The Performance of Measurement – When is Enough, Enough?
The theme of Singapore Archifest 2024, in its 18th edition, continues the project that began with the Singapore Institute of Architect’s Singapore exhibition at the 18th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023. At its homecoming, the inverted title, “The Performance of Measurement – When is Enough, Enough?”, re-emphasises architecture’s raison d’etre, in evoking the Intangible in Architecture.
“Great Buildings, in my opinion, begin with the unmeasurable, go through measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be unmeasurable.” – Louis Kahn
The Intangible is all pervasive in Architecture.
A refocus on the intangible reminds us about designing for the Common Good and to make our architecture and cities Loveable. Buildings and the built environment are designed and built according to measurable and quantifiable standards. Yet a community’s interaction with their environment is intangible and not measured within these same markers. How should we celebrate work that empower and include, that recognise attachment to places and connections to form communities as desired outcomes and key ingredients to consider in design? How could we measure these intangible unmeasurable outcomes to unearth and acknowledge spaces and places that bring about Common Good?
In this next instalment, we focus on asking, what makes Great? Measurements aim to bring objective criteria to establish standards, enabling replicability and the belief of the equal distribution of good outcomes. Alongside the multitude of measurable criteria imposed on architecture practice for common good, do we still hold space for measures of what makes great? The Singapore Archifest 2024 will be creating such a space and time, lifting our focus to moments that imbue a sense of awe and wonder; to lift the human spirit, to defining timeless architecture values.
Taken together, our hope for Singapore Archifest 2024 is for all of us with the privilege of affecting people’s everyday lives through the built and unbuilt environment, to realise once again, our role as cultural custodians, to enrich the soul of the cities we work in, and to materialise the intangible and the unmeasurable, one project at a time.
Please click HERE to visit Archifest website and HERE for register for the Conference.