LEISURE SPACESAgnes Yit, Architectural Student, AA
Randy Chan, Director, Zarch Collaboratives
Our last discussion overall identified our recreational space moved from an informal home-based play area into a more institutional arena when we’ve grown up, it can otherwise be a soccer field, gynasium, skating rink, well in this case I’ve explored the cinema as an adult’s leisure space, and thinking about the social and cultural background differences comparison between London and Singapore that somehow determine the built-up structures of the HDB Blocks for example, the literally playground space of a badminton court (shown in the progress photos) is located at the back of house, while here in London, it is actually planned not as the focal point in the central of the estate when you step into the so-called main entrance of the estate, while Singapore’s way of planning is always centralizing the children’s play area right in front of the estate where it is visible from the main road. The corridor-way is a zig-zag formation that is a continuously link from one block to another, I went up to the 5th floor in block 2 and just walk through 6-7 slab-blocks on the same corridor on the same floor, while there will be lift-car area demarcated by a front door & back door when arrived to each block, the doors are free to open andthere is little security, to enter the lift area, you just have to push through the front door and out from the back door and you’ll be in another block, so the structure is definite different contrasting Singapore’s. Here one can perceive the usage of the horizontally-linked corridor as escape routes, that one can ‘play’ in a really long horizontal corridor without the need to go to the designated park downstairs, one can also try to escape in this horizontal span, like an alternative route to take not only rely on getting up & down the lift and stairways. Its interesting to think about this long span of corridor space serves a different & wider purpose when we grown up. So if the generic-ness is obvious, then we can maybe look at the differences between this 2 built-ups to think of how a change in our perception of things can affect our way of associating with the same space, same structures but at a different growing-up phase, which is not the same moment as it used to be before. The cinema as a place of fantasy; the realisation of a constructed world.
These photographs are taken by Agnes Yit and Randy Chan as part of the Uniquely Singapore - Distinctively London? exhibition.
