Urban Design and Adaptive Reuse in North Korea, Japan, and Singapore

Summary

"Little Thailand" in Golden Mile Complex; Sengkang, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons; We debate policy and push for development, but what about the actual city that emerges? For my fellow urbanists and YIMBYs, I hope this interview offers something a bit new. The aesthetics, forms, and textures born from history, politics, resources, and constraints. Beyond regulations and economic models, how do planning ideas manifest visually? What does adaptive reuse mean beyond headline projects?Cities don't follow master plans, but what exactly does that mean? They're shaped by who owns what, what materials are available, and what communities actually need. Calvin Chua and his firm, Spatial Anatomy, studies these hidden forces through design projects, research, and strategic planning across challenging contexts worldwide. He also teaches design studios at SUTD focusing on peripheral zones and adaptation paradigms and was the festival director of Singapore’s Archifest 2023. He written a few interesting books including Singapore Strata Malls: A Retrospective for the Future and Unit. Volume 2: Golden Mile Complex.ShareSingapore's "strata malls" let individuals own shops outright, not rent them. Any building change needs 80% owner approval. Result: retirees treating shops as social clubs, refusing million-dollar buyouts. These malls become uncurated havens for niche businesses and retirement communities disguised as retail.Chua discovered this while researching strata malls and planning Paya Lebar Air Base redevelopment. Finding that owners saw shops as retirement security changed how his team approached preserving 1,800 hectares of heritage buildings.Singapore labels everything temporary as "interim": schools, housing, bus stops. These "temporary" solutions routinely last 20+ years.For the 2017 Seoul Biennale, Chua built a replica Pyongyang apartment in Seoul. 36 square meters showing how people actually live versus headlines ab...