Big Little Red Dot
| Project | Open competition to design the Singapore Pavilion for Venice Biennale 2020, Italy |
|---|---|
| Client | Urban Redevelopment Authority and Design Singapore |
| Date | 2019 |
Design Brief
The competition brief requested participants to explore one of these 3 topics as an experimental piece of architecture to represent Singapore at the the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice:
a. Vernacular Space with associations and interactions to represent Singapore’s culture
b. Civic Space that highlights the country’s story and its impact on the region
c. Uncharted Space that experiments and produces new realities for its society
Design Concept
“It’s OK with me, but there are 211 million people in Indonesia. All the green is Indonesia. And that red dot is Singapore.”
– late Indonesian President BJ Habibie
How do we spatially represent/ re-present a comment made 21 years ago by the late Indonesian President BJ Habibie that spotlighted the fragile geopolitics between Singapore and Indonesia or even with other countries, especially the superpowers?
Despite Singapore being depicted as a tiny red dot on many maps, this remark has been widely accepted as the country’s moniker and ironically, with national pride and paranoia. By reinterpreting the red dot, our proposal seeks to align this competition brief and Singapore’s narrative with Venice Biennale 2020.
Our proposal examined these issues:
Big Things Come in Small Packages
Using the space satellite as an analogy, physical size presents no limits to harnessing technology in our pavilion. We propose an installation that performs like a ‘mobile app’ to link Singapore with Venice. It is a camera, a pictorial library and a QR code archive within a compact sphere.
Through its walls, visitors will understand how Singapore struggles to be globally relevant despite its adoption as a gateway into or a ‘test lab’ in the service of larger economies.
“We suggest to twin the red dot, one in Venice and another in Singapore, to digitally connect both sets of audience and to explore the duality of ‘edifice vs metropolis’ of these two cities.”
Twinning the Portal
We imagine the pavilion as a portal that seamlessly collages physical and digital realms across space and time. The portal then performs as a peer-to-peer sharing platform of online content such as blogs, editorials and research information. We suggest to twin the red dot, one in Venice and another in Singapore, to digitally connect both sets of audience and to explore the duality of ‘edifice vs metropolis’ of these two cities.
QR Code as Transmitter and Receiver
Using mobile phones, visitors could scan QR codes to seek answers about Singapore or Venice. Exhibits will showcase physical objects, TV monitors or projection mapping surfaces to encourage visitors to create or curate their online experience. They could join in voice/ video chats at their own volition. We also propose peep holes within the pavilion walls to intensify private viewings and accentuate different scales of participation.
The Little Red Dot Pavilion questioned our relationship with materials of maximum utility and economy where small particles are gathered and manufactured as larger accretions to serve human needs. We examined the value of everyday plastic objects small and large – cups, bowls, containers, cones to buckets – in dialogue with the theme of the exhibition as well as the future survival of Venice as a flood prone city.
