Safdie Architects
Israeli-born Safdie is best known in Singapore for creating the Marina Bay Sands resort, but all eyes are currently on his Jewel Changi Airport development. What’s the best design advice you’ve been given? Louis Kahn’s quip about asking the brick what it wants to be comes to mind. The metaphor focuses on how the materiality of architecture informs its language. It’s a fundamental lesson for a designer. How does Singapore live up to its designation as Unesco Creative City of Design? Singapore is probably at the forefront, worldwide, of publicly-initiated urban design and ambitious landscaping of the urban environment. This has had a tremendous effect on the lives of its people. Is it really possible to make a business out of innovative design? Yes, if by innovative design you mean a building that responds to its programme and its setting, manifested in its liveability and utility. msafdie.com