SUTD’s Professor Khoo Peng Beng on how the Singapore Pavilion rethinks urban identity through superdiversity and the humble dining table

“What I’m most looking forward to is the conversations the pavilion will spark with people who didn’t expect to be moved by a Singapore planning exhibition. I want visitors, wherever they come from, to stand at that table and ask themselves: what would it look like if my city took coexistence this seriously? That question, planted in someone’s mind as they walk back out into the light of the Arsenale or back home at the National Museum, is the best thing the pavilion could do,” says Khoo.

Why choose the dining table as a lens to understand diversity and identity?

Because food is the one thing every culture shares and no culture shares in the same way. The table is where Singapore’s superdiversity is most immediately and most joyfully expressed. When a Chinese family orders roti prata for breakfast, when a Malay family has laksa for lunch, when an Indian family eats char kway teow for dinner, these are not small acts. They are how Singapore says: all of this belongs to all of us.

The table is also our most democratic space. At a hawker centre, everyone sits together regardless of who they are or where they come from. The architect and the construction worker, the banker and the student, the third-generation Singaporean and the new arrival, they share the same plastic stool, the same chilli sauce, the same ceiling fan. That equality is not accidental. It is structural. And it is beautiful. For us, the table became the perfect metaphor for a city that works because everyone has a seat at it.

What is your personal interpretation of “superdiversity”?

Superdiversity is what happens when diversity goes beyond the usual categories. It’s not just Chinese, Malay, Indian, others. It’s the Tamil grandmother who makes Nonya kueh. The Peranakan family that celebrates both Hari Raya and Chinese New Year. The neighbour you’ve known for 20 years, who comes from a completely different world but shares the same lift lobby, the same hawker table, the same morning hello. Singapore has always been this way. Layers of identity, language, faith and memory, all coexisting in the most natural way imaginable. Most cities in the world are only beginning to understand what we have been living for generations.

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What are some examples of “superdiversity” you’ve encountered, and why have they left an impression on you?

The one that stays with me is the simplest thing: a kopitiam table. Sit down at any hawker centre and within arm’s reach you have bak kut teh, roti prata, teh tarik and chicken rice. Four culinary traditions, four cultural histories, all on one table, ordered by the same family without a second thought. Nobody planned that. It grew from centuries of people arriving here, setting up stalls and feeding each other. That is superdiversity at its most honest and most beautiful.

The other example is architectural. Stand at the junction of South Bridge Road and look in any direction. A Hindu temple, a mosque, a Buddhist temple, a Christian church, all within a few hundred metres of each other. Different architectural languages, completely different spiritual worlds, and yet their presence side by side feels entirely ordinary to everyone walking past. That easiness is something Singapore should never take for granted.

How does design play a role in ensuring a thriving and sustained diversity that distinguishes Singapore from other cities internationally?

Design in Singapore has always been about making coexistence possible at a very practical level. Think about the void deck, that open column-free space at the base of every HDB block. Someone made a decision to leave it undefined, to let the community decide what it becomes. And so it becomes a wedding venue on Saturday, a funeral wake on Sunday, a playground on Monday afternoon. That generosity of space is a design decision. The five-foot way of the shophouse, which gives every pedestrian shelter regardless of who owns the building behind it, is a design decision. Singapore’s great contribution is showing the world that diversity doesn’t happen by accident. It needs to be designed for, not to control it, but to create the conditions where it can grow on its own terms.

That is what agencies like Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and DesignSingapore Council (Dsg) work towards every day, shaping the planning and design frameworks that allow coexistence to flourish. Behind our coexistence are design codes, both formal and informal, that define a safe space for the unity in diversity that we experience. We show this through the formal and planned dimensions of our installation that interact freely with the accidental and emergent dimensions.

Why is it important for Singapore to distinguish itself from other cities internationally?

We are a city of six million people on an island with no natural resources and no hinterland. What we have is our position between East and West, and our people, who come from everywhere and have made something entirely their own here. In a world of increasingly similar global cities, Singapore’s superdiverse identity is genuinely rare and genuinely precious. Cities today compete not just for investment and talent but for meaning, for the sense that living there enriches you. Singapore’s culture of coexistence, the feeling that you can eat, pray, work and build friendships across racial and religious lines in ways that feel completely natural, that is our most distinctive quality and our most valuable asset. It did not happen by accident — it is the product of decades of deliberate planning, led by URA and other agencies, that has made coexistence not just possible but natural.

In the Design 2035 Masterplan, 64% of Singaporeans see design as contributing to a city’s liveability and vibrancy. What does this statistic tell us?

What it tells us is something I find genuinely encouraging. Most Singaporeans already understand, at some level, that the quality of their daily environment, the park they walk through, the layout of their town centre, the bench at the bus stop, is the result of someone making a considered design decision on their behalf. They may not always use the word “design”, but they feel its presence. The 64% tells us that Singaporeans have high expectations of their city, and rightly so. Our goal with the pavilion is to make that understanding more conscious, to help people see that the superdiverse city they move through every day is one of the most thoughtfully designed environments on earth.

Do you have a recommended “flow plan” for how one should experience the Rasa-Tabula-Singapura exhibition? Does one need to do any “prep work” or have prior knowledge to enjoy the exhibition?

No preparation needed whatsoever, and that is entirely intentional. We designed the pavilion to be experienced the way you experience a good meal. You don’t need to know the history of the cuisine to enjoy the food. You just sit down, open yourself to it and let it come to you.

 If I were to suggest anything, I would say: start at the edges. Before you approach the table, walk the perimeter. Sit in one of the Neural Monobloc Black chairs, our AI-generated reimagining of the humble kopitiam chair, and look at the table from a distance the way you might survey a spread before you begin eating. Then approach and let your curiosity lead you. Pick up a menu. Hold a kueh. Look at the models. There is no correct order, just as there is no correct order in which to eat at a hawker centre. You follow what draws you. Look for both top-down views and bottom-up views. 

 Come with your senses open and your assumptions light. The best response to this pavilion is the feeling of recognition, of saying yes, I know this, I have lived this. That recognition is what we have been designing for all along. And we can’t wait to share it with you.

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