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Tom Tjon A Loi

Concept visualisation of a person entering a concrete withdrawal monolith in a busy city square

Speculative Civic Architecture / Public Infrastructure

The Right to Withdraw

A civic typology for temporary withdrawal in the overstimulated city

The city has infrastructure for movement. It has none for pause.

Project year
Project 2026
Role
Concept · Research · Spatial Direction · AI-assisted Visual Prototyping
Status
Competition proposal · 2026
Project context
Competition proposal · EDGE FEST 2026 / V-TOPIA

00 · Project truth

Central question
What if temporary withdrawal were treated as public infrastructure rather than a private wellness problem?
Relationship
Self-directed entry developed for EDGE FEST 2026 / V-TOPIA.
Editorial note
Speculative proposal. The images are concept visualisations and a plan study, not photographs of a built structure.

Meaning before making

The gap this work had to close.

  1. 01 · The question

    What if temporary withdrawal were treated as public infrastructure rather than a private wellness problem?

  2. 02 · The shift

    From withdrawal as self-care to withdrawal as a civic right with a spatial form.

  3. 03 · The form

    A competition proposal for a small, doorless urban monolith that offers one person a short interval away from public intensity.

01 · The missing infrastructure

A city can optimise every journey and still leave no place to stop.

The proposal does not medicalise overload or sell calm as a service. It asks the city to recognise pause as a basic spatial need—ordinary, public and available without purchase.

The wellness gap is an infrastructure gap.

02 · The spatial answer

No lock. No door. Privacy begins with geometry.

A 1.9 by 1.9 metre concrete volume uses a ninety-degree entrance, thick walls and a narrow skylight to bend sight and sound. One person enters; the city remains present but no longer immediate.

  1. 01

    Civic, not commercial

    No booking, purchase or wellness language is required.

  2. 02

    Privacy without enclosure

    The L-shaped entrance blocks direct sight while remaining visibly open.

  3. 03

    One honest material

    Board-marked concrete gives the object the language of infrastructure.

  4. 04

    Calibrated light

    A narrow skylight lowers intensity without turning pause into theatre.

03 · Visual prototype

The object had to read as infrastructure before it read as retreat.

The image sequence follows the spatial experience: from street to threshold, pause, plan and return. The studies test geometry, visibility, material and sensory reduction; they are development material, not built proof.

Person entering the withdrawal monolith from a busy public square
Street → threshold · entry remains visible, open and doorless.
Person standing beneath a narrow skylight inside the monolith
Pause · diffuse light and smooth walls lower the intensity of the street.
Top view of the L-shaped plan study
Plan study · the turn makes geometry the privacy and safety mechanism.
Red mechanical indicator set flush into rough concrete
Indicator study · one mechanical status light, set flush into the concrete.
Person leaving the monolith and returning to the city
Return · the city stays visible and comes back gradually.

04 · Status

A resolved proposal, not a built object.

The project currently exists as a competition proposal, spatial specification, 3D model and visual research. Siting, engineering, accessibility and public-operation testing remain future work.

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