The Ways We Live Singapore
Catalogue/documentation of works, 2017
Edited by Nadia Wagner
Published by The Glasgow School of Art Singapore, Interior Design Department, 2017
Project was initiated at The Glasgow School of Art by Patrick Macklin and developed for The Glasgow School of Art, Singapore, by Nadia Wagner. Taught with Elaine Lee, Seung-Ho Lee and Mark Teo.
Designed with Jamie Yeo in collaboration with Nadia Wagner and Jesse O'Neill
DL size, offset lithography, edition of 200, 48p, Saddle Stitched with additional fold
Typeset in Neue Kabel, Printed by First Printers Singapore
Typeset in Neue Kabel, Printed by First Printers Singapore
Extracted text from catalogue:
With this publication we mark the halfway point of a three- year Interior Design research project that engages our third-year cohorts across international campuses and looks at the ways we live. Separated by 11,000 km, the student groups have been exploring, in their respective cities, two housing typologies: the Singaporean Housing Development Board (HDB) flat and the Glaswegian tenement.
Around twenty regions of the city-state are represented. The first pages give the broader context of our domestic landscape at the scale of the estate. We move inside via the common corridors, which blur private and public space with domestic collections that spill outside. And finally we enter the living rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, work spaces, bedrooms, finding evidence of the patterns of people’s lives, and plenty of decoration.
The project so far has brought attention to interior scenes often taken for granted, with everyday banalities being noticed and documented. Spaces and objects have been aestheticized, with some becoming beautiful, and others reminding us of our own idiosyncratic domestic arrangements.
Engaging directly with the un-designed yet functioning and symbolically rich interior is hopefully a revelation for the interior designer, who must come to terms with the intimacy and subjectivity inherent in the construction of a dwelling, acknowledging where residential design ends and the true concept of ‘home’ begins.
Lastly, with the pamphlet’s design we attempt two things, firstly to remain casual in order to reflect this work-in- progress (it’s easily tucked under the arm) and secondly to make difficult any ordinary engagement with the content. With the documentation of private domiciles it is unavoidable that the reader becomes voyeur. The double fold reduces the magazine format by half, and so it is discreet in not revealing all at once. We’ve enjoyed looking into home life in Singapore and hope you enjoy spending time looking/peering through/ into the investigations, as the image details reveal more the closer they are paid attention to.
