Future Nostalgia

Collision of Singapore’s modernist past and its’ contemporary aspiration

The People’s Park Complex is one of the very few early buildings built during the early stages of Independent Singapore. It represents the modern Asian city state’s genesis by being designed by the pioneer localborn architects of Singapore, the early DP trio: William Lim, Tay Kheng Soon and Koh Seow Chuan. By being the country’s first high-rise and mix-use development, the conservation of the People’s Park Complex becomes crucial to safeguard Singapore’s built environment identity. Thus, this project is a practice on how to retain the People’s Park Complex as the key building of Singapore’s skyline through schemes that attract the interest of various stakeholders, based on the needs of the local young working adults.

The approach to the building rejuvenation is inspired by the usage of the PPCs in 2014-2017 by a pop-up tapas bar named Lepark, in which the organiser attracted Singaporean youths to hang out at and enjoy the nostalgic ambience of the building. Just as how Svetlana Boym describes nostalgia, the longing for a ‘home’ that has never existed, the reintroduction of PPC into the lifestyle of Singaporean youths creates this longing for a future past which they found in ‘outdated’ spaces.

As a response to the needed programme, the shops on the podium of the PPC transformed into working spaces for local start-ups and businesses in need of city-centre office locations, mixing with residential and adding hotel-cum-multifunction spaces for events of the youths. Abundant public spaces are inserted below and above the podium mass to expand the ‘City Room’ as an elongation of the city so that events such as ‘Lepark’ can be reintroduced in a more dynamic manner. The ‘City Room’ is naturally ventilated through the ‘stack effect’ created by the wood-laminated skylight, and further enforced by the solar-powered ceiling fans throughout the atrium.

The new intervention of the PPC brings back cues of the initial design intention but introduces contrast in the added translucent masses by placing it at an angle to create coherency and juxtaposition. The accumulated addition in the facade throughout the years is stripped to reveal the brutalist beauty of the block and the added reflective panels on the facade facing the MRT station were to reflect the ornate tile works of the opposing Majestic Theatre facade now visible once again through the redesign of the Chinatown MRT exit.