NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE | Studio Leader : Erik L’Heureux As the equatorial city’s relationship to climate and atmosphere becomes an increasingly complex interface in relation to climate change and great population growth; the studio will research the atmospheric mediums of ‘hot air’ situated in Ho Chi Minh City. Three features will guide this work: saturated informal urbanisms, thick envelopes, and aggregated roofs that modulate and filter the “hot air” of the equatorial city. As the equatorial city evolves from the granular, porous, and informal, to a more formal, conditioned, and ‘modern’ metropolis, the idea of the collective city on the equator stands threatened in the face of larger scale capital, global aspirations and imported technological systems. The design research will focus on the contested relationship with mid-20th century tropical modernism and the resulting contestation of aggregation, scale, vegetation, humidity, heat, and rain ？ the mediums that produce a “hot air” environment that will expand our repertoire beyond the optic and iconic to the climatic and atmospheric. If atmosphere is the glue that permeates both the city and architecture alike, then it is imperative to think of the city, architecture, and atmosphere together, as a climatic and cultural medium that impacts both the aggregation of buildings and the architectural envelop simultaneously, impacting the way in which architecture and urbanism might be rethought.