Loh Kong Liang Mervin

Delectable smell in-the-air is a physical manifesto for the common people within the residential estate in Singapore, Toa Payoh. Occupying a singular large space of 80m by 90m, it could hold up to 1000 people eating and not doing anything else together. Within the city-state where the daily routine is highly structured and unproductivity is criticised upon, the delectable is a new plinth within the estate that allows for individualist self-expression without restraint. As the expectation of society piles up on young Singaporeans, the social affirmation cracks as the city’s typologies mold them into established routines. While they lack and struggle to seek after a non-prescribed / non-regimental space for relief within the everyday life.

The familiarities of the domestic spaces extend out to the estate in which the ‘Hawker Centre’ is integral to it, a public space in a form of an infrastructure for the common eating. The ‘Hawker Centre’ is an omnipresent typology within the everyday life of Singaporean, absent in idealisation but still operates within the city’s pandered reproduction.

The Delectable is a playground of sensorial perceptions that works between the physiological, atmospheric, and gastronomic senses of people. To emphasis on its seemly weird sense of familiarity within the estate, the direction of entry, sequence of observation, and creation of smell composition within the architecture are chosen according to different impacts we would want Singaporean to experience – perceiving the hawker as a familiar setting interfacing with the estate.

As the domes segment changes with different height and size the different containment of air composition changes and so does physiological transformation in the occupants do. That will allow for different types of expression, activities, collectiveness, socialising and eventually not doing anything else at all across the field of the architecture.

The Domes are the main design language in the architecture. The catalogue shows the series of domes that are rigorously shaped and tested through different proportion of scales and size. These are then arranged as a spatial and geometrical organisation allowing different set of domes to house these air compositions.

Physical and digital testing of the domes allows for much more precision in creating spaces for the set amount of emitters within it. The wormeye axonometric shows the construction of the cluster of the domes and supported by the structure columns.

The 1st level is a field that allows of uninterrupted connection from point to point. Sheltering these uninterrupted fields are a series of domes that are placed to be the receptors and emitters of the air composition. Each group of domes covers a certain type of air composition that induces different behavioural changes to people who are within these segments. As the domes segment changes, with the different in height and size, the different containment of air composition changes so does the physiological transformation in the occupants do.

The 1st level is a field that allows of uninterrupted connection from point to point. Sheltering these uninterrupted fields are a series of domes that are placed to be the receptors and emitters of the air composition. Each group of domes covers a certain type of air composition that induces different behavioural changes to people who are within these segments. As the domes segment changes, with the different in height and size, the different containment of air composition changes so does the physiological transformation in the occupants do.

Entering the architecture from the estate, one can start to smell different composition of air as the smell is being expelled from some of the domes. The ceramic surface of the domes provides a clean reflection of the building while sitting on top of the familiar hawker setting. As people enter the building either from the ground level or the bridges, one would not expect the vast interconnected spaces within the domes itself.

The architecture is a new plinth that sits within the residential estate allowing for self-expression of individuals to do anything they want and not bound to the appropriation of the building. Openness in the project is then constructed through the unstructured/open routine that the young Singaporean will experience and do within the space. As a social condensing program, the Delectable project acts as a spatial utility that surrounds the estate, creating a landscape of casualisation across the familiar estates of the residential district. The signs of not to do thing guided, not to be pressured by the society which is uncommon in Singaporean society becomes a celebrated notion of which is open to all to see and observe – and eventually partake together. The project will then offer a subtle act of resistance against the normative.

Inducing the smell composition is something highly personal and invisible. The reaction that one can experience within the space is something that cannot be described or shown – but what if the aura of the smell composition can be translated into something architectural.

The architecture is a new plinth that sits within the residential estate allowing for self-expression of individual to do anything they want and not bound to the appropriation of the building. Openness in the project is then constructed through the unstructured/open routine that the young Singaporean will experience and do within the space. As a social condensing program, the Delectable project acts as a spatial utility that surrounds the estate, creating a landscape of casualisation across the familiar estates of the residential district. The signs of not to do thing guided, not to be pressured by the society which are uncommon in Singaporean society becomes a celebrated notion of which is open to all to see and observe – and eventually partake together. The project will then offer a subtle act of resistance against the normative.