TKS

(this part was not recorded…)

Due to the rapid economic growth rate that we are experiencing today, there appears to be a kind of practical rationality that operates at the institutional level This is also reflected in the individual mentality, both in the staff and students in any school. Parental expectations drive this mentality too. Thus, to fulfil to requirements for qualification is far more important than to lead in one’s thinking and action. I think that’s the perspective that dominates all of Singapore. All parents keep telling their children not to get involve in politics or any controversy; don’t make waves; and don’t draw attention to ourselves; be diligent in your studies; master your subject matter; and then when you get rich, then you can do what ever you want. This is the prevalent view, which is very deeply embedded in the culture of Asia, and Singapore is no exception. Perhaps Singapore is probably more advanced in this than others! (laughs)

So as a result of this mentality, this gets translated into the actual learning and teaching situation. Although all curricular specify that there be a broad range of knowledge to be acquired; skills to be learned with the corresponding appropriate attitudes to be formed and so forth. So there is really nothing wrong with the curricular as such. So what’s wrong? What is wrong is actually the mentality. This is not being addressed at all. Indeed, the stick and the carrot continues to ensure the animal is confirmed as a donkey!

So at best, you will get a few who will always be there to challenge the existing mindset and the majority will become very good servants. The servant mentality will, in whatever field of practice or social life they might end up in, would turn out to be very obedient and dumb. And being obedient, they have to serve various masters and money is of course the biggest master. Thus there is no change in the building industry because the power relations within the industry remain unchanged. Thus architects remain in the bottom end of the power relations in the industry dominated by the developer, the building authorities and the government agencies.

OBL

Can I ask you to elaborate on 2 points? One is the assumption that fulfillment is somewhat contradictory, that in some instances we know that there is some story or basis, mythical, though it may be, why we are like that: a fear for revolution, fear of disability, around here and in the region, and so on. I think it’s no accident that the Singapore media shows the most gruesome pictures of war compared to the Western media but censor other things more than the Western media. I would like to elaborate on that because the thinking is that there is a need for leadership in the convention, if you like, there is a need to continue the middle ground. You seem to imply that that’s not so. What’s wrong with that?

TKS

No, no that’s not what I meant.

OBL

What’s wrong with having a majority who are as it were in the middle ground and a minority like you said who will always question and therefore kind of advocate change?

TKS

By leadership, I mean strategic leadership. Water always find its own level; different individuals will always rise to the level of their competence. That’s the principle you know. I relate this directly to the decline in the leadership role of the profession in general and in the industry in particular.

OBL

Are you talking about professions in general or the architectural profession?

TKS

Professions in general and architectural profession in particular. The role of the profession is basically as a servant in society. Architects being licensed, have to fulfill the professional duties that the license places upon us. And that’s really a servant role, that we should be diligent and faithful servants. That’s about it, but I think there is a lot more than that. And that which is going to define our future, that is the future of Singapore, and this involves leadereship in changing mindsets.

I give you one example. This is the example of Jaime Lerner, the architect who became the mayor of Curitiba. He stood for election because his ideas about reshaping Curitiba could not be implemented by the then existing politico-economic system. So he bit the bullet and decided to stand for election. And he won, on the grounds that he would improve the lives of the people, and the quality of the environment of Curitiba. And he stood successfully for 3 terms and was mayor for Curitiba for 15 years. And in the process, he transformed Curitiba, making it into a model city in Latin America and I think indeed a model city of the world.

Many of Curitiba’s economic problems stem from the relationship between Curitiba and the state of Panara, the southern-most state of Brazil, which was the major coffee growing area of Brazil (the main cash crop beoing coffee and sugar). The coffee and sugar market collapsed at that time, so Curitiba was badly affected. Realising his limitations as a mayor, he then stood for election again and became the governor of Panara state, and transformed the economy of Panara, including developing Curitiba itself. And now he is planning to become the next president of Brazil.

I think in him you have the example of strategic thinking. He is capable of attacking the problems of livelihood and the environment; empowerment of the people and increasing their capabilities. In fact in his speech to the World Bank sponsored accessment mission that I attended in Curitiba, he mentioned 2 main points to define what is the main aim of development. He said that One, is to increase the quality of the environment which includes the social and cultural environment. The other is to increase the capability of people. 

Now that’s very interesting, when you compare this to Singapore. Certainly we have improved the quality of our environment; provided housing; cleaned the rivers, developed a clean and place, created jobs, education; but we have not developed the capability of the people. Because that has never been the primary objective of the development process. The main aim was discipline and the development of a capable government. Indeed one political scientist has commented that the PAP government has made Singapore great but made Singaporeans small!

OBL

There’s recently an article that says Singaporeans are afraid to think.

TKS

Ian Baruma? Because of fear and those kind of things realted to it, I think he’s right. The counter argument by Kishore Mabubahni is that we could not have achieved this great economic growth if people have been stupid. But I think while both statements are true, but they are actually not attacking the problem as it stands. Kishore’s argument is, in the wider context, rather weak because, definitely, the leaders of Singaporean are very capable people, very imaginative and capable of strategic thinking, but they have created a political environment where power is highly centralised and the people have no initiative. And thus the social discipline is very high and therefore the government’s plans and conceptions meet with little resistance, or impediment, or laggardness, laziness of people. People are hardworking and obedient, and therefore the government could achieve the economic miracle the last 35 years.

Singapore people are basically rational. And so long as you limit the rationality to tactical rationality, people can perform, and they have performed exceedingly well. But they are not allowed to debate or to contribute or to take initiative and responsibility for strategic thinking. And I think Baruma’s criticism should really address this point. The criticism of Baruma is that Singaporeans are afraid to think strategically. I think that is true. But Baruma does not say that Singaporeans are incapable or fearful of thinking tactically and operationally, indeed, they are very good in operational thinking. Thgus they are very good at complaining. And so, the defence by Kishore is that Singaporeans are capable and not fearful at all of tactical and operation thinking is correct. So actually the two arguments don’t meet.

KWL

Can you have people who are capable of strategic decisions as well as being at the same time being obedient tactically?

TKS

Strategic thinking does not exclude operational thinking. Indeed strategic thinking is only viable if it includes operational thinking. So strategic thinkers can think through the whole thing from beginning to end, from concept to implementation, and that is the nature of that kind of thinking. Like a general, a general is supposed to do strategic thinking right? But he must also understand the problems of the troops at the frontline. All the difficulties of terrain, enemy strength, deployment, logistics, support, motivation, morale, and all those kind of things. If those logistics is not done well; if the conditions of the people at the frontline are poor; badly provided for and if motivation is weak, then the strategic objectives cannot be achieved.

KWL

But what if the whole army consists only of generals?

TKS

I think this is the false dichotomy that has been raised as an objection to strategic thinking, that strategic thinking is necessarily limited. I think that is a very poor view and it this is a view that has been perpetrated upon Singaporeans and Asians in general. This has led to the political and social environment in which people habitually put curbs on themselves in deference to their leaders. The usual joke is, “all generals no soldiers! “.

That’s not true you see, because strategic thinking does not necessarily limit itself to any one field. One can think strategically in any field, and think it right through, so one can be a general, in say, think strategically about pottery and one can think strategically about how to run a labour union, practice architecture or run a country. All can be generals in their specific fields right? The political environment should not necessarily exclude the possibility of leadership, of strategic leadership in any and all fields.

So the answer to your question about the scenario that there are all generals and no soldiers is in the example of a guerilla army. A guerilla army, is make up of all generals. Like a commando unit. Every member of a commando unit is a in individual, a general if you like, because he has to think of all the strategic issues and tactical and operational issues all together. He has to act independently because there is no clear line of command in the guerilla situation. The new situation is like this.

This is particularly relevant in a situation in as we move out of the catch-up phase of the economy. Arguably, in the catch-up phase of the economy, a strong disciplining of the troops is required. The strategic leadership gives simple and clear-cut direction, so the troops can catch up.

Japan has showed that she can catch up very fast and Singapore has also shown it, and China is now doing it. However, now Singapore and Japan are moving out of the catch-up phase. What is this catch up phase? The Catch-up phase is the phase in which know-how and the technology are appropriated in not only manufacturing technology, but in business and educational technology and so on and so forth. This produces the rapid economic growth which is based on ideas and technologies invented and originated by others. We have caught up and so now we are in the next phase of the economy which is has to be a knowledge-based economy. Knowledge-based economies are different. In such an economy we have to innovate and make our own intelligent and creative contribution to our own welfare and to the welfare of the world, of which we are a part and cannot be separate from. So, we need new generals in every field. Then our products and services have demand.

Now we come back to your question about schools. Schools  today, in general , are based on the catch-up model. In the knowledge-based model, it is a different kind of mindset, a different kind of teaching and learning situation that has to be innovated. Everyone must be an individual, a general in terms of what he is most capable of.

SSK

I have 2 questions. When you mentioned about this strategic thinking and tactical thinking, I was trying to refer it to what you have mentioned a few times before, about autonomous thinking. Am I right to say that, you would infer that in the today’s complex society, not everyone wants or can become a strategic thinker. Within a tactical domain, individuals should have this autonomous ability to think.

TKS

Yes, autonomy is a mindset. It is a state of mind which enables the individual to think outside the box. And that can occur at every level of activity even at the operational level. So, the catch-up phase of the economy requires thinking within the box, so that you can carry out well the tasks that have been set by the strategic thinkers. But now it’s a different situation. Singapore is in a crisis now, because we are transiting out of the catch-up phase mentality to a knowledge-based mentality fast.

SSK

Yet the population is not trained to tackle that. We are still servants.

TKS

Yes, the problem is the servant mentality.

OBL

An interesting point was raised, not by the 2 articles but by a letter in response to the 2 articles. That in fact Singaporeans are content; that’s why they don’t think. I don’t know whether you have read this. What is your response to that? That maybe they are doing such a good job…

KWL

That shows the lack in strategic thinking.

TKS

This is a very paradoxical question because any end-game of human development is actually contentment. But contentment requires a support environment that is rich in resources, and also varied enough. The environment must be varied enough so that there are many niches where one can live well, even with limited means. There is no direct correlation between living well and means. One can live well with very little means. And in an island city-state where there are no resources, then I think the options for them is not really available.  And therefore we have to regionalise and globalise, to develop soft-boundary concepts due to the physical limits of Singapore. Right now we have a hard-boundary concept, and that may be the worst reality even for large countries. Multi-nationals corporations working out of the United States have never accepted the hard-boundaries of the United States as the defining condition for their activities. Now United States is a soft-boundary to the MNCs, it is just a base from which to launch their activities in the whole world. So the soft-boundary concept is very relevant for small states like Singapore, especially when even the large resource-rich states of Europe and United States have already adopted the soft-boundary approach. For Singapore, more so the case.

SSK

How relevant is then is the idea of a nation-state. Or a certain kind of state with nationalist ideals? Do you think it is still relevant?

TKS

Increasingly irrelevant. The extreme case made by Kenichi Omae, in his book, “Borderless World”, where he states the obvious: that the world is now a large interconnected system and provides opportunities globally and that the nation-state is actually an obsolete concept for business. Even culturally, the mentality should change towards a more inclusive world-view rather than an exclusive world-view. I think that while this is generally the case, human identity is such that it is still premised upon the nation-state as the primary giver of identity. This , increasingly has also to subsume other kinds of identities, like Chinese identity; Malay identity; Indian identity; which still have has affiliations, affinity to their perception of their particular parent cultures. So Chinese Singaporeans still look to China as the ultimate source of their identity, and the construction of the nation-state identity has to recognise this fact and therefore we have a multi-cultural policy which recognises the distinct features of each culture through the bonds of ethnicity. At the same time, we also realise that these primordial identities are not trouble-free, because they can lead to the politics of recrimination and the settlement of old-scores, what I call the politics of memory. And the problems in East Timor, the problems in Kosovo, the problems in Burundi, are just terrible examples of the workings of identity. So I don’t think identity is an issue to be celebrated. It has to be replaced by a human identity which only individuals can develop not when they are conceived as masses.

HKH

I’d like to ask a specific question regarding education. When you talk about nations and societies becoming more borderless, communication itself becomes a more important tool, or even a form of practice among people. In the School of Architecture NUS, in a bid to communicate to the outside world, architecture education has sort of like devised a certain a communicative tool. The core of Design has an end game in itself, that is to communicate (to others) at the end of the day. If you read this as the strategic thinking in which the school adopts; which from design process is much confined to the perceived importance of delivery of product….

Do you see this harping on design product and presentation a vicious cycle in itself? Will it lead to a vicious cycle of reproduction and mere information grabbing?

TKS

It is a human condition. A human condition is such that one always zero in the tangibles and so has less inclination to look at process, and more at product. So the struggle that the architect goes through, in the process of realising his concept, is of very little interest to others and because perhaps because of this the architect himself has also not bothered to explain, or involved others in the processes of making form. Therefore, this has led to the perception by the public or the client: that process is our private business. That’s the mysterious part of you that you are good at. Let’s see the result. And the result is that in the globalised world of communications and media barrage, increasingly people compare the products from every part of the world superficially. And they are seduced by the images of these things. And with the economic means available, increasing convenience of attainment, they can buy any damn thing that they want. So a certain superficiality and boorishness attaches itself to the design process and they could not be bothered with it. And therefore ultimately this gets translated down to fees. Because they are just buying an object, they are not interested in how much effort and time has gone into it. So they buy the cheapest one for the lowest price. We need to communicate the struggles that we go through to achieve the desirable end-result. When we do not, we do ourselves in.

KWL

It is forgivable in the economic world. Anyway in all human industry, nobody actually bothers about the process behind but what they are more concerned is about the product. But how do you see it in the educational system in the school, even in the school where product has more value than the process.

HKH

And how do we communicate and judge process?

TKS

That is why I also apply the soft-concept to schools of architecture. So long as schools exist in a finite space like this, set away from the workings of society as such; and we do projects in the privacy of our own space and time, the studio, the public will never know what we are doing and they can only judge the end-result.

The soft-boundary concept of a school, I think, is now very relevant. Because all boundaries are becoming soft-boundaries. Economies are soft-boundaries; nation-states are soft boundaries, why shouldn’t architectural practice be soft-boundaried too? What does soft-boundary in architectural school mean? It means that an architectural school must be embedded in the community and not be in a separate space to start with. We should be working on projects in relation to and with the community, in whatever area of work we are interested in.

Let’s say in conservation. Street communities, the shopkeepers and owners, are concerned about how to revitalise Chinatown. We can set-up a studio space in Chinatown and students who are inclined to work in those kind of projects can go there and understand the whole process and the street communities can then understand your process! Our process and how we come to think with them. We have to provide strategic and tactical leadership. We find resolution to those issues which we find on the streets, in the reality! So, I see architectural schools as diversifying its teaching and learning situations into the community in a form of connected series of studios.

By working with projects that are real to people and addressing their concern and interacting with them and also inviting them into the process of thinking, direct communication is made to them. Otherwise process is never understood, cannot be understood if it’s an abstraction. It can be understood if it’s reality in the social space, right?

Like designing a community centre, the process is very simple. PA has a set of brief which is translated to a simple cost yardstick and a certain number of rooms. Let me give you an example of ARCC, Ayer Rajah CC. Because the moving force behind the CC is Dr. Tan Cheng Bok, who is a very community spirited person and who has social skill to work with people. He then floated the idea of a new kind of community centre, which has got old people’s home, children day care centre, space for handicapped people and the usual community function. So that it becomes a real community centre in the sense that these are the people that reconstitute to a real community. Not certain type of people who are attracted to certain type of people. The conventional PA model of community centre is catering to that class of people, even though that they know that society has changed. It is changing and that the new middle class and upper class is also living close to the HDB estate which serves and which are the feeder to the community centres. They know they have to change but administratively they cannot work it, because of the budgeting problem. We talk of budgeting as a separate issue.

Then we work with the Dr Tan, and his genius is his ability to draw together key members into the design process and therefore work through his ideas and their ideas with us and as a manner resulted in the present form (of the building), which has now been identified by the PA as the community centre of the future. Community centre is not just basketball courts and sewing classes and sepak takraw and that sort of stuff, which is the usual definition of community centres. Community centre is now a social service centre that caters to the entire community. So that’s a shift in a concept. So it took a guy with strategic leadership, like Dr Tan to move it. He moved heaven and earth to get what he wanted.

CWC

Do you think that in this situation Dr Tan is considered the architect. This is because the architect’s traditional role in design has actually been taken over and that the public has actually designed the building. In UK, there’s no need for a QP to approve or sign the plans, so does this opening up of the process actually further brings down the leadership role of the architect?

TKS

You’re very right to bring out this point. Because it raises the other issues; what is the role of the architect. It also then raises a far more important question, that underpins the question of role. What is an architect? What is our core skill?

Ok. Now by way of example, ARCC is a good one. In the process, I felt in no way threatened by the community, and that my role and my skill are been overridden by the community. The community also realise what my contributions are and can be. I am first and foremost a spatial geometrical specialist. I can translate the program requirement integratively. The key word is integratively, so that I can make more than the parts that are being suggested. I can link them up in a way that can provide for more opportunities, for more social action and activities than they could imagine. And I can create the ambience at a price and at a cost within the time frame that they could not manage. Equally when you open the process to the community, there are many different ideas and they can be conflicting. And I am also a conflict resolutor, resolver. I resolve the conflicts through spatialisation and geometry. Then I can give them an ambience that expresses the diversity of the community, integratively. So I am an integrator. On that there is no challenge, no threat to my authority. I have full authority: authority in the natural sense of the word. I don’t have to rely on my license. I rely on my capability to assert that authority.

My quality rest entirely in my ability to spatialise and also programmatically I can integrate it. I ask myself if I can continue to perform this role if I am not a registered architect. My answer is yes. First my legal status is totally superfluous, my natural authority by virtue of my ability to do these things is strong, then I really do not need a legal structure to reinforce my position. Of course the legal structure to reinforce my position is for other reasons, such as certification and you know…legal requirements but that is my primary claim to validity. If any profession relies entirely on legal status for validity, it would fail you see like doctors. A doctor relies entirely on his ability to heal not on his legal status although his legal status is necessary for various certification requirements, that’s by the way secondary. His ability to heal is the primary thing. The core issue in architectural profession is that what is the core of our capability? That is the number 1 issue, the others are secondary issues.

CWC

You said that the core of our ability is the ability to integrate, resolve conflicts, resolve spatial and geometry. How about in a case of a complex building where there are specialists to tell you how certain things have to come together, as opposed to a simple building like a house which has a simpler configuration of space?

TKS

There is no difference in a small project and a large complex project because the same ability to spaitalise geometrically and to act integratively and putting drawings together synergistically all the different components: financial; cash-flow; managing the sequences; managing the environmental issues which are larger than the building itself such as relationship of the building to the surrounding; the building to the cultures in which the building is embedded and so on. These are issues which are not necessary at the forefront of the client’s thinking. But are still a very important part on the impact of the building. And so our ability to synthesise the whole myriad of complex demands integratively is a very unique capability.

Now let me give you another example on medicine. My brother died of complications arising from cancer. He had all the best specialists to attend to him as he has a whole host of different kinds of problems. He had a heart specialist, a skin specialist, a endocrine specialist, a cancer specialist, an auto-immune specialist and so on. He died because all the specialists were acting disparately, there was no integrative specialist. So there was nobody able to conceptualise the relationship of all these issues. And to then prescribe the strategic direction in which the healing process should take place!

And I could see right there when they were hovering around him the last few days of his life, they were completely at odds with each other, prescribing totally different things. The prescription say for thinning the blood in order to expedite the flow rate right, was advocated by a particular specialist, that itself  had a endocrine effect on the endocrinologist who was specifying intensification of various other things. They couldn’t agree, there was no integrator.

So our unique role is that of an integrator, that means that our knowledge has to be very very vast. You know, and our ability to handle conflicts, individual specialisation and individual demands. We must be a very wise and skillful manager of conflicts, which is just the negative part. Then we must manage it in the positive way so that every specialisation and demand finds a place within the concept in our strategic approach to the problems.

KWL

This is very interesting because, from all the previous architects we have talked to, they always talk about design and management as different issues. They always find conflict in the ability to design and the ability to manage. But from what you have said, I somehow see that …

TKS

There is no difference.

KWL

Yes

TKS

Design, management and integration are the three pillars of our special role, our special ability.

KWL

So you see management in the same way as design that they go hand in hand. Ok, my question is that can a single person be able to do all this?

TKS

Some people can do all these. But in an architecture school, I think that is the basis of your question. In an architecture school, we have to enable people who are so inclined to develop such an ability, but in all cases we must train and expose all students to an understanding of this process. Though they may not in themselves be able to do so. But they must be exposed to the entire process. How to expose the entire process? Not on the drawing board. The drawing board is only the private part of your working. The exposure comes from the working in with the situation, the type of people, that are involved in the problem. Let’s say the conservation of the street furniture, you have to work with all the concerned parties. And therefore, you would be exposed to the range of conflicts and different expectations and therefore you will be exposed to a learning process of how these conflicts are managed which would then result in a kind of design strategy that you approach and develop. Though you yourself may not be capable of it, by virtue of your whatever socialization or talent profile. But there would hopefully be those among you because you work in teams. That teamwork is absolutely necessary for this. The integrative process is always very individual.

SSK

Where does this core skills come from? Where does it develop from? Can this be taught?

TKS

Yes. It can be taught, at least the spatial geometry aspect can be taught. And I group this under the term morphology. We have to learn morphology systematically and that is learnable and teachable. The morphological theorem are very well laid out by March and Martin and Stemens and all these people. It’s all done already. 1967. We know all that. And we also should do systematically typological studies of existing built form to understand the morphological content of the typologies. We are unfortunately studying the typology in too narrow and specialised a manner. And so we have classification like hotels, hospitals, house, community centres as typologies. There are typological principles that apply even from ancient history, like for example, the cluster forms of urban centres in say Jaipur or the kind of interlocking forms in the in the middle east. Or say, 19^th century city of Barcelona, where the typology was developed by Serda, an engineer. And Paris and so on. Or the courtyard houses in china. There are so many typologies in which morphological principles are embedded, the important thing is to extract the morphological  principles. Leave aside for the time being, the typological differentiation which confuse us. Architects are always caught up with the typological differences as distinctive features rather then the morphological principles which are exemplified by the typologies! We cannot separate typology from morphology. Because we are so premise on the notion of difference, as our stock and trade and because the architectural design culture has sort of reduce itself, in the late 20^th C, to the task of establishing difference. And we indeed define ourselves in our skill in how different we can make something. Therefore we are interested in studying the difference instead of understanding the principles underlying the difference!

So typological studies has been a blanket term over the understanding of morphology. And when we are faced with the unprecedented situation of density and complex mix of uses, which we are increasingly exposed to in the rapid economic phase of Asian development, there are no typological examples in which whose morphological principles are directly relevant. Therefore we have to go back to fundamental morphology in order to derive new typology, and in that we are sadly incapable of. And hence, our cities are bloating and spreading outwards to build high density. We do not know how to build high density and mixed-use density.

CWC

Can I ask something regarding the role of architects as integrators. Do you think that this role is suppressed by economic impetus? In the private sector, it is the developer who holds the money and so he decides what he wants. In the case of the public sector, the government being also focussed on economy, suppresses this…

TKS

Yes yes. Of course you see the moment we say to ourselves that we are the integrator with the geometrical and spatial skills that we have, we should have the morphological skills too. The kind of integration that we do must not limit itself to fields that we are competent in. We know that the primary driving force in the change that is happening in Asia is economical in nature. Therefore we must have a thorough understanding of project economics as well as the larger scale economics of urbanisation. In order to be able to conduct an integration, an integrative exercise with the finances and funding of projects.

Let me give you an example, these are my latest thoughts. If we want to build a high density multi-functional building in order to have small footprint in order to protect that bio-diversity of the surroundings of the site. We have attack the problem of funding. How does a government or a city government fund an urbanisation process? Ok. If we do not understand that, we cannot intervene. We cannot exercise an integrative role. Let me give you a concrete example. Every city whether its Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong or New York, every city has a budget for infrastructure - to build roads and maintain roads, transit system, water supply, telephone system and so on. They account more then 50% of the total city budget. A large part of the budget goes to the physical infrastructure and the other part goes to the soft infrastructure that is the administration and the bureaucracy that is necessary to maintain the infrastructure. So 50% goes to hard cost and 50% goes to the soft cost.

Now, every city is a cash strap because the tax revenue that it earns from various sources like the sale of land in Singapore’s case is hard pressed to pay for the software and hard cost. Singapore pays for its soft cost and hard cost by taxing its population. Which in my opinion unnecessarily and I tell you why. Because we have to build a tremendous amount of highways and roads, land development. This is because we have certain morphological assumptions and spatial strategies, so we build new towns. Every time we build a new town, we have to connect it to the city centre. Or when you setup a regional town you got to connect it. And so all the cost is going into that. In the Singapore case. Let’s take the case of MRT. The MRT is necessary to cut down the congestion and to facilitate the flow of goods and services from the periphery to the centres or from the centre to the peripheries. Now the trains, because of the spatial land use pattern, are coming into the centres full during the peak hours, morning and evening. And they leave and deposit the population wherever they are going. And they go back to pick up more. And it goes on like that. But they go back more or less empty. In other words, while the capital cost of the MRT is borne by the state, the operating cost is paid for by commuters. Commuters are paying 50% more cost because the trains are going out empty. Right? And that is the direct result of the land-use policy. New town policy. And if we have a million and a half population in the downtown area, the trains going out will be full. That means the operating cost will be more efficient. You can recover 100% of the total transit operating cost. So because we cannot do so due to the assumed spatial pattern, we have to tax the private cars and that is why we have high COEs. The money goes to subsidise the transit system.

Now that was the point I made during a meeting. The transport engineer from the engineering department was very shock by it. I can see he was visibly shock by it. Because It was a question he had never asked! You see, our ability to think outside the box is our strongest point. Because once we think out of the box we can think integratively with all this other people. Then the next question I can ask the traffic engineer, how then do you think you can solve this? Do you not agree that we need a different land use policy? He will have to agree. In other words, We are already entering in to the field to affect the cross-disciplinary discussion of urban pattern, about urbanisation. Ok now, to take the question one step further about funding.

In a different way. If we say we put one and a half million people into the city center, it means the state will have to pay less on the infrastructural development in the periphery. And by the nature of peripheral development, the periphery will always get larger, once you move out of the circle right? The distances get larger, the spread gets more. So becomes a zero sum game in which the periphery cost increase geometrically with the distance from the centre. Ok. So we now have these huge cities like Mexico city , Shanghai and some of them are draining the resources of the cities. Now, the implications of re-urbanisation and intensification of urban centres is that the land cost is high. Because of opportunity lost, it should be devoted to housing. The Singapore planning process still assumes the available urban land should be reserved for commercial uses. Because commercial uses attract higher land premium. That may be the case in the thinking prior the IT revolution. Because of the IT revolution the function of the downtown has changed! And this can be seen in the case of New York, London and other major cities like Tokyo where back office functions are no longer necessarily located in the city centre. And in all office building the major user of the floor space is the back office function not the front office function. The front office function is the strategic function that accounts for less then 10% of the total office workers. Right. In United States we already see the moving out of main centre of Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, moving out back office function. In the case of New York to New Jersey, even as far away as Puerto Rico. In the Caribbean where the land is cheaper, labour is cheaper, cost of living is lower, right and back office function do not have to be closely, spatially related to front office function. So long as you have good telecommunications which is the IT revolution! So the projection of Singapore available urban land should be reserved for real estate killing, based on commercial buildings is an unfounded assumption now. It may be reasonable assumption 10 years ago but today it is no longer a viable option.

So because of this the government has moved towards what you call white zone. In today’s paper you see another white zone, where developers can propose what ever they want to use it for. The only viable use for such and in the city centre is housing. However it is not going to work unless there is a concept on how living in the city is going to work. Where are the children going to school? Where are the social amenities? Is the government really serious about housing in the city? What kind of urban life is anticipated and so on. Anyway, if you move people into the city center, still the cost of city land, even for the residential is higher then the cost outside. So the question about affordability is crucial. If affordability can be made, can be achieved, then it will work and people will move into the city center. How is it to work? Two suggestions. One. Because the government is saving on infrastructure, which is infrastructural cost in the perimeter which is increasing geometrically because of distance, then the government should pay for the lift and the support structure for the lift and the staircases. It should also pay for the corridors which serve the apartments. Why? Because the government is saving money. The government, is actually building land in the sky isn’t it? Building infrastructure to service the land is an unquestioned assumption of any government, so why make a distinction between urban land in the sky and land on the ground? If the government is already building roads, because it pays for the building of roads, drains and water supply and electricity derived from revenue generated form property tax, right, why should it make a difference artificial land in the city centre and land on the ground? This is an inconsistency in the accounting principle. So if you do that, the net result is that 30% of the building cost is carried by the state. And one uses the lifts as one uses trains. One pays to use the lift! So lift lobby should become a cordoned area with a turnstile, you buy a ticket and go up to the hundred floor, fiftieth floor and whatever. Just like you would take a bus or you take a train, there is no difference, just that it goes vertically. There is no conceptual difference.

Now, this is what I mean about attacking the problem from the financing end of it. Attack the problem this way, and we begin a dialogue process which can realise a new kind of architecture, a new kind of city. That means we are entering into a strategic level with the stakeholders of urbanisation, be it the developer, the government, or the bank. This is a strategic possibility. But architects are not thinking like this. Because they are still very project oriented you see. This is my site, this is what I am concerned with, what shall I do on this site, that’s all you see. This larger issue which has ultimately a lot to do with this site, the architect are not involved with. Because they are so frightened to think outside the box, the box is literally drawn around the site. So you have a guy like Lord Seeford, in London, the great architect turned developer in London. He says that architecture is simple: the plot ratio and building bylaws give you the shape, the economics give you the means, that’s architecture. Project economics gives you the ability to build it and the bylaws give you the form, that’s it!

If that were the case, then we don’t need architects! As Seeford has argued, we don’t need architect, that’s why he resigned as an architect and become a developer.

So architects have two roles to play. One is the public role, that is to define the condition in which building and urbanisation and environment should, what it should be. The other one is to carry out on the particular site, the program for the site within that larger scenario. So the architect cannot, if the architect is to maintain his leadership position and his integrative role, draw the boundary around his site as the definitive limitation of his role. If he does that everybody can do his job.

KWL

Has this already happened anywhere?

TKS

No. That’s why we come back to my earlier point where we started off. That I see Singapore has the possibility, architectural practice in Singapore has the possibility of leading the world.

OBL

And the region….

TKS

Not just as Thai Ker say , you know, what is it? That we have a marginal role, a minor role in the world. I don’t agree. I think that’s putting an unnecessary and I think an inappropriate limitation on our ability. We should lead the world! What the heck! Size is no impediment, in the information age.  Size is absolutely not the impediment.

CWC

This thing about, I don’t quite get it, architecture has relegated to buildings and we should get out of that and…

TKS

No no no we don’t get out of that.

KWL

Add on to that.

TKS

We should add on to that. Our core, one of our core ability is still spatial geometry.

KWL

Someone says that another role that architects should fulfill is that role of being an educator.

TKS

Yeah of course. But if that’s the question. Educate how? And who? My point is that the architect’s educational role is best when he plays a strategic role in society. He educates society by actual concrete ideas. And involving the public in the discourse that he conducts and generates. We are generative. To be integrative, we must be generative. In other words, you must have visions, you must have an idea about how things fits together integratively, before you can conduct a proper discourse with the disparate interest and perspectives of different people. If you don’t have that you’ll be swept off your feet. Everybody has his own different ideas and you will never resolve, except through domination of power which is the present Singapore political system. Only through power can you resolve anything, not through argumentation, no through an integrative action. 

KWL

But if applying your scenario, if architects learn to play the game of power, then …

TKS

You become a Ong Teng Cheong and a Teh Cheang Wan. What has Teh Cheang Wan contributed to thinking about Singapore society? Nothing! He just simply said ok, you want to build flats, I can build it for you cheap and fast, that’s all he has achieved. Nothing! And in the process he has totally disempowered the Singapore population. Till they cannot think strategically. Not at the community level, not at the national level. Disenmpowered them completely. And he set up an organisation that is greedily trying to protect its hard boundary.

KWL

Would there be any scenario of compromise.

TKS

What compromise?

KWL

That your role in wider realm will compromise your core function as the coordinator of the project.

TKS

Well, speaking personally, I have found no need for such a compromise. I can think strategically in all many of fields. I can also realise the spatial geometries in an integrative and aesthetic manner. Those core abilities have not been lost. But I think in the case of Ong Teng Cheong and Teh Cheang Wan, those ability have been lost completely. Perhaps they didn’t have it in the beginning.

KWL

I’m only suggesting that there might be conflicts, for example, when you talk about funding. In some case there is absolutely no compromise between a need for a certain design and unavailability of funds, whether funds or…

TKS

Ok, there again the underpinning assumption in the question, or in your concern, is the assumption that the architect is the servant of the funds available.

I can tell you from my personal experience now, especially in the last 5 years, is that I don’t need clients. I can generate funds. I can find strategic partners. In other words, I can be in the position with whoever is interested in a particular project to generate the financial conditions necessary for the project. And this is another feature of the information age, where there is a kind of new rationality, in the economics of projects, as well as a new rationality in the deployment of funds. And that funds are not hard boundary concepts, funds can come from anywhere. I give you an example. I had built a model of a particular kind of development. I have no client in mind, I did it because I like it, because I think answers certain environmental parameters and also it has an inherent market appeal. In other words, the down stream economic of it would be favourable to its concept. So in walks a developer whom I don’t know who rang out of the blue. The model was in my conference room and I didn’t intend it to be there, just that there is no space in the office I just put it there. He looked at it and said ‘who’s the developer’? I replied ‘I am the developer’.  He said ‘need a partner?’ I said ‘yes, are you suggesting yourself? Let’s talk.’

That’s all. The project is going to go ahead. In other words, I found a strategic partner. I have found by chance a strategic ally. He said ‘how are you going to fund it?’ I said ‘that’s no problem, you can forward market the thing, put it on the web, then get all the interest which would be sufficient to prove to the bank that there is a market. That’s all.’

CWC

But this requires a society of developers who see value in this process, of this process of looking at a new invention like a venture capitalist. But in this case of…Wouldn’t a smarter method to make money is to use the tried and tested method.

TKS

You can do that if you choose to do so but you will remain a servant and be subjected to the treatment that servants deserve. Not that they deserve but that they get.

HKH

This means at your position you have actually created a niche by accident. It also means that people can buy whatever you produced out of the cupboard without any prior need. Is that the way that architecture can go?

OBL

Maybe. I think to some extent Kheng Soon does it because he has network so on and so forth. One interesting example, very similar to Kheng Soon’s. 3 years ago, I was at the School’s City exhibition in Suntec city. A guy came up to me and said ‘who designed that?’ He wants to know. So I told him ‘one of our Year 1 students’. ‘I have got a house and I want him to design.’ And I actually found the student, met up with the client and got the house built. I think the idea is interesting. That you can actually begin to market yourself, and that if you depend on the client to define what he wants, very often doesn’t define quite as well as you could define the product. It’s a new idea which I haven’t thought about…

TKS

Ok. So this comes back to his question (points to HKH). What is the form of the architecture school? I give you one clear definitive answer now. An architecture school besides all the other the characteristics that I have describe about involvement an so on, is an R&D centre!

You create before the demand. In other words, you create concepts and ideas and produces way ahead of the demand. And you can do so better if in your learning and training, you have understood and understand the market, you understand your society, you understand your environment. Then you are more able to generate those kind of things which will have a market. If you sit in an ivory tower and dream of things, like Peter Cook, you will never have a market. Peter Cook generated his ideas 20 years ago and they are just a curiosity! What is this Walking Cities thing about? You cannot have any appeal you see, that is totally nonsense.

Ken Yeang is a classic case. He created a product. Marketed very diligently, so he is successful. People come to know about him, he does not go to them. It just happens that I don’t agree with his concept. They are quite trivial.

OBL

Since you brought it up. I come to kind of think that that is actually how a lot of artists work.

TKS

Yes.

OBL

They work, that get a product and then they sell the product. Until the product is finished, no body can see it.

CWC

It’s like the internet industry, all the start-ups and finding their own niches.

TKS

Correct. That’s what happening in the finance world and it is very interesting. All our banks are what you call collateral based banks. I lend you $1 million if you have $2 million assets which you mortgage to me. They don’t care about the product so much you know, because if you fail, they grab your assets. So they are no skin off their nose. That’s what you call dumb money. What has happened in the last 10 years is what you call smart money. Money that is lend through venture capital and angel capital, particularly angel capital, because venture capital is becoming more and more like collateral banking, where because higher risk they take on new ideas, they want a minimum of 33 1/3% return on investment, which is too high. Therefore it inhibits, unless you are desperate for their money.  You need smart money like angel capital. I am in the process of actually studying the angel capitalists because of the T21 project I am on. They are people in the 50s who were social activist when they were young. Because of they drive and imagination they became rich. They are CEOs of very large corporations who are very innovative. You know. And their two great joys in life is one, to spot a winner and invest in him. Second is they like new ideas. Ok. They are practical idealists. So angel capital will always put money when they think the guy they are dealing with is fully committed to the idea and the idea has a basic appeal to him. He doesn’t really care if you have done your market research or not. If he senses your product is a good one, because he has what you call domain expertise. And his domain expertise can be that of a ship builder or if he is a machine tool operator or a machine tool manufacturer, or he is a high-tech software manufacturer. Because of his expertise in that particular domain, he can spot whether your idea makes sense or not. If you take your idea to a typical bank, the bank would say kwah bo gyu. And Singapore has lots of dumb money and we know NSTB is prepared to dump USD$5b on technopreneur market right, we told them don’t be stupid, USD$1b will do. And even the USD$1b, I already told them you don’t know how to spend it also. This is because they  have no domain expertise to judge whether an idea is good or not. So you throw it to the bureaucrat who is after all a salaried person who is looking after his job - his rice bowl, and therefore his mortgage and his family, so he is not going to take risk. He also don’t have domain expertise.

So what happens now? So the solution is to bring the angel capital in. And use the USD$1b as a matching fund. In other words if the angel is prepared to put in his money, then you say I put in equal amount, I will risk with you, but I am relying on your judgement you know. So the bureaucrat will approve, because you know if anything goes wrong, not every project will come true. In fact the statistic is 1 in 10. So if the angel loses the money, and I trusted the angel, don’t blame me, he’s the angel right? So his job is protected and the money can flow. So the angels are interested to come to Singapore because they also reduce their own risk. So instead of putting $1m in , they put in only $½ m because the other half comes from the dumb Singapore government fund, you see. So that’s attractive, who wants to take more risk than they need to?

But so leveraging is important. Why am I mentioning all this? This is because the strategic role in R&D of design, architecture design, has a new situation you see. This is where you are no longer tied to the dumb money which is typically in the hands of real estate developers and banks which are collateral loaning, funding.

But it must have social benefit, because if it has no social benefit it has no market, therefore it cannot succeed. So capitalism is a positive thing. If it is not involuted in itself. If capitalism is used, if capital is used to produce benefit, then it is a positive thing. If capital is used simply to multiply capital in the expense of benefit, then it is repugnant.

One must not get away with  the thinking that capitalism is by definition is bad. Under certain circumstances is bad, under certain circumstances it is very positive. 

KWL

But there is a danger that it will degenerate into consumerism, that…

TKS

What’s wrong with consumerism?

KWL

There’s no actual value added to society but what you market…

TKS

Wait wait wait…obviously it must have value if not society will not consume.

KWL

Because society does not know what it gets.

TKS

They know that’s why they are buying.

CWC

No, then the counter argument is who provide the public goods, the social goods which in economic sense which are not…

TKS

...available.

CWC

Yes.

TKS

Yes. So there’s a problem.

CWC

 In demand and supply…

TKS

Because the problem is the information about alternative product. Because information about the alternative product is being manipulated by advertisers and also killed off by monopolistic practices of  various producers. And that limits the choices available. So rational decisions cannot be made because the choices are limited. That’s why increasingly in the information age, the knowledge about alternatives is increasing at a geometrical rate. And there fore exploitative monopolies cannot work!

OBL

There is some negative connotations with commercialization and consumerism in relation. When we talk about commercialisation of design. Immediately it sounds terrible. Do you not agree that design should not be actually be aimed at…

TKS

Well the problem lies in the connotations of the words that we use you see. When we use commercialization we use it pejoratively. And we think that commercialisation is by definition bad. We should use the word realisation. Then is different thing - how do you realise an idea? In an open market economy? That is the important concept, not commercialisation. The commercial benefit that derives from the market satisfaction, given an open market situation rather then a monopolistic market situation must run the gauntlet of consumerist approval, isn’t it. That’s why I have been against HDB. Because HDB is a close market. And therefore HDB dwellers is satisfied. Because they have no choice. It is politically expedient to restrict choice in order to generate satisfaction which translate into votes. Which is just simply the mechanics the power maintenance used by the ruling party.

That’s why I am against it. I say let’s compete! Let’s provide the market with alternatives to the kind of public housing that is being provided. Hence my idea of the super high-density multi-function component in the city is a direct challenge on HDB monopoly, so that we can actually provide at HDB prices, an alternative lifestyle in the city. Right. I know very well its going to create a lot of dissatisfaction amongst existing HDB dwellers. But what the heck! Let’s provide a better environment for the people. And I will talk about it publicly. It’s not going to be realised very soon of course, but I would start to generate public interest in this subject so that the pressures will built up for HDB to dismantle itself. Because it becomes politically negative so long as they maintain the present policy. They will have to diversify. HDB should still remain as a national housing authority, in terms of making available land and in setting the conditions in which affordable housing can be produced and maintained and so on, but they should not be an architectural monopoly. Because society is also developing rapidly into a highly differentiated kind of social body, where there are issues like…we have already a long debate in  the community on aging and you know that the kind of housing stock we have are not suitable for aging in-situ. So the differentiation of housing needs is already happening. They are already talking about how maybe we should do to reserve … (inaudible) for old people.

(inaudible)

…and the internal planning of the unit is entirely free for the family to reconfigure the floor space to suit its life cycle needs, at various stage of its life cycle. And the technology for the reconfigurability of the internal space should become available, and that is a research project in itself for an architectural school to do. How do you design an apartment that can be reconfigured easily with minimum cost? You do that and you’ll set up an industry. Why can’t an architectural school run a factory? Which employs its student to develop new kits of parts for reconfiguration? And where is it going to get its capital resources to do so? From the world market, because the world venture capital and angel capital market is looking for new product fields which have large applicability. Just look at Asia, the number of apartments that have to be built is immense. Shanghai alone itself needs 1 million apartments in the next 5 years, if you get 1% of that for our factory, we’ve got it!

The school can run on its own steam. It doesn’t have to get money from the university, it can pay its’ students to learn! Don’t have to collect fees! This is thinking outside the box you see, there are many venture capital people who are willing to put money in it if they know that the school is going to back such a research thing! And what should the profession be? The profession is simply an extension of the school, and indeed the profession is the school!

Comes back to my earlier proposition that hands-on learning is the principle of education and who is to say that once you’ve graduated you have stopped learning. We’re learning all the time what! So if you think of the profession including the school as a learning environment, a learning institution ,a practicing and learning institution who is doing R&D, who is setting up strategic alliances all over the world including Singapore and you’ve got a very powerful component in society.

OBL

The architecture profession at the moment doesn’t do that.

TKS

Yes, because the architecture profession at the moment is structured into hard boundary firms who are jealously guarding what little turf that they have and are backstabbing each other so as to protect their turf. It’s a zero-sum game, you cannot build up alliances, and you cannot borrow expertise. Because to borrow from somebody is acknowledging your deficiency. Therefore you must never admit your deficiency. You admit deficiency means your clients have crisis of confidence. It’s not looked at as unable to draw resources because I am an integrative force, that can use resources anywhere for the benefit of your project, your concept or whatever it’s a different mindset.

OBL

Coming back to this HDB thing. What do you see of HDB and PWD privatising? 

TKS

They are just falling into the same model of their older self. They are all striving to become monopolist with the great difference is that here they can have the chance to become a monopoly backed by government. For 5 years they will get all the jobs from government. To me that this is totally unnecessary.

OBL

HDB has privatised a long time ago.

CWC

They only have a CESMA which is their subsidiary.

TKS

CESMA is $15m in the red.  Lost money.  So the problem now is that they are trying to integrate CESMA and PWD. PWD says why should we carry their debts?  So this is the problem.  So probably the government will say forgive the debts. What sort of unethical market practice is this? This is certainly not an open market philosophy.

OBL

I originally heard that Indeco will join in. Is Indeco in the red? Do you know?

TKS

Indeco is in the red.

HKH

Coming back the idea of architects as a niche player. There’s a difference between how an angel capitalist sieve out talents ideas, from a pool of, let’s say products, compared to a client on the street like what Dr Ong said in which the client actually approached the student for the project to be built. In that sense how do you actually improve the situation by just buying from surface value, you just buy a product because you like it at a superficial level.

TKS

You are assuming that the student or the architect or whatever are hard boundary concepts, not pro-active. 

That is where the mistake in thinking begins.  If you think of yourself as having those core thinking and abilities and you can set up strategic alliances anywhere and with anyone appropriate with the task that you have set or have been set, then you can do anything what.  Am I answering your question?

HKH

What I mean is that you are selling your product without knowing who your client is.

KWL

It’s already happening now.  Developers are building without knowing who is buying.

TKS

They have a rough idea.  You always must have a rough idea. Even any of the software writer, they have a idea where the market is. Then they work on it.

OBL

Taking up Hoo’s point, maybe he is concern with buying the product without actually knowing the architect or whatever, they may be buying superficially. Is that a concern?

TKS

In your case, the student design, I am not sure what the motivation is, or the field of knowledge of the client has.  He may be just looking for a style. And when he found the style he wanted and he bought the style. To me, if that was the reason, it does not advance the concept of the architect as an integrative specialist, he is just a stylist. He just reinforces the role of a stylist. And that particular role is a niche. But it’s a small niche, and it’s a niche that is rapidly being invaded by others. 

KWL

That’s why you need competition.  If he is able access different products, then he would not only go for the style.

TKS

I don’t like to use the word niche because niche implies a hard boundary. I would rather use the idea of architecture as an integrative activity, because whatever it is, human being somehow still needs a space, they need a location.  They may have a choice of location, or they may have many different location in the course of their everyday life; the house; the workplace; the school; the church, whatever. There are different locations. Whatever it is, these different locations are necessary. They are identifiable as key elements in a person’s life. So therefore there is a need to create such places. And the more relevant we can make the creative process, the creation process of such places, the better. Because also they are becoming increasingly complex. For example I am talking to a very devout Muslim, about the role of the mosque in the community. Right now the mosque is extending beyond its spiritual and religious functions which the space was initially envisaged to be, for them to pray. Now it’s becoming more of a social centre, you know.  It’s already an education centre, except the only education they are providing is Koran reading and the Madravasah function.

But there are also many other functions, so what I suggested to him is that it can become a factory: it can be processing different Halal food; it can be a distributor of Halal food; it can even own farms in surrounding countries; in the Minankabau highlands and so on and set up these linkages. It can be a travel agency, organising trips to SEA and also Mecca. It can be a centre for innovation about how Muslim lifestyles can be affected by interactions with various technologies and so on. And also how the mosque can be integrative with the larger community not just Muslims. How do you differentiate the religious functions exclusive to Muslims and the non-exclusive parts which is the social and commercial functions which can interact with others and in the process set up new alliances. And we’re no longer just a religious ethnic enclaves but as part of the community and so on. They were very interested in these ideas. Rather than lock the whole religious institution into an ethnic enclave with a hard boundary around it, soften the boundary but preserving the identity. And your primary function of religious things and changing thereby the image of your religion and ethnicity in relation to others, that’s what is necessary in the new world right?

CWC

I was thinking that this inventor-architect can only exist in small numbers. In the software industry, like the DOS operating systems where there used to be a few like DR-DOS, MS_DOS and so on. But Microsoft got the main bulk of it, and it got big and everyone started to write programs to suit Microsoft but then in the process that they get slower and not become innovative and so other startups started to appear. My point is that, do you think that the building industry will go this way as well? Where this new building type which you design or invent gets built and gets replicated until a new one come. So actually in actual fact there’s only a few innovators or leaders, and the rest of the architects who replicate are actually ….

TKS

Well, I think this is the nature of human society. That innovators are always going to be few, indeed society is not possible if all are innovators. Society must have innovators; it must have replicators; it must have people who maintain the status quo because if there is no status quo then there is nothing to rebel against. And also there is nothing to order the conditions of everyday life. If everything is changing all the time, then everybody is disoriented all the time. So in the nature of human type distribution, there will always be these 3 types, innovator, replicator and maintainer. In architectural profession there will also be these 3 types. My point is that the hard boundaries that lock these 3 types and insulate them from each other and from the general community is an unfortunate situation which we can change, because, the openness , the opening up of the system will result in a better informed maintainer, reproducer and a better informed innovator.

A better informed reproducer will reproduce knowing what he is doing rather than just doing it for the style of it which is a dumb reproducer. And the maintainer will understand the intentions of concept whilst he maintains so that it doesn’t gets distorted in the process so that educational level and understanding level will go up. However the differentiation of these 3 types will always be there. We are just lifting them up to higher planes you see. Right now it is going down to lower plane! The reproducer is increasingly dumb, and seeking difference. He is just borrowing and sticking things together in the most dumb way. It is just destroying the thing in the porches of maintaining it, without adding any value to what he is maintaining, because he doesn’t understand the principles of what he is maintaining.

CWC

So those architects who are saying that they roles are being eroded have themselves to blame.

OBL

That seems to be the case. But it is a global phenomena. That’s why I said I agree with you that Singapore can play a major role particularly at the level of the school, because a lot of schools are losing ground. Sir Colin Stansfield came over to talk and gave me the impression that maybe they are not as well directed as they should be. But I ask the question, can we really fight the global trend? There is a global trend, a movement away from architects…

TKS

I think we can. I’m not optimistic but I can see that there is a positive situation where we can build on and that is the rapidity of change in Asia. Asia is going through a traumatic process in the next 50 years and is going to transform itself. For better or for worse. For better if we can build sustainable cities and buildings and maintain the environment. For worse, if we cannot do that well, then the rest of the planet will be destroyed by Asia. So therefore we have the opportunity. I’m not saying we are capable of, depends on what we do. How we set ourselves up, we will be capable of making positive contributions to this dramatic change that is happening to Asia. When we are able to do so then we will be able to change the world.

Then we are terribly relevant to the world. Not just in Asia, because the rest of the world wants to know how China and India are going to solve the pollution problem which it is creating prodigiously. There was a BBC programme yesterday about the devastation in China, asking this very basic question that Chinese culture has always venerated nature, why then is it destroying nature at such a prodigious rate? See. Why do we always pay lip service to nature? Actually we don’t care and that’s a major area of concern for the western world. In many ways they have already arrived. And having build their beautiful cities and life, for the middle class at least, suddenly you find the acid rain, deforestation and water pollution and the whole food chain is being poisoned. This is now threatening the very achievement that they have achieved. And when Asia destroys its agricultural system through systematic use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, which is a short-term action that will produce high yields in 5 years but then the yields will go down subsequently. So the very basis that supports the agricultural revolution will destroy itself, then it is in the interest of the world to ensure that Asian agriculture and urbanisation which have an impact on agriculture. This is because the Asian cities are growing and depleting the agriculture land and this would cause a catastrophic instability in the world’s pricing of food, not to mention the jeopardy on supply. If China for example, is unable to produce its own wheat and rice. Insufficient amounts would mean you have to buy at world market and prices will totally destabilize the prices for wheat and rice.

The first wave of the agriculture catastrophe is going to hit the pricing system, market system. Some people would be hedging on food stock, buying forward, selling in anticipation of forward price fluctuation, so you have a hedge fund situation affecting food prices. That will be the next catastrophe, now we only have the currency crisis, next round will be the food crisis.

OBL

Just to round up, we have passed time. I want to hear your comments on the profession. You pointed that we still need certification to be a profession. You also said that you stand by your skills rather than by your profession. Can you explain why we still need a profession. Why can’t we sell our products like anybody else? Bill Gates doesn‘t have a certificate.

TKS

Well, ultimately the market is the policeman of any human activity. But buildings are of a different category from software or from medical services. If the doctor prescribe the wrong medicine and the guys dies…Let’s assume a position where everybody can be a doctor, then you can pinpoint the guy and sue him. Only one guy died. When a building collapses or when all the people get sick , there is much more consequences. So there has to be some kind of policing, prior to the realisation of the product to the market. So that’s why your building plans have to be approved and certification has to occur first.

And building takes a long time to build and lasts a long time. So some form of legitimization has to be instituted. Whether it is in the present form of not is an open question but some form has to occur. At the present form, we are using the licensing system as the mechanism.

OBL

You seem to suggest that this is to protect the society rather than the profession. Is this a change?

TKS

No, all the legislation about the professions have been designed to protect the public, not to protect the profession. We are arguing in SIA that some effort have to be made to protect the profession as well, because otherwise if the profession is not protected, it cannot protect the public. That’s our argument.

OBL

You agree with that?

TKS

For the time being, yes. But I can see also that the change into a more transparent system of accountabilities, which is a direct product of an open market system.

OBL

Thank you very much.