architectural design v
my design process began with broad urban observation, mapping car infrastructure, pedestrian suffocation, and informal activity in brickfields through both quantitative data and experiential reading of the site. over the semester, this expanded into theoretical research on informality, temporality, and everyday urbanism, which helped me understand these conditions not as problems to erase but as logics to work with. through iterative mapping, precedent studies, and system-based design, the project gradually shifted from critique to architectural proposition, using circulation, modularity, and reuse of infrastructural elements as spatial strategies.
re:routed exchange
a vertical vendor plaza
this project responds to the dominance of car-centric planning in brickfields, where pedestrian life and informal street culture are increasingly compressed by speed, congestion, and transit-driven infrastructure. rather than opposing these conditions directly, the project reframes walking, vending, and pause as primary urban acts through a vertical vending plaza that extends the street into architecture. by formalising informality and slowing movement through ramps, modular vendor systems, and kinetic infrastructure, the building promotes health, heritage, and everyday participation as a counterpoint to mobility-driven urbanism.
1:100 kinetic model
module
reflection
a key learning takeaway was becoming more confident in pursuing a strong, unconventional narrative—my tutor’s constant push toward an “out there” direction encouraged me to think more critically and speculatively, while also teaching me the importance of knowing when to refine and calibrate ideas rather than continually intensifying them.