The Common Good Pavilion is an architectural pavilion featured at Archifest 2022, Singapore’s annual architecture festival. Made up of upcycled drainage cells, the pavilion introduces a new typology of edible public space that promotes wellness, inclusivity and food resilience, challenging the typical urban green that is standardised, mono-functional, and cosmetic. Its participatory nature involves multiple stakeholders, inviting citizens to contribute to placemaking and place-keeping of common spaces, while shifting the planning paradigm from urban design to “urban life design”.

The pavilion responds to the event curator’s theme of “Common Good”, which sits within the wider event theme of “The Order of Love”. The design team interpreted the notion of ‘Common Good’ as a call for deeper reflection on the social value of architecture. Beyond finding a “common” denominator of basic human need, the pavilion strives to reveal and stage the multiple narratives and heterogeneous arrays in the practice of everyday urban life.

Collective action and active participation are interpreted through participatory placemaking and place-keeping. Passive users now become the creative users, who can interactively build and maintain the pavilion, while learning about planting, growing and harvesting of edibles. Through this process, the users achieve mental wellness, and gain social connections with others.

Photography: Oddinary Studios