The 2nd Annual UKNA Roundtable was held on the modernistic University Town campus of the National University of Singapore (NUS). It brought together researchers and representatives of the network’s partner institutes in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, India, the Netherlands, the UK, France—and of course Singapore itself.

Researchers, academics and activists from Singapore and around the region joined the UKNA contingent on the second day of the Roundtable for a workshop on the vernacular city in Asia. Several critical cases of vernacular urbanism were presented and discussed, including:

Integrating street vendors in urban systems in Ahmedabad
Professor Madhu Bharti from CEPT University, India

The spatial pattern of everyday life in Beijing and Tianjin
Professor Qiang Sheng from Tianjin University, China

Socially inclusive planning in Taipei
Professor Liling Huang of the National Taiwan University

The redevelopment of Kampong Susun in Jakarta
Ivana Lee of the Ciliwung Merdeka Association
Ariel Glenesk of the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights

The case of Bukit Brown cemetery in Singapore
Claire Leow of ‘All Things Bukit Brown’

Presentations and discussions were followed by a walking tour of Bukit Brown cemetery, parts of which are threatened by a planned highway. The grand finale of the Roundtable was the City Possible II Film Festival, which featured short films and documentaries from all over Asia on everyday urban life, compiled by Mike Douglass and Rita Padawangi.

The Roundtable was co-organized by UKNA, IIAS, the Asia Research Institute (ARI), the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Future Cities Laboratory of the National University of Singapore (NUS). The local hosts were Mike Douglass, Professor in the Asian Urbanisms Cluster at ARI and the Department of Sociology at NUS, and Dr. Rita Padawangi, Senior Research Fellow at the Asian Urbanisms Cluster of ARI.