WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH?: IL PADIGLIONE DI SINGAPORE ESPLORA L’INTANGIBILE ALLA BIENNALE DI ARCHITETTURA DI VENEZIA DEL 2023
2023
Review by Beatrice
And it does so through six main concepts: AGENCY, ATTACHMENT, ATTRACTION, CONNECTION, FREEDOM, INCLUSION, through which it stimulates reflection and the question mark...
How do we add not only years to life, but life to years?
Come possiamo aggiungere non solo anni alla vita ma vita agli anni?
How can we make the word INCLUSION obsolete?
Come possiamo rendere obsoleta la parola inclusione?
What if one day, you forget your name?
E se un giorno dimenticassi il tuo nome?
Is there violence in care?
C'è violenza nella cura?
What vantage point allows us to see our blind spots?
Quale punto di osservazione ci permette di vedere i nostri punti ciechi?
Can we find composure in change and chaos?
Possiamo trovare compostezza nel cambiamento e nel caos?
How might a learning environment serve all needs and speeds?
In che modo un ambiente di apprendimento può soddisfare tutte le esigenze e le velocità?
Does encountering nature make human nature more humane?
Incontrare la natura rende la natura umana più umana?
How can we see the old with new eyes?
Come possiamo vedere il vecchio con occhi nuovi?
Could the final outcome be a work in progress?
Il risultato finale potrebbe essere un work in progress?
Does measuring help make better unmeasurables?
La misurazione aiuta a migliorare ciò che non può essere misurato?
How do we design a space for living, for those who are dying?
Come si progetta uno spazio per vivere, per chi sta morendo?
Just a few examples of questions to understand the magnitude of the work carried out by the creators and implementers of this amazing pavilion.
For the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - Venice Biennale of this year, the Singapore Pavilion activates the discussion on new methods of measuring and evaluating the intangible and explicitly asks: is it enough? The exhibition explores the interaction of a community with the surrounding environment, suggesting that it is not quantified within these criteria; buildings and the physical environment are designed and constructed according to measurable, quantifiable, and scalable standards. Furthermore, the pavilion suggests that by connecting these two pillars of urban architecture, it is essential to rethink innovation in design. The exhibition asks how architects can quantify the immeasurable values of architecture: action, attachment, attraction, connection, freedom, and inclusion.
Guided by the curators Ar. Melvin Tan, Ar. Adrian Lai, and Ar. Wong Ker How, "WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH?" proposes how to start measuring these intangibles. The central piece of the exhibition is The Performance of Measurement Machine, a series of analog tracking devices that mark data on five-meter-high calligraphic scrolls. Visitors are asked to answer six questions that highlight the intangible characteristics of the city to stimulate reflection on the features that can elevate the urban environment from a human-centric metropolis to a beloved global metropolis. Visitors will choose the ideal combination of features to evoke their ideal habitat by navigating through various creative renderings, weighing their choices, and recording these values in the pavilion.
The Architecture Biennale 2023 semester will see this act of weighing and recording values represented on the giant calligraphic scrolls inside the Pavilion in a real-time visualization of consensus and contradiction. The machine is accompanied by exhibitions with 41 additional questions that invite visitors to stop and learn more about the research conducted by the architecture studios involved in the Pavilion and their efforts to measure the intangibles as they explore the fields of design for dementia and neurodiversity, rewilding, biodiversity, nutrition, and biomimetic ecosystems.
Together with scholars and architects whose work focuses on agency, attachment, attraction, connection, freedom in the city, and inclusion, a series of exhibitions and discussion questions have been developed. The Singapore Pavilion examines design strategies that achieve these six objectives, revealing obstacles and incongruities and highlighting approaches to address various preferences and the issues that arise from them. Throughout the exhibition, the empirical data collected by the Values Measurement Machine will provide an overview of how to transform intangible traits into facts to help people understand the importance of developing inclusive standards from the bottom up. The Pavilion experience also serves as an invitation for visitors to consider how much effort is necessary to achieve the goals they have for their cities.
"WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH? The Performance of Measurement" proposes that a just society depends on its members constantly making sense of competing interests, values, and meanings, particularly in increasingly diverse and multicultural cities. The Singapore Pavilion allows visitors to imagine the intangible aspects that are meaningful to them in their own country and the role that architects and the public play in creating and accomplishing this reality.