NOW CONFERENCE – SEASON 1
1 JULY 2011 – 2 JULY 2011

The conference, previously known as DATUM:KL, remains the principal anchor event for the Festival, but shall from this year onwards be re-conceptualised as the NOW CONFERENCE. NOW implies an immediacy, a moment in the present to define new positions and potentials, an architectural status update! At a time when architecture seeks new directions and new beginnings, the debut conference will seek to examine and describe key trajectories of thinking and practice, and to underline the essential transformative aspects of architecture as a critical instrumentality to engage a continually changing world.

NOW CONFERENCE / SEASON 1 will feature a series of lectures by a selection of both established and emergent architects and designers with divergent range of approaches and interests from the region and internationally. In addition to introducing a new set of exceptional talent to the Datum community, this year we welcome back some of our original speakers who over the years has also risen in stature and profile alongside Datum. The new conference will also have a refreshed and updated format but will leave intact the things that have worked well.























SPEAKERS (in alphabetical order)
YB SENATOR DATO SRI’ IDRIS JALA PUTRAJAYA
ALFREDO BRILLEMBOURG CARACAS
PITUPONG CHAOWAKUL BANGKOK
FLORIAN IDENBURG & JING LIU NEW YORK/BEIJING
ZHANG LI BEIJING
LAURENCE LOH PENANG
JÜRGEN MAYER BERLIN
HIROSHI NAKAMURA TOKYO
OLE SCHEEREN HONG KONG/BEIJING
MARC SIMMONS NEW YORK
CAMERON SINCLAIR LONDON
ALAN TAY & SEETOH KUM LOON SINGAPORE


PIPUTONG CHAOWAKUL BANGKOK
SUPERMACHINE STUDIO supermachine.wordpress.com
LECTURE TITLE: SIMPLE MACHINES

Pitupong was born 1975 in Ubonratchathani, a small town 600 kilometers east of Bangkok, Thailand. He moved to Bangkok when he was 11 for his further education. He earned his Architecture degree from the School of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok and moved to Singapore to work for a year. In 2003, he obtained his Masters degree in Architecture from the Berlage Institute of Architecture, Rotterdam. In between his graduate studies, he worked with NOX architect in Rotterdam for a year.

Pitupong returned to Bangkok in 2003 and founded a cross-disciplinary design studio with 5 other friends called “Thisdesign”. He designed a very wide range of projects from concerts, interior designs to architectures. He regularly joined the artist group “Soi Project” and with them travelled and did installation projects in other countries such as Japan, UAE and UK. At the same time, he lectured and taught in various design schools in Bangkok.

He established Supermachine Studio in 2009. The office is engaged in various types of design projects. In 2010, Supermachine Studio was chosen to participate in iLight Marina Bay in Singapore, where they build “Animal Tree”, a lighting installation sponsored by Philips lighting. In the entertainment business, he was commissioned as Design Director of one of the biggest outdoor music event in Thailand called Big Mountain Music Festival. The event successfully drew more than 40,000 people for its 2nd festival in 2010. Pitupong is in the process of planning the 3rd one. Architecturally, Supermachine Studio’s project, “Harbormall” won the 2010 “World of Color Awards” from an international field.

Pitupong was one of the keynote speakers in the international forum, “Archifest‘2010” in Singapore.