning.

Please share the areas you are most passionate about teaching: I hope to draw on my professional and academic experiences to guide students in seeing landscape architecture not only as “garden design”; but as a medium bringing together communities, economies, and ecologies. I am interested in developing students’ theoretical and technical design competencies in parallel, equipping them with the skills to navigate the complexities of the profession (or beyond).

We’d love to hear more about your research focus: I am interested in the social–ecological agency of botanical commodities, and how their cultivation, circulation, and consumption leave imprints on physical, cultural, and economic landscapes.

Robin Hartanto HONGGARE (Dr) | Assistant Professor (Tenure Track)

Robin Hartanto Honggare is a historian working at the intersection of architecture, environmental humanities, and commodity histories. His current book project investigates the extensive network of buildings that enabled commodity production in the Dutch East Indies. Robin received his PhD in Architecture and MS in critical and curatorial practices from Columbia University. He also holds a B Arch from Universitas Indonesia.

Tell us about any books you’ve enjoyed recently: David Van Reybrouck’s use of steamship as a metaphor for colonial society in his ambitious work Revolusi stuck in my mind for a while. The Camphor Tree and the Elephant, written by Faizah Zakaria, our colleague from the Departments of Southeast Asian Studies and Malay Studies, has also been an inspiration.

Tell us about your interests beyond your professional life: I enjoy playing chess. If we happen to play a game, expect the Jobava London.

Saptarshi SANYAL (Dr) | Assistant Professor (Tenure Track)

Saptarshi Sanyal is an architectural historian exploring spaces and buildings as processes rather than just objects in historical narratives. His research questions ideas of modernity, traversing postcolonial studies, construction history, production studies, and the framing of architectural authorship. Prior to his role as Assistant Professor (History, Theory, Criticism) at the Department, Saptarshi was a faculty member at the School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi.

We’d love to hear more about your research focus: I adopt a research and teaching approach that centres architecture, building and spatial production as a process rather than just a product. My research interests in architecture particularly lie at the intersections of construction histories and histories of work and labour, postcolonial studies, architectural authorship, and more recently, the notion of time and temporality in architecture.

Please share a quote that inspires you: ‘We can plant a house, we can build a tree’ (Kurt Cobain, 1991) – Encompasses the lyrical power of poetry and metaphor;

When I see this quote as an architect in particular, it evokes ideas of building slowly and rehabilitating nature and non-human life through human means.

Pieter HERTHOGS (Dr) | Assistant Professor (Tenure Track)

Pieter Herthogs is an  Assistant Professor in Computational Design in the Department. Prior to this, he was a Senior Researcher and Investigator at the Singapore-ETH Centre. His work combines Design Evaluation and Knowledge Representation to develop approaches that bridge disciplines and domains. Together with his team, he applies these to three design levels: urban system design (city planning, planning regulations, urban modelling & simulation), urban space design (public space quality, walkability), and architectural design (building adaptation & circular construction).

Tell us about your interests beyond your professional life: Food & Cooking, Board Games, People Watching, History, Language, Human Cognition

Tell us about any books you’ve enjoyed recently: “Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world” – David Epstein (2019)

SUPHASIDH Peeraya | Assistant Professor (Tenure Track)

Peeraya Suphasidh is an architect and the founder of Suphasidh Architects. She holds a post-professional Master of Architecture (M.Arch II) from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where her project ‘The Block’ receiving 2nd place from the Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize. Previously, she worked at Sou Fujimoto Architects in Toyko on project ranging over 12 countries. She has practiced and researched in New York, Moscow, Paris, and Bangkok on projects across various scale and has been exhibited internationally. Peeraya is a licensed member of the Architect Council of Thailand.

Tell us the areas you are most passionate about teaching: I’d like to develop together with students their idiosyncratic expression through the body of research/work.

Please share any memorable publications, awards, or achievements you would like to mention: In Thailand, I retraced an old technique of building with rammed earth, convinced of its value to the local construction industry. Although this technology was prevalent for thousands of years, it has been disregarded due to the labour-intensive and time-consuming nature of manually compressing earth. I relearned this construction technique alongside local builders, allowing them to instinctively master the expertise through hands-on trials. You can read more about it here.

Xiaoxuan LU (Dr) | Visiting Associate Professor

Xiaoxuan Lu is a landscape scholar and designer. Prior to her appointment at the Department, she taught at several prestigious universities in Asia, including the University of Hong Kong (HKU), where she served as Director of the Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Studies program. Lu holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and a PhD in Human Geography from Peking University.

We’d love to hear more about your research focus: I place the concept of “territory” at the center of my work. As one of the key political concepts of the modern world, territory serves as the primary means through which the world is divided and controlled, both conceptually and materially. I am currently working on two research and book projects: “Entangled Frontiers,” which examines Shenzhen’s fluid hydro-social territories and its urbanization as a socio-natural assemblage; and “Botanical Urbanism,” which explores how international horticultural expositions produce novel socio-ecological territories within the context of Asia.

Please share a quote that inspires you: “Heart is living in tomorrow. That which passes will be dear.” (Alexander Pushkin)

GOH Zhi Xian Sheryl | Executive

Sheryl Goh has recently joined the Department to assist with coordinating logistics, facilities and safety and health matters. She brings valuable experience from the public healthcare sector, where she managed upgrading and minor reconfiguration projects within the Facilities Department at both the head office and clinics across Singapore.

Tell us a new skill you would choose to learn if given the opportunity: Latte art with 3D foam. I don’t think it is commonly seen locally and coffee/tea are always expensive at retail. It will be great to be able to drink good coffee/tea at the comfort of own home and cheaper cost.

Reflect on your aspirations growing up and share your dream job from that time with us: Any job in an archaeology related field, as I will get to travel around the world (hopefully) and go to places that are not commonly accessible by normal people.