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008/2009: Basements and the Flattening of Space
Summary: On Basements and Terrain
Description: Pictured above is the River Han, which runs through Seoul
On Basements
in Seoul, the roads are like thin lines which cut horizontally through the landscape, irrespective of relief and topography. in my mind it becomes like a vein dissected and carefully propped out on a board; but traversing a country with real geographical features for once, also makes the concept of relief ever more so apparent, as i cross toll bridges, valleys, and misty mountains. as i watch from the window, the landscape occasionally dips below the surface and then bursts out from the skyline at completely unexpected moments.
to try to compare a vast sprawling country like South Korea to a country like Singapore with no notable geographical features is pointless, like forcing yourself to compare a house with a plank of wood.
speaking of houses, not too long ago, i read bachelard's poetics of space, which expounded lengthily on the psychical effects of living in a house and considered how we imparted memories to different parts of our childhood spaces, and in particular, to different parts of a house. his argument seemed logical enough from a western perspective, from the viewpoint of people who came from places where houses seemed to come in as many parts as a washing machine: comprising of - a doorway, a hallway, a living area, a basement, an attic, a garage, and maybe a garden - amongst other things. it is indisputable that a house will always seem warmer when you are inside it and it is raining or snowing outside, and that certain types of associations will be made with the basement (a dank, dark and eerie crawlspace where the monstrous homicidal washer lumbers about like the minotaur in his maze) or the attic (the cockpit of the imagination, from which one embarks on flights of fantasy) due to the appearances of these spaces.
i was keen to consider all these, but there was one problem. your average singaporean was likely to grow up in a flat with a single storey - so these fanciful notions of houses and their clearly differentiated spaces could not apply. lets consider the Basement as an example: from inference, i have observed that a large proportion of older landed houses in singapore are built without basements. newer landed property is likelier to have a basement these days in order to comply with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) requirement that new and redeveloped houses must also include an bomb shelter (under the Civil Defence Shelter Act 1997). but for the older houses constructed in singapore, it would seem a less popular feature. for example, none of the remaining colonial black and white houses, or conservation shophouses have basements.
there is a straightforward explanation for this:
along with the aforementioned factors, i am also tempted to suggest that our inability to think of different levels in a house is also due to the fact that for the most part we never experience any diversity in relief - of hills, of valleys, of steep slopes, gentle slopes, or any sort of dramatic geographical anomalies. i should imagine that the experience of true terrain is really necessary for one to properly conceive of space in all its dimensions.
i think it begs the question, which came first? were our houses and flats shaped like flatpacked boxes because we lacked the space and earth to dig deeper into, or were they flat because the people who built them also had flattened imaginations to begin with?
On Basements
in Seoul, the roads are like thin lines which cut horizontally through the landscape, irrespective of relief and topography. in my mind it becomes like a vein dissected and carefully propped out on a board; but traversing a country with real geographical features for once, also makes the concept of relief ever more so apparent, as i cross toll bridges, valleys, and misty mountains. as i watch from the window, the landscape occasionally dips below the surface and then bursts out from the skyline at completely unexpected moments.
to try to compare a vast sprawling country like South Korea to a country like Singapore with no notable geographical features is pointless, like forcing yourself to compare a house with a plank of wood.
speaking of houses, not too long ago, i read bachelard's poetics of space, which expounded lengthily on the psychical effects of living in a house and considered how we imparted memories to different parts of our childhood spaces, and in particular, to different parts of a house. his argument seemed logical enough from a western perspective, from the viewpoint of people who came from places where houses seemed to come in as many parts as a washing machine: comprising of - a doorway, a hallway, a living area, a basement, an attic, a garage, and maybe a garden - amongst other things. it is indisputable that a house will always seem warmer when you are inside it and it is raining or snowing outside, and that certain types of associations will be made with the basement (a dank, dark and eerie crawlspace where the monstrous homicidal washer lumbers about like the minotaur in his maze) or the attic (the cockpit of the imagination, from which one embarks on flights of fantasy) due to the appearances of these spaces.
i was keen to consider all these, but there was one problem. your average singaporean was likely to grow up in a flat with a single storey - so these fanciful notions of houses and their clearly differentiated spaces could not apply. lets consider the Basement as an example: from inference, i have observed that a large proportion of older landed houses in singapore are built without basements. newer landed property is likelier to have a basement these days in order to comply with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) requirement that new and redeveloped houses must also include an bomb shelter (under the Civil Defence Shelter Act 1997). but for the older houses constructed in singapore, it would seem a less popular feature. for example, none of the remaining colonial black and white houses, or conservation shophouses have basements.
there is a straightforward explanation for this:
- climate: basements are not suitable for warm and wet climates since they cannot be cooled naturally or kept dry. architectural features more common in singapore and southeast asia include: houses on stilts, raised flooring, louvers which diffuse light and let air in, etc
- socio-cultural: basements are considered to have "bad fengshui" due to the accumulation of excess "Yin" or dampness, so the Chinese tend to avoid them
- structural: most of coastal/reclaimed singapore land has a high water table which does not make it particularly conducive to building a basement.
along with the aforementioned factors, i am also tempted to suggest that our inability to think of different levels in a house is also due to the fact that for the most part we never experience any diversity in relief - of hills, of valleys, of steep slopes, gentle slopes, or any sort of dramatic geographical anomalies. i should imagine that the experience of true terrain is really necessary for one to properly conceive of space in all its dimensions.
i think it begs the question, which came first? were our houses and flats shaped like flatpacked boxes because we lacked the space and earth to dig deeper into, or were they flat because the people who built them also had flattened imaginations to begin with?
© Debbie Ding 2009