Jason Pomeroy

Jason Pomeroy
Born	(1974-07-27) 27 July 1974 United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Canterbury School of Architecture, University of Cambridge University of Westminster
Occupation	Architect, Academic, Author, TV personality
Website	www.jasonpomeroy.sg
Practice	Pomeroy Studio Singapore
Buildings	Idea House, Malaysia Trump Tower Manila, Philippines Newpark, Malaysia B House, Singapore Azure Urban Beach Residences, Philippines (2014) Asian Century Center, Philippines (under construction), Century City, Philippines (2014)

Professor Jason Pomeroy (born 27 July 1974) is an architect, masterplanner, academic, author, and TV personality. He is the Founding Principal of Singapore-based Pomeroy Studio – an urbanism, architecture, design and research firm described as being at the "forefront of the green agenda".^[1][2] He has held various academic posts and is currently a professor at the University of Nottingham and Università Iuav di Venezia.^[3]

Previously, Pomeroy designed Asia’s first carbon-neutral prototype home, the Idea House (Malaysia, 2010), and Singapore’s first operational carbon-negative landed property, the B House (Singapore, 2016).^[4] He is ‘one of the world’s leading authorities on skycourts and skygardens’,^[5] and is the author of The Skycourt and Skygarden: Greening the Urban Habitat.

He also works to raise awareness of the cultural role architecture plays in society in his popular TV series ‘City Time Traveller’, and ‘City Redesign’ aired throughout Asia and the Middle East.^[6]

Early life and education

Jason Pomeroy was born in North West London, and is the only son of an English father and Malaysian mother. He grew up in the UK, though spent his summer months in Malaysia. He cites the lush foliage of his family’s back garden as first sparking his passion for the natural habitat; and the wigwams he built there as a child as his first foray into architecture.^[7] A visit with his father to Sir Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, at the age of eight cemented his passion for architecture and the built environment.^[8] It was not until visiting another of Wren’s masterpieces, Trinity College Library whilst studying at the University of Cambridge, that inspired his adoption of passive design techniques that would influence his later projects.^[9]

Pomeroy undertook his first and post-graduate degrees in architecture at the Canterbury School of Architecture (1992-1995; 1997-1998). It was during this period that he was drawn to the study of Asian cities (in particular Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore), and how they sought to ‘salvage open space for social amenity, recreation [whilst trying to] retain low carbon footprints - despite their potentially energy intensive, high-density settings’.^[10]

A one-year placement in between his degrees at the firm of Pakatan Reka Architects in Kuala Lumpur led him to appreciate the role local culture, historical precedents, topography and climate play in the design of the built environment. He cites the design works of Charles Correa and Ken Yeang, and the writings of Kenneth Frampton as his early influences in critical regionalist architecture.^[11]

An interest in the sustainability of the construction and project process led him to complete a master's degree in ‘Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment’ (IDBE) at the University of Cambridge (2005). It was at this time that he started his thesis entitled, ‘The skycourt: an alternative social space for the 21st century’, which would become an important vein of research and further influence his design projects. This would eventually culminate in a number of academic papers on the subject, and his book, ‘The Skycourt and Skygarden: Greening the Urban Habitat’.^[12] Pomeroy received his PhD from the University of Westminster - the title of his thesis being 'The skycourt and sky garden: towards a vertical urban theory'.^[13]

Early career and projects

Pomeroy joined the architectural practice of Yorke, Rosenberg and Mardell (YRM) in London, UK, in 1998 – a London-based firm who were early pioneers of British modernism.^[14] The refurbishment and extension of the practice’s 24 Britton Street – an award-winning office building built in the 1970s in a Miesian style, allowed him to qualify as a British registered architect and provided a platform to explore clean line, modernist glass fin construction.^[15]

In 2000, Pomeroy joined the Japanese architecture, engineering, construction and development corporation Kajima, where he worked in Brussels, London and Amsterdam. The Hitachi Demonstration Centre, Amsterdam, provided a further exploration into glass fin construction as well as fast track modular construction. It was also during this period that Pomeroy started to develop an interest in interdisciplinary design and in particular how a sustainable collaborative process can deliver a sustainable product that safe-guards quality, minimises cost and reduces waste.^[16]

Five years later, Pomeroy joined the London office of the architecture, urbanism and design firm of Broadway Malyan in 2005,^[17] and relocated to Singapore in 2007 to establish the company’s Singapore office. Projects of note include the Vision Valley Malaysia (2009) – an 80,000 acre network garden city extension of greater Kuala Lumpur; Idea House (2010) – first carbon zero house in Asia,^[18] Milano Residences (2015) – Asia’s first fashion branded residences with interiors by Versace, Trump Tower Manila (2016) – the tallest residential condominium when completed in 2016.

Later career

Pomeroy Studio and projects

Pomeroy left Broadway Malyan Asia to establish the sustainable design firm Pomeroy Studio in Singapore in 2012, creating a number of landmark green projects that include: B House (2015) – the first carbon negative house in Singapore; Gramercy Sky Park (2012) – the tallest residential skypark in the Philippines; Newpark (2015), a new township set to contain the first zero-carbon public realm in Malaysia;^[19] and Century City (2015) – a residential and commercial district that includes Trump Tower Manila, the Philippines.

The Studio’s design and research output reflects what Pomeroy calls ‘balancing of a creative vigour with an academic rigour’^[20] to create sustainable built environments. The Studio’s approach to design, which Pomeroy calls E-BISD (an acronym for Evidence – Based Interdisciplinary Sustainable Design) reflects his belief that a sustainable product can only be created if there is a sustainable process in place. A team of masterplanners, landscape architects, architects, interior designers, graphic designers, sustainability consultants and theorists work collaboratively to forge the studio’s creative outputs that include cities, buildings, landscapes, and interiors, underpinned by its more academic quantitative analysis.

Research

The vertical urban theory

For over 10 years Pomeroy has researched the attributes of sky-rise social spaces around the world, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on skycourts and skygardens.^[21] His research has been primarily focused on how the increasing privatisation of the public realm has given birth to alternative social spaces that seek to replenish the loss of open space within the modern city. He has focused on the skycourt and skygarden as two semi-public social spaces, and their social, spatial, economic, cultural, environmental and technical contribution to the 21st century urban habitat.

Both his research and design projects of various international architects were brought together in his book, entitled The Skycourt and skygarden: greening the urban habitat (Routledge, 2014).^[22] The growing interest of incorporating green spaces into architecture provided an opportunity to document hybrid - building projects with such vertical social spaces that would serve as a reference to academics, practicing architects and designers. He continues to publish widely, and his papers on the subject can be found in international peer reviewed journals.^[23]

Towards Zero Energy Development

The first major research project within this field was the Idea House, completed in 2010, which was at the time Asia’s first carbon-neutral prototype home.^[24] The Idea House drew much of its passive design inspiration from the Malay Kampong houses, which maximised natural light and ventilation through deep overhanging roofs (increasing shade and reducing heat), large roof volumes, extended terraces and raised platforms. These design elements, mixed with water conservation techniques and modern technology, resulted in a house that was carbon-zero.^[25]

The entire process – spanning the impact of climate change, the collaborative design process, concept design, construction through to the realisation of the house and its environmental performance – was detailed in Pomeroy’s 2011 book Idea House: Future Tropical Living Today.^[26] His research continued with the B House, which became Singapore’s first carbon negative landed property (generating more energy than the house should typically consume) when it was completed in 2016.^[27] The B House incorporates many of the techniques employed in the Idea House, as well as reinterpreting ideas from Singapore’s colonial black and white bungalows that were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries.^[28]

Teaching

Pomeroy has held visiting professorships at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Mapúa Institute of Technology, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He teaches courses with a sustainable architecture and urbanism bias and currently holds an honorary professorship at the University of Nottingham and a tenured professorship at Università Iuav di Venezia.^[29][30] He teaches a module on vertical urbanism within the MSc in Sustainable Building Design at the Nottingham University / BCA Academy. He also leads zero carbon floating community workshops at Università Iuav di Venezia.^[31]

Television

City Time Traveller

In 2014 Pomeroy worked with Xtreme Media to jointly conceive an architecture travel series for Singapore’s Channel NewsAsia. The resulting 12-part architectural TV series, ‘City Time Traveller’ debuted in 2014, and explored the design of cities, buildings and their places; and how they have adapted according to socio-economic, climatic and cultural need - past, present and future.^[32]

Pomeroy was both host and architectural consultant of the series. It received a ‘highly commended’ award at the Asia TV awards in 2015,^[33] and was extended to a second season.

Season One

• Episode 1: Singapore
• Episode 2: Hue, Vietnam
• Episode 3: Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
• Episode 4: Ayutthaya, Thailand
• Episode 5: Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Episode 6: Nanjing, China
• Episode 7: Udaipur, India
• Episode 8: Beijing, China
• Episode 9: Varanasi, India
• Episode 10: Kyoto, Japan
• Episode 11: Tokyo, Japan
• Episode 12: Singapore

Season Two

• Episode 1: Manila, Philippines
• Episode 2: Kolkata, India
• Episode 3: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Episode 4: Amritsar, India
• Episode 5: Shanghai, China
• Episode 6: Paro, Bhutan

City Redesign

Pomeroy hosted the four-part architecture documentary series, ‘City Redesign’, airing on Singapore’s Channel NewsAsia from March 2015 to April 2015 as part of Singapore’s 50th anniversary. The series uncovered the evolution of Singapore architecture as a result of its economic transformation from colonial trading port, to global financial centre, to technology, entertainment and leisure hub. The four-part series tells the tale of "…how Singapore created its buildings, and how the buildings created Singapore".^[34]

• Episode 1: Built on Work
• Episode 2: High Rise, High Life
• Episode 3: Designing Fun
• Episode 4: Heritage in Progress

Media, speaking and events

Media, speaking and events Pomeroy regularly comments on issues surrounding sustainability, design, urbanisation and architecture through print and digital media, TV and radio. He has been invited to speak in, host and moderate panel discussions and events all over the world. TV interviews and events he has spoken at and / or moderated include:

• MNC Business, Jakarta, 2016^[35]
• Vertical Cities, Seoul, 2012 & Hong Kong, 2016^[36]
• BBC World, Singapore, 2015^[37]
• Channel NewsAsia, 2014, 2015
• Creative Mornings, Singapore, 2015^[38]
• New Cities Summit, Jakarta, 2015^[39]
• World Architecture Festival, Singapore, 2010, 2014, 2015^[40]
• Future of the Tropics Economic Conference, Cairns, 2014^[41]
• International Green Building Conference, Singapore, 2014^[42]
• TEDx, Singapore 2012^[43]
• World Congress on Tall Buildings, Dubai, 2008

Pomeroy delivers keynote lectures and addresses at industry conferences globally.^[44] Pomeroy sits on the editorial board of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat and is an active member of the Singapore Green Building Council.

References