Singapore, Singapore

The incredible pace of Singapore’s growth demands innovative architectural solutions in order to prevent the wholesale replacement of green space with housing density. The competition entry for the Duxton Plain Public Housing project responds by modulating the organic nature of the site and the encroaching city. The site plan clusters the residential towers of the portion of the site nearest existing development, matching its neighbors in scale and proportion while leaving the remaining two-thirds available for green space. This configuration enables connections with the adjoining Duxton Plain Park, engages the existing public space, and unifies the existing urban fabric.

The towers’ shapes similarly reflect the organic nature of the site, as if creating an architectural foil between city and nature. The tapering and undulating forms break down the buildings into smaller elements of two to eight apartments per floor, eliminating the blandness and monotony typical of high-rise housing projects and creating unexpected opportunities for natural light and ventilation, including sky-gardens. The forms also allow for additional public space - such as community rooms and childcare facilities - to be brought up into the towers, encouraging the feeling of a neighborhood and maintaining a connection with the ground. The plan balances the megalopolis’s need for both density and livability by creating a vertical community of variety, individuality, and abundant public space.