Green Awards: Reinterpretation

Dear FuturArc readers,

“God is in the details.”

This famous quote by Mies van der Rohe aptly illustrates this cycle’s FuturArc Prize (FAP) First Place winner’s entry.

Chai Yi Yang’s proposal is one that has been meticulously thought out and painstakingly drawn up. I will not give away too much here for the beauty of his work must be personally appreciated in detail—similarly for the rest of the winning and merit entries of FAP 2022.

Dedicated to the spirit of the competition, this issue celebrates the creative dynamism of fresh ideas and energy.

Reinterpretation was the brief of the 2022 competition cycle opened to students only. The jury meeting was held online for the first time in FAP’s 14-year history, plus a rigorous round-table discussion—read the in-depth content in The FuturArc Interview.

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” Albert Einstein.

This is indeed true to the extent of relooking at current states of one’s built environment and see how disused/underused assets could be reinvigorated to become better natural, social and human spaces.

On realising the potential of each of these ideas, the jurors have raised important points that while most of them definitely have high actualisation possibilities, they need other key elements such as sound financing and collaborative expertise to make the leap from plan to fruition.

And it is in this light that an insight from a well-versed practitioner in this field is relevant—he proposes a framework that will better help young architects and industry professionals bring their designs to life in the face of an ever-changing, complex network of hardware and software.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” Henry David Thoreau.

We hope this issue will inspire more creative, meaningful ideas with strong foundations that will be gentle to Nature and strict on ourselves.