It's going to be elections again. For those who figured that local architecture scene is too cui to make a living; why not consider the 'iron rice bowl'? Chances are our fellow nit-wit citizens are going to place the Papas back into the government. So u will be assured of a slew of upgrading projects to do.
Why do something of a sub-standard quality and sell it to people and then subsequently make them vote for them to manage your money to 'upgrade' these substandard projects? Why do MRT stations need major refurbishments like adding lifts and ramps for the handicapped when it could be planned for earlier in the design stage? Midway, convincing pple that they need to raise your mrt fares for it?? If a HDB estate is well designed, do we need upgrading programmes to make them handicapped friendly? Adding covered walkways and lifts at every level i can understand; but fugly pitch roofs and meaningless metal structures over your watertanks?? Guess what, after you choose them, the upgrading is not free. You pay for it, the rest comes from the taxes they collected and for them to release it for use. Well, if you vote for somebody else, your money is not going to be released to you.
If you don't choose the PAP, your streets are going to be dark. rubbish will not be collected. your lifts will not stop at your floor. you need an umbrella to the bus stop. your water tanks remain undecorated. Guess what, I am talking nonsense because most of us will not get to choose anyway.
Monday, March 27, 2006
PAP-HDB-LTA architect
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3 comments:
when you question why these designs are flawed in the first place, they will say "singaporeans like you are very lucky to have safe and clean streets in the first place, you should have seen 3rd world countries"
we are good at comparing downwards, and setting parameters and frameworks so that comparing upwards is not plausiible.
eg "singapore is ranked first among msia, indon, brunei in living standards"
eg "we cannot compare ourselves to cities like NY or tokyo because these are world cities of entire nations" "switzerland is a country of rich cultural heritage and they got there after centuries."
khengsoon is finding hard to explain to ppl in studio that you NEED TO have an issue THEN solve it rather than to find easy ready solutions from magazines and books. I wonder how come pple would choose to uphold their architectural beliefs of FOUR years than to pause and contemplate on the ramblings of someone who lived architecture for FORTY years.
in japan you have ENTIRE studios of anime artists to create a synergy of creativity and production. in singapore, we struggle to produce ONE anime artist. in indonesia, they are still pointing fingers at who is to blame for forest fires.
we will always remain like this when we think and compare ourselves like this.
It's not a one way street.
There are other countries comparing against us as well. Read today's papers, Saudi Arabia admires our transformed kingdom.
As for why ramps/lifts are implemented now rather than then , is because of the cost/benefit ratio. We didnt have an aging society issue back then. Everything in Singapore is driven by dollars and cents. It's also partly due to the US FTA which requires us to be disability-friendly.
Architecture does not exist on it's own, it exist only because of civil society.
"As for why ramps/lifts are implemented now rather than then , is because of the cost/benefit ratio. We didnt have an aging society issue back then."
hmmm... so "didn't have an aging society back then" = "didn't have old people back then" = no need for lifts/ramps. brilliant. i hope when you are old people treat you like a statistic and perform cost/benefit analysis on you =p
anyway, hi wuks!
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