SAM Interior Concept Design

Recent completion of a Concept Design proposal for the entrance lobby of Singapore Art Museum (SAM).

One of the main observation when one enters the main reception lobby is the disparity between the formal architecture of the museum building and the lobby spaceitself.

The formality of the main entrance drop-off is being contradicted by a lobby space that is skewed to one side,with the main museum signage incidentally placed along the external wall of the office room.

Thus, there exists an opportunity now to revisit the possibility of having a lobby that is able to respond to the symmetry of the architecture but yet able to exudean artistic and contemporary charm of the museum itself, with these 2 strategies:

A. CENTRAL AXIS
A central axis is maintained and respected with theplacement of the key programmtic functions along this axis; entrance reception counter, office room, visitors’seating, Roll of Honour and donation box.
The centrally located main reception provides a senseof focus for visitors upon entering the premise. At thesame time, both the left and right walls of the receptionlobby are free for temporary or permanent artwork displays for added interest.

B. CONTEMPORARY IMAGE
To echo the museum‘s reputation as the world’s largest public collection of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian artworks, the lobby design is contemporary with bold choice colours ofblack and red, and yet with clear, simple and elegant forms to reflect the timelessness of the architecture the museum resides.

Bump and Mind. U:phoria architecture+design pays tribute to Comme des Garcons’ 1997 idiosyncratic collection

Our studio embarked on an exploratory journey to study the parallel practices in fashion and architecture, with inspiration drawn from Comme des Garcons’ Spring/Summer 1997 “Bump & Mind” Collection.

This quirky and surrealistic collection featured models wearing gowns attached with bumps that seemingly challenges the conventions of garment cladded forms. In this collection, “Comme des Garcons (CDG) does not attempt to show what is supposed to be the ‘natural’, but instead, to enable the wearer to approximate the ‘actual’.

In these dresses, individuals feel that they are weird but perceive that the clothing does not represent the ‘natural’ and, by extension, themselves” – Artforum International, Dec 1996.

Though conceived 12 years ago, this collection with engorged garments is still being perceived as futuristic. In architectural sense, the relevance is even more so with the current liberation & proliferation of technologies that allow building forms to go beyond the convention of post and beam with amorphous forms.

As a tribute to this ground breaking creation of CDG, a series of forms or objects are explored and devised to specifically co-relate the ephemeral qualities of that collection with the permanence of structured forms. These forms are contorted and misshaped with protruded skin elements to emulate the unusual garments conceived for the collection. Enveloping frames free the interior of column structures and thus allowing for a greater fluidity of space within.

Whether as building elements or sculptures, this study attempts to draw closer the disciplines of architecture and fashion, and just as important, to provide a befitting context and background for the co-existence of CDG’s garments.