A Spatial Study of Ion

A Study of Ion and the Evolution of the Singapore Shopping Mall Typology

Introduction

Singapore’s shopping malls are more than just retail spaces; they are cultural icons that reflect the nation’s economic progress, social dynamics, and architectural innovation. Beginning with the pioneering People's Park Complex by Tay Kheng Soon in the 1970s, Singapore’s mall typology has undergone a remarkable transformation. This study focuses on Ion Orchard, one of the most iconic modern malls, to unravel the evolution of shopping mall typology in Singapore and to examine how these spaces have adapted to changing consumer behaviors and urban contexts.

Choo Meng Foo on Google Maps: A Visionary Lens for the World

Choo Meng Foo is a distinguished photographer and Level 10 Local Guide whose contributions to Google Maps have significantly enriched the platform’s visual experience. With over 27,285 photographs and a staggering 257,616,306 views, his work has helped millions of users explore the world more vividly. His 160,435 points place him among the most prolific contributors on the platform.

Renowned for his keen eye for detail and his ability to capture the soul of spaces—be it a quiet café, a bustling street, or a heritage landmark—Choo’s photography transforms ordinary locations into compelling visual stories. His imagery not only enhances place listings but also supports travelers, businesses, and local communities by presenting locations with authenticity and care.

In addition to his photographic endeavors, Choo has introduced fellow enthusiasts to his signature technique known as “digital pastelmatic” photography—a method that replicates the subtlety of black-and-white imagery infused with delicate color nuances. This technique is especially powerful in CMYK printing, where it brings out richer tonal depth and texture. He shared this innovative approach on the Local Guides Connect platform, offering valuable insights into his creative process and philosophy. Local Guides Connect  

Free Mobie screen download

 All rights reserved. You are allowed to download for mobile display play only. Give me your great comment if you can to encourage me. Moreover, you can also buy me a coffee. Paylah me 

 

In "The Way of Harmony: Insights from the Dao De Jing," authors ZhuTianYun and Hamamoto Satoshi unveil the timeless wisdom of one of the world's most enduring philosophical texts. This unique interpretation of the Dao De Jing offers a contemporary perspective on the ancient teachings of Laozi, a sage whose insights have traversed centuries and continue to resonate in our modern world.

ON MODERN ASIAN DESIGN THINKING

 

This e-book is a pictorial narrative of Tay Kheng Soon's journey as an Architect-Activist-Educator. It starts with his ruminations on epistemology, adventure, civic activism, maturing process, and then the outcomes.

Rare sighting of Dollar Bird - Bishan Park

An amazing find at Bishan Park. A very rare sighting. The resident photographer, Ah Tan who patrol the Park every morning for many years said he saw it once only but was not fast enough to snap a shot of it. I was lucky. From far it looks like Myna until I zoom in. 

 I will be giving a talk on 'Meditation on Creativity' this Saturday 19th June afternoon starting at 3:00pm and ending at about 4:30pm Organized by: 

Centre of Sustainable Architecture (COSA) 

Fragment

Buy Here

 A Chinese book I wrote over a few years at different times when events or observations inspired me. I would document them in a certain stream of consciousness or a series of fragments before I got tired and discontinued them. Maybe another day, I may use the same idea and create a larger series of them. 

The Teacher

A book written by a retired teacher the story spans across educational changes and the modernizing Singapore from the Seventies to the Nineties. Through the desire of a modern woman, it described the journey where desires slowly corrupt the young mind, resulting in disappointment, betrayal, and hatred.

Get it here:   http://www.lulu.com/shop/richard-tooh/nanisi/paperback/product-23372078.html

With The Wind

A verse from Hoon Loon

you can stay here
with your common sense
tonight,
i am soaring to the moon
with my nonsense.

It was last year that I suggested to Hoon Loon that we should gather his verses which he has been posting on the FaceBook into a printed book. I shared with him the joy of writing and publishing. At that time, he was hiding in his home recuperating and thinking through his life; he had a stroke which paralysed half of his body. 

Portraits of Arthropods - Sentosa 2016

The exhibition lasts for a few months at the Sentosa Exploration Centre

Transference - from Kandinsky to Architecture to Digital Suprematism

A book Exploring Kandinsky, Architecture, and Suprematism. Shengyiyu Zhu and Italo Castella in collaboration. Buy paperback at Amazon or hardcover at Lulu
Kandinsky’s work of lines, shapes and colours was chosen as the premise for exploration and translation of art into an architecture language to be used and demonstrated in a dwelling project for a musician. Kandinsky’s very special form of abstraction derived from his understanding of music, free of things of nature and the past, but of things of the abstract which were forms of virtual creation derived from his subjective universe. As paintings should never be a copy of other things, not nature, not human, not everyday things, but of itself.
A two storey house of two geometrical shapes, one stable and another rotated, punctured by an axis from one into another and terminated on the outside with a subtraction in a two-dimensional circle. Planes of different shapes attached themselves to the axis, all miraculously anchors themselves with the line.

Portraits of Singapore with Antonio Berlusconi

One great book on the Art of Street Photography. It details how fun street photography can be done even with an inexpensive action cam, the Xiao Yi, from the same company that brings the Mi mobile. It makes street photography seems so easy, in fact, it is that easy, if one learns to strike a quick rapport with strangers, and yes anyone can learn the skill, which the photographer has shown in the book.
Simple text accompanies each photograph and provides additional information that makes for an easy read. It is a leisure book that showcases Singapore's unique people and culture that most tourists would not have encountered. It shows the liveliness and spontaneity of the people in multicultural Singapore. One would definitely feel the pulse and dynamism of Singapore's diversity.

The book can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/antonio-berlusconi/portraits-of-singapore-the-beauty-of-action-cam-the-art-of-street-photography/paperback/product-23375877.html 

Dao De Jing

This is a coloring book for all ages, children, teenagers, adults or seniors. It is the first of its kind where the ancient classic Dao De Jing is reproduced in Modern Chinese Calligraphy, using traditional Chinese brushes and ink written on rice paper. On the left pages are the most common texts reproduced in Fang Song typeface, with calligraphy artwork on the right. These pages allow for quick references. Dao De Jing is the most translated text written around 500 B.C. by the author commonly know as Lao Zi. It forms the philosophical text of Chinese thoughts apart from Confucianism.

Coloring for Seniors - Little India, explained

This is a very special colouring book - sketches of real places and real people of the EXOTIC Little India. It is also special to me as I worked on this book together with my younger son. Inside you will find our sketches, documenting the lives and activities of Little India. The sketches are rendered with lines and etching, creating a classical form with a modern twist and perspectives. You can get a copy here, http://www.lulu.com/shop/meng-foo-choo-and-shengyiyu-zhu/coloring-for-seniors-little-india/paperback/product-22813286.html

The cover is a sketch of the fish monger at the Tekka Market from a high angle. This market is special because the frantic activities can be viewed from the upper floor. Here we can see the spectacle of morning grocery and food marketing. This was a scene recreated from photographs of the 80s, where sign boards and refrigeration were not a common sight. Fishes were laid on top of the stall with some ice cubes spread above and underneath them. The floor was usually wet and soon it would become greasy as one walked along the aisles from one stall to another. Perhaps, one could recall doing grocery with one's mother or aunt, mesmerized by the price haggling, laughter, at times screamings, couples with the stench of raw fishes, pork and mutton.

Drawn with Platinum 3776 EF Nib.
The Gentleman. It is a common scene where old India gentleman’s dressing in their neatly ironed traditional daily wear, having his breakfast. The same beverage and the same Prata, nothing special, nothing bothers him. Every day is just another day. The same dressing, but he is not complaining about boredom as everyday is another repeat of the same. Perhaps he has seen through all the fancy and superficiality of live. Perhaps the ultimate reality lies in the flavour of ‘masala cha’ and the daily recurrence.

Coloring Places - Tiong Bahru

This coloring book is about real places and real people, it captures the Genius Loci of Tiong Bahru, a place that is constantly changing, reflecting the pulse of the young and spirit of the entrepreneur generation. The creative spirit and innovative approach to life is part of the everyday scene of Tiong Bahru. Though it is constantly moving, it has tried to hang on to its rich history. However, the sweeping economic forces and social changes would slowly shift and mould its current history. Its history is also influenced by global trend through the huge influx of both foreign and local creative class. The hip and trendy, late twenty to late thirty, artists, writers, designers, architects, lawyers, accountants, economists form the proactive residents of Tiong Bahru. Contrary to popular myth of authority's gentrification as the impetus for the changes in Tiong Bahru, causing rental to rise and displacing the existing residents, it is the economic forces and flow of foreigners vacating from the town center to the peripheral accelerating these changes, for some it is for the better, but for those being displaced it would seem that it is going down hill.
Since the sketches had been made, many places had changed, trees had fallen and landscape had been  re-moulded, people came and left, shops opened and shifted away. Many of the sketches become a figment of the memory of those yesterdays, for the new comers it is the history of the place, for those who lived through them, it is a certain loss and erasure of their existence. Perhaps through these sketches and colouring them, it would bring back fond memories.

Learning about art

Interesting story of how the Art is a storage of money and how it can use for evading taxes and money laundering. The Panama Papers are quite revealing.
See here, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/arts/design/what-the-panama-papers-reveal-about-the-art-market.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 

Yiyu's Exhibition at French Book Shop

After setting foot on the path of an Artist I am once
again amazed at the leftover history at this quiet blocks
of shophouses that bustles at night. It led me to take up
my pen once more. --- Zhu Shengyiyu

An Exhibition at the French Book Shop, Tiong Bahru

Link : https://www.facebook.com/frenchbookshop.singapore

55, Tiong Bahru Road #01-53 Open 11am-6pm Wed, Thu, Fri. 

• Closed on Monday, Tuesday, Sunday
• Singapore, Singapore 160055

The Tiong Bahru Club 

Ink on paper, platinum 14K gold nib

25th September 2015

(SOLD)

Description

The Tiong Bahru Club. A place i stumbled

upon while walking along the shophouses

and admiring the interesting curvature and

shapes which were different to those in

Little India. 

Project 49 - 49 days of painting Marina Bay Sands

Project 49. Everyday, I painted the Marina Bay Sands, pondered about the significant of it all for 49 days. It was a form of meditation. 49 days has a great significant in Chinese numerology, pugilistic master goes into a sealed cave or room to meditate for 7x7 days and supposedly emerge with greater wisdom. '49 days' is a form of therapy of the mind. The process was really enriching as I had to juggle with work, traveling and the growing size of the canvas I had painted. It is all worth, as discipline and perseverance is key to completion of the project. I had selected some to be printed on fabric and used in these 'Throw Pillow' . Enjoy and thank you to all. Have a great Christmas!!!

Project 49 - 49 days of painting Marina Bay Sands

Project 49. Everyday, I painted the Marina Bay Sands, pondered about the significant of it all for 49 days. It was a form of meditation. 49 days has a great significant in Chinese numerology, pugilistic master goes into a sealed cave or room to meditate for 7x7 days and supposedly emerge with greater wisdom. '49 days' is a form of therapy of the mind. The process was really enriching as I had to juggle with work, traveling and the growing size of the canvas I had painted. It is all worth, as discipline and perseverance is key to completion of the project. I had selected some to be printed on fabric and used in these 'Throw Pillow' . Enjoy and thank you to all. Have a great Christmas!!!

Click on the images to BUY!