SINGAPORE: For four weeks last year, Mr Subbiah Arjunraja, 30, stayed in a specially designed dormitory room unlike others around the island.
The beds were rearranged to create different areas – such as for rest, for dressing and for cooking – in the room.
Pegboards were added between beds for privacy and doubled up as vertical storage space.
The Dormitory Association of Singapore Limited (DASL) commissioned Project Commune in 2021 as the dust settled from the COVID-19 pandemic.
After migrant worker dormitories became virus hotspots during the pandemic, the government announced higher standards for new dormitories.
In October this year, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said that existing dormitories would have to meet a set of interim standards by 2030 and the same standard as new dorms by 2040.
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“We were truly caught unaware and whatever we had been doing – the temperature checking, when workers are unwell we isolate them – that was grossly insufficient,” said DASL president Johnathan Cheah.
“Our approach goes beyond addressing the physical infrastructure of dormitories,” he said. “We recognise the need to create a sense of community and ownership.”
PROJECT COMMUNE
DASL enlisted the help of strategic design company Agency to research, conduct interviews and reimagine how a dormitory could be run.
Agency’s staff visited about seven dormitories and spoke to workers and managers to find out what the situation was like on the ground.
They then regrouped to figure out what to do with all the information they had gathered, before holding a workshop with 40 stakeholders that included operators and managers from more than 10 dormitories. Together, they came up with ideas to address needs that had been identified.
“We tried to prioritise them based on – these are the ones that we think will have the most impact and is doable within this period,” said Ms Gracia Fei, an interaction designer at Agency.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of project,” added Ms Lishan Soh, Agency’s design research director.
They had to find a balance between migrant workers’ needs, dorm operators’ bottom line and regulatory requirements.
“How do we balance the needs of these three so that everyone feels like they have a win? No one in this ecosystem should feel like they have to lose something so that the other gains something,” Ms Soh said.
After about a week of building, the eight residents moved into the prototype room.
HANG-OUT AREA, EXTRA CLOCKS
One need that was identified was the lack of space for residents to eat together, said Ms Fei. There may be a space to cook but workers often end up eating on the floor in their bedrooms.
“There’s no spatial boundary between clean and not clean, somewhere to eat, somewhere to socialise versus somewhere to rest, somewhere to sleep,” she added.
The prototype in The Leo dormitory used different flooring to separate wet areas from dry areas, and Agency also created a makeshift dining or hang-out area by shifting the beds to one side of the room and placing benches and a carpet on the other side.
“People really loved that. Someone told us that it felt like their family was in the room with them,” said Ms Fei.
“(He said) when I look at the time, I know that this is when my mum goes to work, my sister goes to school, my dad comes home, all that.”
STAMP TOUR, CULTURAL CHANGES
As part of Project Commune, PPT Lodge 1B, a dormitory in Seletar, also tested out a “stamp tour” to help new residents find their way around.
They were given an onboarding map with the dormitory’s most important facilities, shops and services. When they visited these places, they could stamp their map as proof of the visit. The completed map could then be exchanged for a reward.