The documentary features Japanese narration and haikus accompanying showcases of projects such as Jurong Lake Gardens (pictured), Plantation Village and House of Tan Yeok Nee (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
A Japanese father takes his young daughter on a three-day adventure through Singapore — and in doing so, invites audiences to see the island anew.
The premiere screening of Summer Island, an architectural 28-minute documentary produced by Shiya Creative Studio, was held at the Asian Civilisations Museum on April 11.
The film features recently completed architectural projects, ranging from a national garden, heritage buildings and HDB estates to a university campus and installations, alongside encounters with artists.
Part of the SJ60 commemorative events marking the 60th anniversary of Singapore-Japan diplomatic relations, the film screening drew guests from JCCI Singapore Foundation — the charitable arm of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Singapore — as well as architectural firms and members of the public.
The event was also on the Asian Civilisations Museum’s Crossing Cultures at ACM programme line-up, which included music and dance performances and cultural workshops.
Summer Island follows Yusuke, a Japanese resident in Singapore, and his five-year-old daughter, Emma, as they explore the island.
It was inspired by Takeshi Kitano’s Kikujiro, a heartwarming 1999 comedy-drama, and the musical sensibilities of Joe Hisaishi, who is known for his melodic, sentimental and dream-like film scores.
The short film was conceived as an emotional landscape — Singapore rendered in the gentle, observational style of Japanese cinema. Narration and haikus in Japanese pepper the documentary.
At the premiere, Kevin Siyuan, director of Shiya Creative Studio, said in his opening remarks that he hoped Summer Island would be a film that viewers might return to, “perhaps when you’re visiting the places featured in the film, or perhaps a few years down the road on a quiet summer day, and still find something warm and familiar about it”.
More than anything, the film is about connections — between cultures, people, places and the moments in time, he added.
The film highlights heritage conservation and connections between cultures, people, places and moments in time (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Both the main narration and the cameos feature recent high-profile architectural projects by members of the Singapore Institute of Architects. These projects include:
Yusuke and his daughter Emma playing at SIT Campus Heart, which Woha Architects conceived as a “campus in a park” (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Cameos included the Singapore Oceanarium (pictured) by RSP and the Kueh Kueh at Katong pavilions by SAA Architects (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
The Plantation Village Build-To-Order project, envisioned as a “smart kampong” in the new Tengah estate, is described in the film as a place where “the kampong spirit isn’t just remembered, but thoughtfully reimagined for how we live today and tomorrow”.
Sustainability runs through the connective tissue of neighbourhood life at Plantation Village. Sky gardens, shaded benches, trellised walkways, courtyards and soft rain gardens are coupled with smart building solutions such as a centralised cooling system, solar-ready roofs and a water harvesting system.
Over in the Punggol Digital District, the SIT Campus Heart — one of two plots at the Singapore Institute of Technology’s campus — integrates its learning environments with biophilic indoor-outdoor tropical spaces to form a “campus in a park”.
The buildings are designed to “hover above the forest”, with place-making nodes and about 1.7ha of the existing forest conserved. In the film, Woha speaks of creating a “fenceless, porous” campus that brings together not just the SIT academic community, but also the public.
Summer Island also showcased conservation, in particular with the House of Tan Yeok Nee, which was constructed in the early 1880s.
Owned by the Karim Family Foundation, Singapore’s last surviving Teochew merchant mansion has been meticulously restored as a living heritage space, with a gallery, restaurant, offices and event venues.
“Conservation isn’t about stopping time. It’s about walking with it together,” DP Architects reflects in the film.
And at Jurong Lake Gardens, Yusuke and Emma unwind and admire the view from the Water Lily Pavilion at the Japanese Garden.
The pavilion was designed to slow the body and clear the mind. “Every trail, every bridge and landscape was made to invite pause, where memory moves with the breeze,” say architects from Liu & Wo Architects.
A poster image of the short film, with father and child sharing a serene moment at the Water Lily Pavilion, designed by Liu & Wo Architects (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
The film also features mural artist Yip Yew Chong. Known for painting nostalgic, detailed scenes including street hawkers, temples and festivals, he draws inspiration from his childhood and everyday experiences, with his art providing a window into Singapore’s past.
A mural by artist Yip Yew Chong depicting local scenes of yesteryear, framed serendipitously by banana tree leaves (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Yip shares how the “small, fleeting” stories might slip away, but “on a wall, they get to stay a little longer”.
“We carry the city inside us … in the corners and corridors that shape us,” he adds.
Yusuke and Emma taking a break from their adventure, resting at a mural and installation painted by Yip Yew Chong (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Following the screening, a panel discussion — titled “Crossing Cultures in Art and Architecture” — was moderated by Calvin Chua, founder of Spatial Anatomy.
For Siyuan, memorable moments from the film production process came from watching Emma respond naturally to each space.
As the young actress could not be directed the way an adult could, her genuine engagement with each location could not be scripted or staged.
“One challenge in shooting this film was that Emma’s almost five, so she was a little princess on set,” Siyuan quipped, drawing laughter from the audience. “If she really didn’t like a particular scene, she wouldn’t cooperate.”
But at Jurong Lake Gardens one evening, with the sun setting over the water, Emma was visibly at ease in the serene surroundings of the Water Lily Pavilion.
The shot, which became the film’s poster image, shows father and daughter walking hand in hand, trees reflected in the still water and lily pads dotting the surface. Siyuan said that moment stayed with him the most from the entire shoot.
The same patience informed how the team approached every location in Summer Island. For each space, beyond just waiting for people to appear, he also sought to capture genuine interactions that bore out what the architects had designed the space for.
Some locations thus required five to seven visits each before that came together visually, be it families lingering at a playground or neighbours crossing a courtyard.
The shoot for the House of Tan Yeok Nee had been postponed a few times due to rain, before the team decided to simply film in the downpour. The effect turned out to be “pretty poetic”, said Siyuan.
On the panel, DP Architects’ Shawn Teo, who was one of the project leads for the house, took the opportunity to encourage anyone visiting it to pay attention to the rainwater downpipes. Artisans had masterfully embedded each pipe within the wall and fashioned it as a sculpted tree in fresco with colourful birds perched among the foliage.
One chance detail in particular charmed him: a craftsman had temporarily propped a chip of brick in one of the magpies’ beaks during construction, only to find later the chip had cemented permanently in place. “When you look at it, the composition is beautiful, and the bird looks like it has just gotten hold of some fruit,” Teo said.
He added that he hoped visitors would leave with an appreciation for the craft and design intention that goes into buildings like the House of Tan Yeok Nee — work that takes considerable time and effort, and depends on the skill of the builders and craftsmen who bring it to life.
From left: Shawn Teo and Drishti Kulshreshtha of DP Architects, and artist Yip Yew Chong, during the panel discussion at the premiere event (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Commenting on the Singapore Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, Drishti Kulshreshtha of DP Architects noted that an enduring lesson came from seeing how each person interacted with and interpreted the space in their own way and by viewing the pavilion from different vantage points.
She said: “We realised that spaces shouldn’t just be universally understandable … And how spaces make you feel is something you’ll always remember, because memory is so tied to our senses.”
In addition, the fact that the pavilion, named the Dream Sphere, was meant to be temporary influenced how the team approached the project. The fleeting, transient nature of the experience made it all the more important to consider what visitors would carry away with them, Kulshreshtha noted.
The Singapore Pavilion, named Dream Sphere, in Osaka; each visitor experienced and used the space in their own way (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Closing the discussion, Chua asked the panellists to each name a place in Singapore that embodies the idea of crossing cultures.
Their answers ranged from the HDB void deck — a space where funerals, weddings and impromptu football games coexisted across race and class — to the hawker centre, for the diversity of cuisines and subcultures gathered under one roof.
The Marine Parade Planning Area, where Peranakan shophouses give way to East Coast Park’s joggers and tai chi practitioners, was also cited as a neighbourhood that reflects Singapore’s everyday diversity.
Kevin Siyuan (far right) with the panellists and moderator, who received drawings of featured projects by artist David Liang (far left) as a token of appreciation (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
The next screening of Summer Island will take place in Tokyo on May 23, in collaboration with the Tokyo Architecture Festival. Another screening is targeted for July in Singapore, before the full film is released online for public viewing.
Helmed by Siyuan, Shiya Creative Studio specialises in photography and cinematography projects relating to the urban built environment, with visuals and narratives to tell stories of architecture, spaces and places.
The team’s past short-film projects include Corridors of Diversity (2019), A Wes Anderson-ish Singapore Vol. 1 (2021) and A Wes Anderson-ish Singapore Vol. 2 (2023).
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