Ubah Rumah Residency: Superlative Futures

Superlative Futures is a transdisciplinary design and research studio based in Singapore, co-founded by Wong Zihao and Liu Diancong. Their practice explores creative modes of landscape representation to imagine futures where cities better co-exist with more-than-human worlds. Their work treats design as a practice of care and has been exhibited at NUS Museum, with support from the Singapore Art Museum’s inaugural Design Research Fellowship (2024–2025). Zihao is an architect, researcher and educator with a PhD from the National University of Singapore, while Diancong is an architectural designer whose work explores sedimentation and alternative notions of ground.

During their two-week research residency on Nikoi Island, Superlative Futures will explore what mapping might become in a world after cartography. Using walking, drawing and mark-making as both physical and conceptual tools, they will investigate alternative ways of seeing intertidal and island landscapes beyond human-centric, extractive viewpoints. Drawing inspiration from the island’s name and botanical histories, the research will trace ideas of movement, grounding and seed dispersal as forms of mapping. The residency will include a participatory map-making workshop with staff and guests, inviting plural perspectives from both human and more-than-human vantage points.