What does urban planning that addresses both population growth and climate change look like? Ulrike Hannemann presents an example with the Pinnacle@Duxton, a large-scale public building project in Singapore. Rather than taking a conventional documentary approach, she approaches the complex as an artist and photographer. She takes detail shots (of the façades, the green spaces and individual design elements), which she then further manipulates by isolating or copying the motifs and incorporating them into collages. One such pattern, composed of individual images, runs through the book as a recurring moment. By dividing and spreading out the motifs over several pages, the book's design picks up on Hannemann's working method and strengthens it even further. A contextualising essay by Anna-Lena Wenzel introduces the architectural model project and draws a connection with Hannemann's childhood in an East German prefab building. "Pinnacle" is successful in both presenting a clever solution to the urgent housing problem and creating a visual language that is both abstract and concrete.
Book tip in Baunetzwoche #643: Pinnacle - Zerlegte Superdichte in Singapur (PDF)
