Singapore, 5 August 2014 – Singapore’s annual premiere architecture festival, Archifest – a Festival of Ideas for the City – returns for its eighth year with a new theme, ‘CROWD’, that seeks to open up the discussion to investigate how the notion of Crowd operates and contributes to architecture and urbanism. Organised by the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA), Archifest 2014 will present architecture in a relevant, and engaging way, strengthening the affinity between architecture and people, through a line-up of exhibitions, activities and speakers that architects, students and the public can look forward to.
“Archifest is an event for everybody, from architects and expertise from the industry to the public. It is also an invaluable platform to showcase the forward thinking ideas and technology in the name of design excellence. SIA hopes to be able to utilise Archifest as a valuable contribution to the profession and public”, declared by SIA’s President, Mr Theodore Chan.
The two week-long festival will explore the idea of ‘CROWD’ in its different meanings and contexts, specifically in the categories of Collective Intelligence and Community Capital. Some of the key highlights include a pop-up café in collaboration with Toby’s Estate; a Conference headlining international and local speakers; a series of installations, workshops, tours and sharing sessions showcasing architecture projects; and other fringe events.
“The theme of ‘CROWD’ this year holds abundant possibilities, we hope to create an in-depth discourse especially in the aspect of the two subthemes, Collective Intelligence and Community Capital, during the festival. We are looking forward to seeing the community coming together in the conference, sharing sessions, workshops and other activities of Archifest 2014 in sharing of locals and international architectural works and ideas”, explained the Festival Committee Chairman, Mr Patrick Lee.
Archifest 2013, attended by more than 30,000 visitors, presented the theme ‘Small is Beautiful’ which showcased communities, businesses and ideas that may be small by choice and circumstance, but are large in ambition and impact.
With the six key pillars of this year, namely Archifest Pavilion, Urban Lab, Archifest Conference, Architours, Fringe and Archxpo, Archifest 2014 aims to continue bringing great minds and people together to share ideas, collaborate and form collectives to create even better places for the public.
ARCHIFEST PAVILION
The Archifest Pavilion is the main base where the various events and activities start from or run within the space, and will physically embody the spirit of this year’s theme ‘CROWD’.
The Archifest 2014 Pavilion Design Competition received 28 design proposals – the highest number of entries received since the inaugural competition in 2012 – and for the first time, was awarded to two winning teams instead of one, after two rounds of judging.
Mr Theodore Chan commented, “The winning entries were chosen based on how well this year’s theme was encompassed in their designs. Each winning submission is independently exceptional. This unprecedented outcome is due to the highest quality of the winning submissions and the intensity of the design competition recording the highest number of top quality submissions in the history of Archifest. Both design proposals have shown great flexibility in accommodating various people and the different activities, as well as, showcasing the architectural idea of people and their ability to empower change within the city. We are excited to see how collaboration between the two winners will culminate towards the Archifest 2014 pavilion.”
Situated at Marina Bay Sands Events Plaza, the Archifest Pavilion will be the physical manifestation of the combined ideas between the two winning teams, Architect Fong Hoo Cheong of ‘HCF and Associates’; and Architect Kelvin Kan and Lead Designer Shinya Okuda of ‘AgFacadesign and NUS’.
URBAN LAB
A key highlight of Archifest 2014 is Urban Lab, a series of workshops, installations, and sharing sessions, that are aimed at enhancing and facilitating knowledge-sharing and collaboration amongst design and architecture schools and students in Singapore.
In collaboration with tertiary schools and universities, Urban Lab challenged design and architecture students to create installations that incorporate the idea of ‘CROWD’, with relevance to each of the school’s curriculum. The public can look forward to selected student works exhibited at the Pavilion,
coming from National University of Singapore, Nanyang Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Singapore Polytechnic.
In line with the theme ‘CROWD’, a series of Crowd Pricing Workshops, co-curated with Haystakt will take place at the Pavilion during the weekends of the festival for the public to participate. Haystakt is a crowd pricing platform and marketplace for individuals to sell their independent design products. The idea of crowd pricing is that when more people purchase, the cheaper the price. Involved parties, who are running their workshops with this model of Crowd Pricing, include Wholesome Co and U Grow Gardens. Moreover, other sharing sessions and workshops will be organized for the students with the support of the architects, such as the Parametric Design Workshop.
ARCHIFEST CONFERENCE
The Archifest Conference will take place on Monday, 29 September 2014 at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre (Hall D and E) to coincide with the SIA Design Awards Presentation Ceremony, which recognises the outstanding architecture projects in 2014, where the winners will share the design concepts and philosophies behind their work.
The Conference will feature Mr Paul Noritaka Tange, Founder and President of the internationally acclaimed Tange Associates from Japan, and Mr Tan Cheng Siong of Archurban Architects & Planners from Singapore, as its keynote speakers. They will be speaking on the subjects of Collective Intelligence and Community Capital – how people and ideas are connected through places they share to produce a greater impact, and leverage on social capital in building better places for everybody.
The conference will also invite renowned architects from Singapore and around the world, such as Jerry Ong of CPG Consultants Pte Ltd.; Tay Kheng Soon of Akitek Tenggara; Joshua Bolchover, professor from University of Hong Kong; Karen Tan, the founder of Pocket Projects; Huang Sheng-yuan from Fieldoffice Architects in Taiwan; Tay Lai Hock from Ground-up Initiative, to explore various facets of the theme ‘Crowd’.
World Architecture Festival will happen on 1-3 October 2014. Archifest Conference replenishes and organizes in this important event in the architecture industry calendar. October will definitely be an exciting month for the industry with the alliance generated by these two festivals.
ARCHITOURS
The highly popular Architours, curated by The Architecture Society of the National University of Singapore (NUS) return once again for two weekends. Intended to give the public a glimpse into award winning projects, these tours will be guided by architects and students who will be sharing their special insights and knowledge about the projects. There will be three tours for 12 locations, including Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, The Sandcrawler – the regional headquarters for Lucasfilm Singapore, HDB Centre of Building Research (CBR) and more.
FRINGE
Fringe events for this year’s festival will feature new partners and exciting projects such as the collaboration with KEEPERS Pop-up store at Orchard Green, in collaboration of Singapore designers and artisans to showcase features retail from furniture to fashion to food, as well as an event series
including a nostalgic scent workshop to revivals of vanishing crafts.
Also, expect to see Architecture Walking Tours, Perspectives Film Festival 2014 by students from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information of Nanyang Technological University, talks organized by Singapore Architect Magazine and so on.
With various programmes celebrating architecture for crowd, this year looks to be another exciting edition of Archifest 2014. As outlined by Mervin Tan, the Festival Team Director, “Archifest is an opportune platform to heighten the voices from individuals with the same tune of this year’s theme. We collaborate closely with our partners to develop ideas for the festival. Public can look forward to a more tightly curated festival, with a varied activities such as sharing sessions, workshops and others under the umbrella topic of ‘CROWD’.”
Archifest has become a Singapore’s annual architecture festival of ideas for the city since 2007. Organised by Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA), this year’s is co-curated and produced by PLUS Collaboratives and supported by Design Singapore Council, Urban Development Authority and Marina Bay Sands Singapore. It returns with a brand new theme – ‘CROWD’, running from 26 September to 11 October 2014. In addition to the popular festival highlights comprising the Archifest Pavilion, Archifest Conference, Architours, Urban Lab, SIA Design Awards Presentation Ceremony, and Fringe
Events, the Festive has a new addition ArchXpo.
ARCHXPO
ArchXpo 2014 is the latest addition to the key pillars of the Archifest series. It is the International Exhibition for Architecture & The Built Environment which is co-organised by Singapore Institute of Architects and Conference & Exhibition Management Services Pte Ltd. It will showcase the relevant technologies, products and related services in the architectural and built environment industries. Also, it is a comprehensive and integrated platform for the professions and business community from the industry to exchange ideas of research and innovation in architectural and built environment design,
practice and education.
Archifest 2014 runs from 26 September to 11 October 2014 at Marina Bay Sands Event Plaza, Expo & Convention Center, 10 Bayfront Ave, Singapore 018956.
Architours and other third-party events and promotions running in conjunction or in celebration of Archifest 2014 will take place in various locations around Singapore.
For more information and details about Archifest 2014, please visit:
Website: www.archifest.sg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/archifest
Twitter: http://twitter.com/archifest