Things We Forget is a project by “The Post-It Guy” that started in January this year. Professing to be a compulsive doodler and optimist, he wanted to cheer himself and people up amidst all the doom and gloom of the recession.

It usually begins with a note that is drawn in about 20 minutes. The hard part is finding a location to place the note for “the most meaning and impact” and give whoever that spots it an “aha moment”, he says.

And if you’re wondering how effective Post-It notes are, he claims they stick for about four days barring wet weather. Besides, “I don’t want to leave permanent messages,” he say. “What is true today for me might not be so tomorrow.”

“A bonsai — if carefully cultivated — can be beautiful, hardy and long lasting. But it cannot reproduce on its own. And a whole bonsai garden needs the constant “micro-management” of the good gardener in cultivating each and every selected plant. In the rainforest, however, the whole is the greater than the sum of its parts; yet each part makes its own distinctive contribution to biodiversity and ecological sustainability.”

Kwok Kian-Woon in The bonsai and the rainforest: reflections on culture and cultural policy in Singapore (2004)

While Assoc Prof Kwok was referring to Singapore’s cultural policy when he wrote this, I find it an apt reference to examine two recent Straits Times articles that reflect the management of space in Singapore.

The head of the leading landscaper in Singapore was interviewed today in No gardeners in Garden City where he highlighted how our image as a Garden City would fail without government support because this is “a nation of armchair gardeners”. Indeed, the emphasis of our Garden City policy is to make Singapore a Garden City and not a Gardeners’ City, which brings us back to Assoc Prof Kwok’s description of Singapore as a “bonsai garden” — it cannot reproduce on its own.

On Monday, the current chairman of the Orchard Road Business Association was interviewed in Growing Orchard where she suggested that Singapore’s shopping street be cleared of beggars, flyer distributors and street buskers in order to make Orchard Road “A Great Street“. Such a move, I think, would sterilise the street and make it live up to its name of being a carefully cultivated orchard just for shopping.

But Orchard Road is after all a public space, so a suggestion that comes from an association which “promotes the welfare of businesses in Orchard Road” should be received with caution. The hope is that Orchard Road can be like Assoc Prof Kwok’s “rainforest”, a reflection of this city’s diversity and not just the space of the businesses.

/UPDATE/ The Straits Times published a letter I wrote with regards to Growing Orchard today. Read it here.

Thanks to Simin for translating our responses to Chinese so that she could feature us on omy.sg. But for those who cannot read Chinese, it basically features our responses to  two questions:

How did this project come about?

Barber in the Alley, our story about the fight for economic space, was picked as the winner of the inaugural Foreign Correspondents Association of Singapore’s Multimedia Journalism Prize for 2009.

You can download the write-up we submitted here.

/UPDATE/ See the photo gallery of the gala dinner where FCA gave out the prize. There is one photo of Justin shaking hands with Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy to receive the prize.

Singapore climbed 26 in this year’s Quality of Living survey by management consultancy Mercer. This result was an improvement of six places from last year and also makes it the top city in Asia. In a separate survey for the best city infrastructure, it came out tops too.

According to Mercer, this survey is meant to be a guide for to help government and companies decide where to place employees on international assignments. It is based on 39 quality of life determinants grouped in the following categories:

• Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc)
• Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services, etc)
• Socio-cultural environment (censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc)
• Health and sanitation (medical supplies and services, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc)
• Schools and education (standard and availability of international schools, etc)
• Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transport, traffic congestion, etc)
• Recreation (restaurants, theatres, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc)
• Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc)
• Housing (housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services, etc)
• Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters)

It’ll be interesting to see the specifics of how Singapore fared if we can get hold of the survey. The result is not a surprise, as Prof Ooi Giok Ling tells us Singapore is planned for business. And as further proof, not only has Singapore’s infrastructure come out tops, the World Bank ranks this city’s regulation over business as the best too.

Our videos just screened at Filament 2009: A Site for Home tonight and we would like to thank all those who turned up to watch it. If you missed the event, you can still see the videos we showcased here.

On a similar note, we would also like to thank Culturepush and Fivefootway for recently featuring us on their websites too!

It seems that love is in the air of this city at last. After launching My New Singapore recently, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan spoke to the Straits Times’ Insight (Love and the City, April 24) about how memories were important in fostering Singaporeans love for this city and how such feelings will make this city not just liveable, but lovable.

When you feel for this place, people will think twice about littering, about dirtying the place. They will think about how they interact with fellow Singaporeans. It’s that sense of being part of this place, being part of something special.
Mah Bow Tan, National Development Minister  

Yesterday, Minister Mah also announced the upcoming Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize to recognise those who have helped contribute to creating a vibrant, liveable and sustainable city. Nominations for the award begins in June.

But awards and state initiatives aside, how do ordinary Singaporeans feel and cope with living in this city? Prof Lai Ah Eng’s recent working paper A Neighbourhood in Singapore: Ordinary People’s Lives ‘Downstairs’ for the Asia Research Institute provides an ethnographic answer. The paper looks at Marine Parade residents and the daily interactions in their public housing space and concludes that seemingly ordinary places to urban planners are actually inspiration for artists and memory markers for communities. And at the end of the day, people just want to have a say in how their city is built and planned.

Get your copy of Singapore Architect #249, out in newsstands today.

In this economic downturn, why not save some money from traveling overseas and tour Singapore instead? That’s what the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) hopes to achieve in its latest campaigns to encourage Singaporeans to rediscover this city. At a keynote speech made at its annual Corporate Plan Seminar, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan outlined its upcoming programme My New Singapore that will include exhibitions and tours to various local attractions. 

“I hope that when Singaporeans rediscover Singapore, we will realise what a special little city we have and perhaps, we will love our city even more.” 
Mah Bow Tan, National Development Minister 

There is a lot to love about this city and we think it is more than what URA has in mind. Besides some of the places it plans to take Singaporeans like  Sungei Buloh, Changi Boardwalk and the new Marina Bay, all grand state initiatives, what is missing is getting people involved in their own city! We can fall in love in our city even more by being an active participant in its creation instead of being distracted by how lovely the state has made it.

So on top of holding exhibitions to outline what plans are in store for neighbourhoods, why not hold tea sessions with residents to solicit ideas on how to make their housing estates lovable? How about holding tours that show ordinary Singaporeans living and making this their city?

Moreover many of the examples mentioned by in Minister Mah’s speech are nature spaces and this seems to be a deliberate strategy to use nature to soften the effects of a crowded city as pointed out in Spaced Out, a recent opinion piece in IS-Magazine on city planning here. There are more ways to love and seek leisure in this city beyond going green and it’s just waiting to be discovered!

Our videos on Reclaim Land will be screening as part of Filament 2009: A Site For Home at the Singapore Art Museum. We will be screening on the 28th April at this annual showcase of final-year projects from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

This year’s theme, which came about in retrospect, is the idea of home as many of the documentaries and dramas touched on the family and Singapore.

So do come down and show your support and join us for two nights at home!

Through our stories, we find that a common approach to space management in Singapore is the idea that everything has its proper place. For instance, skateboarders should be at the skate park and street advertising should stay in the designated boards. The government’s proposed changes to the Public Order Act (POA) is a great example of how such management extends beyond just physical space and into the political realm. If the POA is changed, the Speakers’ Corner at Hong Lim Park will become a designated ‘unrestricted area’, or the state’s proper place, for political expression, but everywhere out of it is subjected to a permit.

The changes also affect the space allowed for filming as law enforcement officers will also have the power to stop people from videotaping security operations even if in the public. However, certain restrictions on this has been explicitly stated, including the fact that this is “not targeted against the filming of acts of civil disobedience”. Perhaps this was in anticipation of questions if it targeted filmmakers like Martyn See, who had documented the only public protest during the 2006 IMF-World Bank meeting in Singapore in his short film Speakers Cornered.

Despite these upcoming regulations to better manage political space, a solution that has existed, and continues to exist is to reclaim virtual space to discuss politics. For instance, you could read an interview a friend recently did with See and watch his banned political films, Singapore Rebel and Zahari’s 17 years all in the comfort of your personal space without applying for a permit.