At One with Nature. Ken Yeang

      Foreword

      Form, in the world of design, is discussed as style, shape, geometry, or reduced to a question

      of functionality. But form, really, is a structure of relationships. This structure, made manifest, is the

      configuration of pathways and nodes, thresholds, and edge conditions that regulate flow and exchange.

      Every designed entity 'building or neighbourhood' is a spatial structure that dictates where people move,

      where they pause, and what they do. There might be a parallel structure for how non-human species

      do the same. Overlaid onto this are pathways for abiotic flows of energy, water, materials in the built

      environment. Flows inside connect to flows outside, beyond boundaries of shell and site.

      Ken Yeang, arguably, is one of few architects to link climate and now ecology explicitly to the

      morphology of form and its underlying systemic structure. Yeang's bioclimatic model of the 1980s and

      more recently his ecological model have re-imagined the arrangement of parts: ‘space, skin, tectonics,

      environmental systems, and geographical siting’, and re-articulated the whole in service of multiple

      ecological outcomes.

      His early work on bioclimatic design was in part feature-based (sunshades, sky-courts, greenery)

      and in part rule-based (geometry, orientation, local climatic factors), aimed at creating comfort and

      reducing energy demand. Passive design had become marginalised in the 1970s and 1980s when the

      ubiquitous skyscraper, sheathed in airtight skin and projecting an appearance of modernity, could be built

      in any city, any climate. It was getting harder to make a case for permeable façades that would let in the

      wind and light. Yeang's bioclimatic skyscraper attempted this and, in the process, offered a counterpoint

      to the International Style. Spatially, the plan had passive- and climate-controlled spaces side by side;

      in some spaces, occupants could toggle between the two. Parts of the building were surrendered to

      semi-outdoor sky courts that formed an edge condition; service cores became thermal buffers to the

      East–West sun; the plan and section were intersected with pathways for natural air movement; and the

      facade was an arrangement of recesses and protuberances that mediated between indoor and outdoor.

      These factors and features became emblems in Yeang's work in the 1980s and 1990s.

      Yeang's current approach to the ecology of buildings came later and brought to this vocabulary

      several emerging strands of science: ecosystem services (mimicry of nature's processes), ecosystem

      habitats (greenery as pathway and patch), design metabolism (waste management and recycling), and

      x FOREWORD

      FOREWORD xi

      biophilic design (human well-being). The edge was no longer indoor vs outdoor; it was human-built

      systems interfacing with natural ecosystems. He argued for a synthesis of organic with the inorganic,

      what he calls ‘biointegration’. Ecology, once confined to the ground, would be drawn up into built systems

      to becoming part of the fabric of architecture.

      In both his bioclimatic and ecological models, Yeang makes a case for ‘aesthetic exploration’, the

      expression of elements and processes that he says are necessary to fulfil the aesthetic and biophilic

      needs of users. The design vocabulary would articulate what elements do and how they connect with

      each other. Form would shape performance and offer a perspective on beauty.

      In his earlier book, Constructed Ecosystems, Yeang explains biointegration as the union of space,

      technology, and surface, seeking new form-patterns. An eco-cell, for instance, cleans water and draws

      air and light vertically through a building; the linked green wall is a planted facade, made continuous, to

      enhance habitat formation and species movement. In one of his built examples, the Solaris (2011), a

      17-storey office building in Singapore, a diagonal light-shaft cuts through the building's mass; multiple-

      stepped landscape decks are connected to a 1.5 km spiral garden, through an eco-cell. No biodiversity

      audit has been carried out, but there are anecdotal sightings of squirrels, snakes, and hornbills .

      Yeang's goal is to restore the broken link between human and natural systems. Biointegration

      makes architecture a ‘prosthetic’ to nature. This aligns Yeang with the eco-modernists who speak of the

      hybridisation of the natural and human-made. His projects, even where they do not reach full potential,

      are prototypes, he says, to refine ideas that ‘for the potency of what they promise’ challenge the design

      profession at a time when the restoration of natural systems has a newly found urgency.

      Nirmal Kishnani (Dr.)

      Associate Professor, School of Design and Environment,

      National University of Singapore

      Excerpt from ‘Ecopuncture, Transforming Architecture and Urbanism in Asia’, a 2019 book by Nirmal Kishnani, published by BCI Asia

      Construction Information Pte Ltd.

      xii INTRODUCTION

      Introduction

      The publication of this book on ecological architecture comes at an unprecedented

      time, as humanity’s impact on the environment has never been so significant. We sit

      at a crossroads in our relationship with climate change. The UN Secretary-General

      warned in 2018 that life on Earth faced a ‘direct existential threat’ if global warming

      is not kept under 1.5°C, whilst the Members of Parliament in the United

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