Weaving Social Tapestries: Place-based social infrastructure in Singapore

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed a fragile social infrastructure that falters in a global crisis. All semblance of normalcy has been uprooted.  Cracks are beginning to show that Singapore's current social infrastructure model, one of a top-down, institutionally driven machine, is not capable of handling. Its political and social systems have been inadequate in providing community and social support during a crisis. Existing strategies of developing public spaces are provisional and lacking in deep community building models, resulting in loose and weak social ties and capital during the crisis, resulting in increased vulnerability and loss of social bonds for many.

In the face of this crisis, new enterprises and place-based communities are created by locals who seek to bridge the gaps. Through these emergent activities come new local, place-based community ecologies. These new practices provide a lens into how a neighbourhood could develop a more anti-fragile socioeconomic infrastructural model that reinforces a stronger community for the 21st Century. Thus, the thesis asks, "What are the limitations of existing social infrastructure in the advent of a changing place-based lifestyle? How can we develop new socioeconomic infrastructure models that support a stronger communal ecology?"

This thesis investigates the issues of the current social infrastructure model in Singapore while also studying local communities that attempted to overcome such obstacles. Situating in Singapore, the research hopes to speculate how a future based on designing place-based socioeconomic infrastructure models can empower individuals and develop an anti-fragile community.