September 29–October 28, 2023
The Singapore Archifest 2023 is currently taking place at the historic Kampong Gelam district in Singapore from September 29 to October 28. Commissioned by the Singapore Institute of Architects and led by Festival Director, Calvin Chua, the festival theme, Interim: Acts of Adaptation, is an invitation to rethink our built environment as continually being in a state of transition. Presenting itself as a lab, this edition of Archifest investigates the potential of adaptive architecture as the mode of action in response to pressing environmental, cultural, and technological change.
Evident in its planning and policy language, Singapore is no stranger to the “interim” with its range of discrete, stopgap interventions facilitating the transformation of our city. As our urban landscape matures and navigates an increasingly volatile world, we can no longer afford to remain uneasy about the necessity of continual change. By challenging existing approaches to the construction of our built environment, Interim prompts architects and stakeholders to explore a constant, incremental evolution of the city, which can empower us to anticipate and better manage the uncertainty evoked by broader social and ecological circumstances.
Building on the practice’s ongoing interest in urban adaptation, Chua and his curatorial team seeks to present visitors and fellow practitioners with a newer, different approach to the festival as a vessel of urban discourse. A dynamic line-up of festival programmes includes the headliner AF Conference, which brings together leading local and global voices, each with a distinctive approach working in diverse contexts. This year’s Conference focuses on amplifying the conversations around the applications of an “Interim” thinking in architecture and the city, with an emphasis not on a flat showcase of works, but on the cross-pollination of ideas, methods and visions. Complementing the conference is the AF Exhibition, which showcases 37 emerging local and regional architects’ interpretations of the festival theme through the display of Interim Atlas statements, short films and artefacts.
In addition, Singapore Archifest 2023 also features new programmes such as AF Incubators that examine pressing issues ranging facing the built environment through week-long design workshops, AF Residency which invites emerging architects and practitioners from the region to participate in ongoing conversations, as well as salon sessions to facilitate interactions between a variety of curated, diverse professional voices and perspectives.
In the spirit of its theme, Interim expands from a centralised festival experience by embedding meaningful architectural discourse into the physical landscape of the city. In place of a pavilion, Archifest 2023 reimagines the festival’s traditional centrepiece as multiple accessible urban objects to be inserted at various areas around the festival site. A series of AF Installations, designed by young architects, designers, and artists, establishes the festival’s physical presence through a dispersed activation of the historical and characterful Kampong Gelam district. These urban installations represent the potential ability of adaptive interventions to impress upon the physical landscape of the city beyond their footprints and lifetimes.
Kampong Gelam’s rich and layered history forms an interim urban trace of Singapore’s national development, providing the festival with an apt foundation for conversations surrounding urban transformation to be built upon. The dialogues born from the heart of the festival in Kampong Gelam will then further extend to other satellite sites via a suite of festival programming, thereby involving a greater range of stakeholders in broader discourse.
We invite fellow industry professionals to participate in this collective endeavour to explore the “interim” as a new paradigm of architecture, in hopes of shaping a more resilient and sustainable future.
For more information on Singapore Archifest 2023 and event ticketing details, visit the festival website at archifest.sg/ and social pages at instagram.com/archifest. For press kit and info, contact archifest [at] tateanzur.com and archifest [at] sia.org.sg respectively.
