The Marketplace - A 2nd hand traders hotel Part 1 Project 2000 Lisa Yun National University of Singapore | Singapore MEMORY: We live in a constant state of flux – between gaining and losing, between remembering and forgetting - invariably caught in a transient of exchange. Yet the fear of loss sometimes paralyses –a knee-jerk reaction in local context with a mandatory preservation of façades of traditional shophouses. Nostalgia for nostalgia sake.LIFE: This project attempts to addresses the very synergy between conservation and intervention. More importantly, it chooses to celebrate the dynamism of life, seeking to retain meaning instead of preserving a familiar carcass of what once was. MEANING: The program of a 2nd hand traders hotel was chosen as complimentary to the area’s activities – the trading of used goods - appropriate adaptive re-use in retaining cultural memory where the old is given a new lease of life. Discarding mere niceties of façade, this transitory receptacle of abode for travellers mirrors instead that of past migrant populations, with cellular housing and preservation of traditional sectional relationship between living and trading.Retaining of party walls, while stripping the interior, allows for the grain to of the area to be retained. The insertion of 2 visually freestanding boxes reflects adaptation of use and acknowledges the passage of time, creating a weaving in the city fabric of new and old. A fabric of memory. The bohemian setting of a flea market inspired the student to take on a re-interpretation of an eco-traveller's lodge. The transient nature of the trade and daily mobility of the traders are both reflected in the organisation of the program for the lodge's spaces, as well as in the composition and articulation of the architectural elements and parts. A row of refrigerators lining the fence, a place mat on the ground laid out for sundry wares, are all fair game in the design parti. A stark but engagingly controlled series of public spaces and private rooms, all contained and revealed by unpretentious material and structure speaks poetically of the sufficiency and resourcefulness of the independent.