NOT THERE
Wu Yen Yen

Yen Yen Wu is the principal architect at Genome Architects, a practice with a portfolio of diverse local private and several key public projects, premised on approaching design through understanding natural systems and conveying thinking processes through the design of built environments. 

In the time of COVID-19, one architectural type has been under the spotlight in Singapore: the migrant workers’ dormitories. While the issues surrounding these dormitories point to what seems like a space and building problem that can be solved by improving living standards, the real issues that engender this predicament are intangible, systemic ones. Yen Yen’s long-term hope is that the migrant workers’ dormitories post-COVID-19 are ones that are empty — that we as a society can work towards discharging foreign labour and be self-reliant. She hopes to establish a new ground based on fundamentals of minimum wage; policies underlining adequacy, self- and eco-sustainability.

Finally, she hopes that through this pandemic, we have realised that much can still be done to find a way to manage what we need and what we can handle within our own capability.