Congratulations to Ewa Roztocka (M.Arch ‘23) for receiving the Paul Katz/KPF Fellowship for Post-Graduate Study of the City! This year’s study is Singapore.
Ewa’s proposal is titled, “(Im)permanent Singapore Future-proofing Buildings with Spare Capacity”.
The current model of urban renewal in Singapore relies on periodic erasure to recycle short-term leased land for new development, which is immensely destructive for culture and wasteful of material resources. Beyond typical short-term solutions like adaptive reuse, this research proposal suggests a more comprehensive approach to planned rejuvenation and preservation by pioneering a projective methodology of spatial and material interventions.
It aims to provide ways of ‘futureproofing’ Queenstown, an 8 square mile district in Singapore that epitomizes the struggle between historical significance and presumed anachronistic place. To envisage a trajectory apart from demolition and the stiffening of select valuable structures, this proposal offers long-term building resilience through flexibility and adaptability. By identifying Queenstown as an area in need of, and most able to demonstrate the value of ‘Spare Capacity’, a set of architectural interventions offering unprogrammed space that can cyclically prevent building obsolescence will be developed. Overall, this approach aims to empower obsolete buildings to recurrently adapt to inevitable change and retain value in the long-term.
This proposal is an extension of a joint thesis between Ewa Roztocka and Tengku Sharil (Princeton M.Arch ‘23), titled “Recurrent Vitalization”, advised by Professor Elizabeth Diller and Professor Sylvia Lavin. Their project seeks to resuscitate American outdated building typologies through design interventions that act as ‘design prosthetics’ enabling continual adaptation to technological change.
The Paul Katz/KPF Fellowship is an internationally competitive award established and administered by the KPF Foundation in honor of the life and work of former KPF Principal Paul Katz. It is given each year to assist students in their pursuit of studying issues of global urbanism upon graduation from a masters of architecture program from the five East Coast schools at which Paul studied or participated as a teacher: Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. The goal is that the KPF Foundation will grant a one-time US$25,000 award to a minimum of two (2) new Paul Katz/KPF Fellows each year. Fellows will be selected by a jury of leading architects and urbanists appointed by the KPF Foundation on a rotating basis. The Fellowship is permanently endowed through the generosity of people who worked closely with Mr. Katz, including friends, clients, colleagues, and KPF.
Selected fellows are those who have demonstrated a previous academic interest in the global city and are evaluated based on the submission of an essay, resume, and portfolio, as well as how well their proposed course of study advances the interests of Mr. Katz during his career, included but not limited to: international urbanism, high-density architecture, and mixed-use buildings.
Paul Katz (1957-2014) was the Managing Principal and President of KPF from 2009 to 2014. He studied architecture at the University of Cape Town and later at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, where he received a bachelor of architecture degree in 1982. He received a masters of architecture degree from Princeton in 1984. Paul Katz’s career focused on the realization of large, complex, mixed-use projects in high-density center-city locations. Projects he helped bring to life include: Roppongi Hills, a large mixed-use complex in Tokyo; many of the buildings at Canary Wharf in London; Hudson Yards in New York; the expansion of Covent Garden and the redevelopment of Earls Court in London; and the renovation and repositioning of The Landmark complex in Central, Hong Kong. He also managed the design of the 101-story Shanghai World Financial Center and the 118-story International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong, as well as number of other significant hospitality and mixed-use projects in Asia and around the world. He was instrumental in building the current global structure and reach of KPF.
