Spotlight 21: Je Yen Tan

Je Yen Tan is a graduate of the Melbourne School of Design. His design thesis, Arcadia, imagines a site at the tip of Port Arthur, on Paredarerme Country, as a landscape of memory and contradiction shaped by its history as a colonial penitentiary. The project meditates on cycles, ritual, and repair through narrative and process.

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Nina Nervegna (NN): Could you introduce us to your thesis, and explain its title, Arcadia?

Je Yen Tan (JYT): Broadly, the project is about contradictions within place, and how to explore these through architecture. When I began researching the site, I was drawn to a statement of significance by the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority (PAHSMA) that described the “Arcadian” qualities of the landscape in contrast to its penal and colonial history. Arcadia refers to a vision of idyllic pastoral history, a better form of life now lost.

Early in the semester I was exploring the notion of the sublime, captured by landscape painters such as Nicolas Poussin. The ruins of ancient civilisations were depicted within beautiful landscapes, expressing the inevitable passing of time and forces of nature. Poussin has one painting called Et in Arcadia Ego, meaning “Even in Arcadia, I am”. In the painting, a group of shepherds uncover an ancient tomb, inscribed with this phrase, which refers to death. Even in the idealised world of Arcadia, the inevitability of death is present.

For me, this immediately connected to the site of Port Arthur. In referring to the Arcadian qualities of its landscape, you also have to acknowledge the trauma and suffering faced by so many in this place. This tension set the path for the project.

Poussin, Nicolas. Et in Arcadia Ego. 1637–1638. Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_in_Arcadia_ego_(Poussin)#/media/File:Nicolas_Poussin_-_Et_in_Arcadia_ego_(deuxi%C3%A8me_version).jpg.

NN: Your project responds to a very particular and peculiar part of Tasmania. Could you explain its underlying tensions?

JYT: Port Arthur is located on the Tasman Peninsula, a relatively isolated part of the state accessible only through a narrow isthmus or by water. The area is known for its unique geology and natural landscapes. Port Athur, however, is the region’s most famous attraction. It operated as a penal colony in the 1800s before being marked for preservation as a heritage site and tourist attraction.

The Tasman Peninsula itself is deeply scarred by colonial violence. Massacres and diseases brought by settlers destroyed the Indigenous population and its oral histories, meaning that today the dominant narrative of Port Arthur is one told through colonial records.

I chose to locate my project on the northern tip of Point Puer. It is the site of a former boys’ prison, often excluded from most tours of Port Arthur due to its relative isolation from the main site. The tip of Point Puer stretches towards the Isle of the Dead, a burial ground for those who died at Port Arthur during its operation as a penal colony.

When looking at the site today, this colonial history forms only one aspect of its broader significance. One cannot mention Port Arthur today without invoking the 1996 tragedy. As I approached the site from the perspective of an outsider, someone without a personal connection to its history, I wanted my reaction and understanding to guide the project’s direction.

NN: Are you generally drawn to spatial or historical ambiguity?

JYT: No site has a singular history, so in a way there is always ambiguity to be found. Specific concerns might leap out, but I feel there is always benefit in allowing for a degree of interpretation in any architectural project. In saying that, the architecture of the project is very precise in its detail and composition, with all of its parts informed by either research or reference. I tried to strike a balance between ambiguity and believability in this project. Leaning too far to either side would have produced an unsatisfying outcome. I’d say that I am as interested in the technical and constructive aspects of architecture as I am in the theoretical and conceptual, so both sides needed equal attention.

NN: Arcadia uses speculative narratives to structure the project and your protagonists—the Preserver, the Visitors, and the Arborist—each play symbolic roles. Could you speak to their corresponding archetypes and architectural expressions?

JYT: Each character was developed through a series of texts that explored their daily activities, personalities, and histories. While fictitious, these texts in some way captured a part of my thinking about the site and its contradictory reality. The Preserver spoke to concerns around heritage, maintenance and education, but also inflexibility and stubbornness about our ways of doing things. The Visitors represented tourists and their fleeting occupation of the site, which is completely reliant on their financial support. The Arborist held some ideas around ecology and natural cycles, as well as deep time and the entropy of the site in its return to nature. Each character inhabited a structure, all derived from the same floor plan but manipulated to capture their idiosyncrasies in different ways.

Physical Models - 1:100. MDF, 3D print, acrylic paint, modelling paste

NN: The project is populated with small poems, sketches, and musings. What did working with fragments offer?

JYT: In studio, we are often encouraged to design as much as possible in order to convey our ideas. Logically, we work from a macro scale of site and context down to a micro scale of the detail or moment. Sometimes we jump between scales to ensure our original intent holds true at all levels. Understanding what is relevant to a project and knowing how to structure it hierarchically is an important skill to have. Yet there is something compelling about gaps in logic, where we are forced to make assumptions or independent connections. I wanted to embrace this approach to ambiguity. This would probably not be a great idea in a typical studio, but I felt the open format of thesis would allow me to build a project in this way.

NN: And how did you translate that approach into the final structure of the work?

JYT: From the start I knew this project would not be well represented by a conventional set of presentation boards. I wanted to develop a format that invited critical engagement from the viewer, where they could draw out their own meanings and conclusions. To this end, I worked through the project as independent fragments circling around the key topics I was addressing. These took the form of poems, notes, sketches, or image references. This process was more intuitive than it was structured where I allowed personal interest to guide how and why things were documented.

I felt each medium was equally valid in conveying an idea, so in my final booklet I attributed the same significance to all parts of the work, regardless of their format, by presenting them as independent entries, rather than as a structured research piece. This attitude also informed the work’s content, where practical considerations were dispersed among poetic imagery and personal anecdotes. They weren’t tied together in a linear way, but each fragment played a part in constructing an image of a larger work.

Ossuary

NN: I read the rhythm, compression, and ornament in your writing as being mirrored in your architecture and detailing. How do you think about the relationship between writing and design? 

JYT: Writing and design are very similar for me. What interests me most about both forms of communication is their inherent flexibility in meaning. When we read a poem, we are often aware of multiple interpretations within the same set of phrases. The same is true of architectural design. Forms, materials, and details can call to mind a wide array of images, be they from nature, art or other architectural works. What is true of both writing and design is that we—intentionally or not—give agency to a reader to make their own interpretations.

When designing the architecture of the project, I had many images and references which I constantly looked to. They guided the atmosphere which I wanted to achieve in the detail and composition of the buildings. None of these references were made explicit however, and for you, could call to mind different images altogether. Allowing for this diversity of reading was a key part of the project.

House of the Summer and Winter Visitors

NN: Could you tell me a bit more about your poem, Bronze Star:

in Berlin

I found a grey tower from

its surface numerous

metal stars

protruded I thought

to scale the tower

using

the stars as

handles

JYT: It refers to one of John Hejduk’s buildings in Berlin—the Kreuzberg Tower—and the strange, recurring metal star detail that appears throughout much of his work. I took an exchange semester in Berlin as part of my degree and chanced upon this building while walking around the city. There is something compelling about the austere pragmatism of its façade being punctuated by these small poetic details. I’ve been researching the origins of this detail  which in different contexts takes on symbolic, ornamental, or structural roles. In another of Hejduk’s projects, Christ Chapel, the metal star acts as a turnbuckle which helps suspend a cross within the centre of the building. The star herec onsists of a centre with nine points, which represent the nine planets orbiting the sun.¹

I have been fascinated with Hejduk throughout my education, and my project owes a lot to his approach to architectural thinking and design. His Masques, which take the form of poems, sketches, and orthographic drawings, are projects intended to capture what he calls, “the spirit of place”. I felt I was searching for something similar in my project, so studying his Masques was a great starting point in my research.

Bronze Star

NN: Arcadia meditates on cycles, rituals, and remembrance, but doesn’t offer closure. Why do you feel that a non-solutionist approach was appropriate given the site’s layered histories?

JYT: I think that students sometimes approach architecture as though it were only about solving problems, and there can be a tendency to reduce the themes we are working with into dualities which seem resolvable through synthesis. For the Port Arthur site, I felt this idealist resolution would disregard its complex nature, where themes often stand in contradiction.

My thesis wasn’t about solving problems. In fact, I’d say that the introduction of the structures to the site creates more problems that they solve. Rather, I found it more productive to expose these underlying contradictions by opening up a dialogue. It is through acknowledging tension and conflict that the site reveals itself  as a real and human condition.

NN: What has the project gifted you—something you’ll carry forward in your design practice?

JYT: This project was a great opportunity for me to explore and test different ways of imagining architecture. It also opened the door to architectural design less concerned with commercial viability and more aligned with artistic practice. Where this leads is uncertain at the moment, but I believe that it is something the profession desperately needs.

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Interview Credits:

Interviewed by Nina Nervegna

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Project credits:

University: Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne

Year: 2025

Project images provided by Je Yen Tan

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Project citations:

¹ John Hejduk. Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1997), 196.

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Je Yen began his studies at the University of Melbourne in 2018. During this time, he worked with Olaver Architecture and later Candalepas Associates before undertaking a semester abroad at TU Berlin in 2023. He completed his thesis, Arcadia, in July 2025 under the supervision of Rory Hyde, which was shortlisted for the Bates Smart Award. Je Yen is currently working as a graduate at Ritz & Ghougassian.