Host Circle
Three registers, one residency. The practitioners, the rooms, and the neighbourhoods where citymaking actually happens.
A small Singapore- and London-side circle whose practice sits at the intersection of making, culture, strategy and lived experience.
The venues that carry the week — from The Foundry and The Nanson to the Glass Dome — each holding a different register of the conversation.
Neighbourhoods read as live cases — Bras Basah Bugis as the cohort's anchor, with Singapore itself held as a contemporary karkhana.
The architecture of the residency
The Host Circle is the architecture of the residency — the partners convening the rooms, opening the doors, and carrying the conversation forward beyond the week itself.
Together, people, places and precincts hold the week in shape. Each entry below names one of those parts — a practitioner, a venue, or a neighbourhood — and the role it plays across the residency.
Host partner · Making & materials
Saurabh Mangla, Founder
Asia's materials combinator — an incubator and accelerator engineering the substrates of the next industrial era, from molecule to validated prototype to industrial adoption. Anchors the residency's conversation on making, materials and the long arc of production.
Host partner · Land & public life
Erin Lee, Author — Take a Pause
Imagined in Singapore, a living district within Dhun on the edge of Jaipur — a working prototype for another rhythm of civilization where ecology, attention and public life share a single ground. Hosts the cohort's conversation on land, slowness and the long arc of place.
Host partner · Experience & place
Tulsi Grover, Hospitality & Lifestyle Design Leader
A global collective of independent studios and practitioners designing the experiential layer of the built environment — bringing together spatial thinking, cultural narratives, digital interaction and public engagement. Anchors the residency's Singapore work on how places come alive through culture, technology and experience.
Host partner · Strategy & place
Anupam Yog, Managing Partner
A Singapore-based strategy practice working with cities, developers and cultural institutions on the long arc of place. Convenes the Singapore-side conversations the cohort steps into.
Host venue · Mon 15 – Tue 16 Jun
A contemporary karkhana moving from supplier to producer of cultural and public work. Hosts the cohort across the residency's opening two days — Monday's workshop and Tuesday's closed-door salon — with making, material and conversation in the same room.
Host venue · Wed 17 Jun
The festival venue, and the residency's one fully public moment. A full-day gathering of urban leaders, creatives and practitioners around three themes — Adaptive Neighbourhoods, Urban Software, and Placemaking & Legacy — closing with the New York Times Oxford-style debate.
Host venue · Thu 18 Jun
The venue for the Citymaking Studio — a working karkhana where making, material and conversation sit in the same room. The cohort's encounter with Singapore as a place of production.
Social HQ · The cohort's home base
The social HQ of the cohort through the residency week — the room they return to between sessions, and the host venue for India & The Policy Pivot, an evening conversation hosted by Anupam Yog on the long arc of Indian urbanism.
Precinct · Civic & cultural core
Singapore's arts, heritage and learning district — museums, schools and places of worship layered into a working neighbourhood. The cohort reads it as a live case of Adaptive Neighbourhoods and Placemaking & Legacy in one precinct.
Precinct · The Nanson
A riverside precinct where residential life, hospitality and the arts sit alongside the water. The setting for India & The Policy Pivot at The Nanson — read as a case of how a quay becomes a neighbourhood.
Precinct · ipse ipsa ipsum
Singapore's pre-war modernist neighbourhood — low-rise streamline blocks, independent makers and a strong local memory. The setting for ipse ipsa ipsum, and a working study in how an older fabric carries new cultural production.
Precinct · Glass Dome
One of Singapore's oldest immigrant precincts — shophouses, temples and clan associations now sitting alongside the financial core. The setting for the Glass Dome and the festival, read as a live case of Urban Software and Placemaking & Legacy.
Precinct · The changing CBD
The residency moves through Marina — Singapore's changing central business core — as the city's financial and civic heart is being rewritten in real time.
The wider room · WCS Week
The residency sits inside the rhythm of World Cities Summit week, when citymakers from around the world gather in Singapore. Beyond any single venue, the city itself becomes the workshop — a contemporary karkhana where the cohort moves between programmes, conversations and encounters on the future of cities.
