Photography and Videography project by Tomohisa Miyauchi, commissioned for the Singapore Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, “Delight: Qualifying a lo(i)veable city.”

 

A selection of Singaporean architecture that asks the following questions

• What is Delight?
• How can Delight be qualified?
• Who has access to Delight?

 

The Singapore Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale poses two thoughts that architects everywhere wrestle with every day: creating delightful spaces, and how to do so.

 

In the post-big data, post-hard facts, existentialist era, Singapore is waking up to the soft power of design, environment, and citizen-centric soft data. From an unprecedented nationwide push toward vertical greenscapes (lush); to the use of natural light and air to create inclusive, healthy public spaces (spirit); to the unobtrusive yet pervasive use of technology to enable meaningful lives (pulse), this nation-state knows that a future built together on sustainable nature and soft technology is the way to create a lo(i)veable city, one that brings joy to all.

 

The Singapore Pavilion presents an introspection of architectural works that have exemplified borrowing from abundant, free natural elements and soft technology in their creation of delightful open spaces.

 

In qualifying and understanding these works, the pavilion also postulates a way forward for an architectural design process that begins by questioning and understanding joy.