[notes] negotiation with the old.

yaoks, sio and i were discussing the pratice of both partners in a relationship including both their surnames into the names of their children. for example, when Tan and Lim have a child, they name said-child Tan-Lim Something. if Tan-Lim meets Chan, is their child Tan-Lim-Chan? and what happens when Tan-Lim-Chan meets Wong-Su? do we finally get a Wong-Su-Tan-Lim-Chan Something-Something?

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the original idea of conservation is to maintain the subject in question in its authentic state. if it were a parliamentary house, we should preserve everything from its exterior enclosure all the way to its interior fittings. technically throwing it into a state of suspension. such forms of conservations are aplenty in other countries, though most of are residential houses ala Villa Savoye and Fallingwater.

sadly, due to Singapore's land scarcity and all that other good arguments you've been told over and over again, we are more accustomed to adaptive reuse. look no further than The Arts House, previously Singapore's first court house and former Parliament House as an example.

[sideline: if you haven't heard the past discussions, we should be happy for our first court house because it turned into an a public arts establishment, as opposed to party central or an intimidatingly expensive hotel.]

in my current research, some researchers/ professionals argue that Modern architecture, especially, should undergo some form of adaptive reuse. Their point is that Modernism was always about being progressive and relevant to the times; so in order to remain true to the spirit of things, projects that don't work should either be readapted to contemporary needs, or failing which, demolished.

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on a not entirely related note, i'm not always clear in my own understanding and vision of architectural lineage, but when it comes to refurbishment/ addition and adaption (A&A) projects, i do enjoy the mix-and-match ideal. it could be that my precedent study of Gehry House back in year 1 stayed with me through all these years. it could also be the fact that i like evolution, hence thoroughly disagree with major refurbishments that completely strip either the interior or exterior.

hence my conceptual proposal for the facade refurbishment of Great World City Shopping Centre--originally done by Ong&Ong Architects--a while back. i decided to punch holes in the facade and introduce pop consumerist fun. the colored panels were to be illuminated and maybe even used as billboards. the point of it, however, lay in my belief that there was nothing completely wrong with the shopping mall's facade, and that instead of proposing a whole new facade, we could attempt 'corrective surgery' instead.

retrospectively, my problem now is if such an attempt would inevitably evolve into Wong-Su-Tan-Lim-Chan Something-Something scenario. how much self-referencing adaptive design does it take to reach saturation? or are the possibilities really bound only by the architect's ability to design?