Lim Xuan Xuan Rachel

Assembly Zero 1 explores architecture as an act of assembly, using collage as a form-finding method to translate fragments into spatial form.

Inspired by a weaponsmith working with salvaged materials, the design is organised into feed, forge and release, mapping a sequence from intake to fabrication and eventual release and exposure.

It reveals a tension between chaos and control, where a fragmented exterior conceals a precise and ordered interior.

The Weaponsmith's backstory

He began as a mechanic in the Real City, working with machinery and hand-built repairs shaped by patience and touch.

As automation took over, the city gradually lost its regard for human-made work. When machines replaced him, he was discarded and left behind. He survived in abandoned tunnels, building mechanisms from scrap. Torchlights, gears, improvised devices, each sharpening his ability to work within fragments and constraints.

Eventually, he found his way to the City of the Disgruntled, where broken systems and forgotten people gathered. Here, handmade work still held value, and scrap became material for invention. Freed from the restrictions of the Real City, he began exploring mechanisms that were once tightly controlled.

What started as modified tools evolved into complex rigs and weapon systems. Over time, word spread through the city’s networks, and he quietly became known as its weaponsmith.