20.112 Sustainable Design Option Studio 2
Option Studio 2: Speculative Urban Futures invites students to imagine alternative trajectories for Singapore by engaging deeply with speculative thinking. Grounded in research on contemporary culture, systems, and global paradigms, the studio encourages students to critically interpret the present while scanning the horizon for emerging futures. Through this process, each student develops individual, critically reasoned positions about possible futures.
The studio introduces diverse techniques of projection, storytelling, and narrative-building, guiding students in transforming trans contextual observations into architectural abstractions and future oriented spatial narratives. Central to this is an understanding of transcontextuality and the interconnectedness between people, place, and planet—recognising that well-being and regenerative action are inseparable foundations for truly critical sustainability.
This methodology offers a broader vantage point on sustainability and the role architecture plays in shaping resilient global futures. Students also acquire advanced skills in representation, fabrication, and model making to communicate imaginative and radical proposals. These explorations may take the form of absurd, utopic, or dystopic scenarios—each serving as a provocation that challenges assumptions and inspires thoughtful actions toward a regenerative, sustainable urban future.
Learning objectives
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Identify issues of sustainable design in relation to socioeconomic, demographic and cultural trends, through the analysis of literature and review of architectural precedents
- Perform rigorous site analysis and map the site conditions
- Critique a project brief and develop strong, generative sustainable design concepts
- Translate design concepts into meaningful architectural and/or urban propositions at appropriate scales and levels of granularity
- Create convincing arguments for the design propositions and persuasive visual and tangible evidence
Measurable outcomes
- Interpret the sustainable parameters and other issues of relevance to the project using drawings and diagrams
- Respond to a specific project brief and a specific context with a meaningful design concept
- Produce coherent architectural representations and models at sufficient levels of detail
- Communicate convincingly sustainable design propositions in the form of renderings, drawings, simulations, models
Prerequisites
- 20.101 Architectural Core Studio 1
- 20.102 Architectural Core Studio 2
- 20.103 Architectural Core Studio 3
- 20.111 Sustainable Design Option Studio 1
Course instructor
No of Credits:18
´ǰDz:8-0-10*
*The first number represents the number of hours per week assigned for lectures, recitations and cohort classroom study. The second number represents the number of hours per week assigned for labs, design, or field work. The third number represents the number of hours per week assigned for independent study.
2026 topics
- Quantum City: A Singapore-Bali Studio (Khoo Peng Beng)
- Coastal Assemblages : 2050 SINGAPORE (Eva Castro, Nicholas Lim)
- Infrastructures of Care – Hybrid, Multiplicitous, and Socio-Collaborative Urban Futures (Lee Tat Haur)
2025 topics
- Musuem for Disappearing Technologies (Tims Collins)
- PROTOtypes (Eva Castro)
- QuantumCITY – The Bali Studio (Khoo Peng Beng)
- Redefining Co-Living Typologies for Intergenerational Communities (Pauline Ang)
- The Space and Form of Sustainability (Jyanzi Kong)
- Wild Katong (Khoo Teik Rong)