© Amelyn Ng 2024
“To Register or Not to Register”
Architectural Review Asia Pacific, no. 154, May 2018
Architectural Review Asia Pacific, no. 154, May 2018
This is not your classic story with the concluding mandate to ‘get registered’. This is also by no means a representative or aggregative picture of architectural registration in Australia. Instead, this is a retrospective incursion into the thoughts of one such recently registered architect – an honest narrative that, while ultimately nothing more than personal opinion, I hope may resonate with other emerging professionals pondering a similar conundrum, and foster new discussions on approaching it.
“Entertaining Borders”
Assemble Papers,
November 2017
Assemble Papers,
November 2017
Review of 5×5 Participatory Provocations, Center for Architecture, NYC, an exhibition of 25 architectural models that speculatively responded to a range of fictional future scenarios: Lunar Resorts, Investment Towers, Drone Ports, NSA Community Branches, and Trump Walls. What is it that transforms a wall into a political technology of separation? Beyond the simplistically aesthetic and physical, how should we conceive of its implications on communities, on the fabric of society?
Republished in To Draw a Line, printed exhibition catalog (Stockholm: Nuda Paper, 2019), on the occasion of To Draw A Line, exhibition, Nuda, Stockholm, January 11-31, 2019.
Republished in To Draw a Line, printed exhibition catalog (Stockholm: Nuda Paper, 2019), on the occasion of To Draw A Line, exhibition, Nuda, Stockholm, January 11-31, 2019.
“Illusions of Freedom: A Critique of Ephemeral Workplace Cultures”
Inflection Journal,
vol. 4: Permanence (November 2017): 126-131.
Inflection Journal,
vol. 4: Permanence (November 2017): 126-131.
The advent of globalisation, digitisation and fluctuating economies have seen an unprecedented increase in highmobility working arrangements around the world. Counter to the static ladder-oriented professions of generations past, the ‘freelancing’ lifestyle has become an increasingly popular career path amongst entrepreneurial youth. Once an uneasy state of transition between jobs, freelancing connotes an aspirational freedom of working for oneself from virtually anywhere, thanks to the ubiquity of the Internet and its associated liberties.
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Yet something seems off-kilter about the bucolic ephemeral workplace. If we are becoming less spatially dependent for work, why are sprawling corporate headquarters on the rise? What is the relationship between precarious employment and the production of cosmetic indulgences and socioeconomic prejudices? As hot-desking and freelancing become synonymous with progress, we should begin to question the changing role of physical office environments – from permanent to provisional, tangible to immaterial – and its critical effects on agency and freedom in this contemporary age.
...
Yet something seems off-kilter about the bucolic ephemeral workplace. If we are becoming less spatially dependent for work, why are sprawling corporate headquarters on the rise? What is the relationship between precarious employment and the production of cosmetic indulgences and socioeconomic prejudices? As hot-desking and freelancing become synonymous with progress, we should begin to question the changing role of physical office environments – from permanent to provisional, tangible to immaterial – and its critical effects on agency and freedom in this contemporary age.
“Feeding Singapore”
Foreground
September 21, 2017
Foreground
September 21, 2017
Conversation with Ngiam Tong Tau about food security and urban agriculture infrastructures in the island-nation of Singapore. Part of Foreground’s Production Landscapes series.
“Rethinking the High-rise Life”
Assemble Papers,
August 2017
Assemble Papers,
August 2017
I’ve spent most of my life living in apartments. Eight, to be exact.
From multi-residential towers that cover the dense island-metropolises of Singapore and Hong Kong, to the apartments emerging all across inner-city Melbourne, I have by now assembled a somewhat comprehensive taxonomy of modern leisure facilities available to those who choose the high-rise life. Swimming pools, saunas, personal gymnasiums, ornamental roof gardens, tennis courts, private movie theatres, barbeque zones, foyer seating areas, sky-decks…
The inevitable ubiquity of multi-residential dwelling comes with big civic challenges that can no longer be postponed or ignored. We are in an era where neighbours and commons should matter more than ever; where diverse demographics and flexible programs should not be nice-to-haves, but be seen as integral to the metropolitan neighbourhood’s long-term success. Be it at ground level or up above on the nth floor, when we start to redefine social infrastructures surrounding our high-rise life, we take the ‘apart’ out of ‘apartments’, in doing so making room for genuine public life to prosper.
From multi-residential towers that cover the dense island-metropolises of Singapore and Hong Kong, to the apartments emerging all across inner-city Melbourne, I have by now assembled a somewhat comprehensive taxonomy of modern leisure facilities available to those who choose the high-rise life. Swimming pools, saunas, personal gymnasiums, ornamental roof gardens, tennis courts, private movie theatres, barbeque zones, foyer seating areas, sky-decks…
The inevitable ubiquity of multi-residential dwelling comes with big civic challenges that can no longer be postponed or ignored. We are in an era where neighbours and commons should matter more than ever; where diverse demographics and flexible programs should not be nice-to-haves, but be seen as integral to the metropolitan neighbourhood’s long-term success. Be it at ground level or up above on the nth floor, when we start to redefine social infrastructures surrounding our high-rise life, we take the ‘apart’ out of ‘apartments’, in doing so making room for genuine public life to prosper.
