Hot and Wet

Architectures of the Equator

Abstract

The legacy of a temperate hegemony continues to influence how the tropical is perceived: largely as an exotic paradise or pestilence-ridden landscape. Architectural discourse has long deemed the equator a condition to be tempered; an atmospheric problem that requires a temperate fix. Contemporary architectural responses that centre on performance and efficiency improvements continue to purvey these prejudices as a foundation of their discourse, or, simply, to import temperate strategies as an atmospheric replacement to the equatorial. The work documented here investigates a theory of spatial depth and climatic gradient as key to developing buildings for the rapidly densifying urban equator. Through various architectural strategies—loosely categorized as deep envelopes—the core ingredients of space, material depth, and solidity are employed to produce architectural and atmospheric calibrations specific to the hot and wet equatorial city. Four architectural precedents traced from the 1930’s to the 1970’s demonstrate a range of architectural approaches that inform the author’s contemporary design practice. The knowledge gained through the precedents is then realised through four contemporary projects based in Singapore. In doing so, the work presented here seeks to expand the discourse on equatorial architecture, by returning agency to architectural practice via expressive and atmospheric formal languages and techniques relevant to the hot and wet equator.

Read the full article online at: https://drawingon.org/Issue-03-05-Hot-and-Wet