Singapore Transcripts

DESIGN STUDIO ERIK G L’HEUREUX ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

AY 2009/2010 M.ARCH THESIS, SEMESTER 1/2

SINGAPORE TRANSCRIPTS

DIONG FUHAN KENNETH KOH QIBAO LOO BO YAN MA XIAO YANG HAN

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL OF DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENT NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

Singapore Transcripts

Erik G. L’Heureux AIA, LEED AP Diong Fuhan Kenneth Koh Qibao Loo Bo Yan Ma Xiao Yang Han

Published by the Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture National University of Singapore 4 Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566 Tel: +65 65163477 Email: akierik@nus.edu.sg

©Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture National University of Singapore ©Individual Contributors

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher.

The publisher does not warrant or assume any legal responsibility for the publication’s contents. All opinions expressed in the book are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National University of Singapore.

Thesis Advisor Assistant Professor Erik G. L’Heureux, AIA, LEED AP Thesis Studio: Diong Fuhan Kenneth Koh Qibao Loo Bo Yan Ma Xiao Yang Han

Contents

Forewords 2 Land/Water 22 Form of the City 44 Natural/Unnatural 80 Economic/Demographic 96 Thesis 126 Bibliography 228

Foreword

2

rest and see what has been made.

Crisis /krʌɪsɪs/ noun

Through a series of probes into the milieu of this amazing architectural laboratory on the equator, at once the darling and punching bag of our architectural heroes, Singapore Transcripts peers onto the landscape with eyes wide open – looking at what has been built over 45 years of reaching for the first world.

The devices of architecture and graphic diagramming are employed as detectives, forensically uncovering the mythic, the hidden, and the less obvious along with that which one pretends to know. Has a crime been committed? In most opinions: no, yet the scene is nevertheless dramatic and titillating.

• a time of intense difficulty or danger:the current economic crisis • a time when a difficult or important decision must be made:[as modifier] :the situation has reached crisis point • the turning point of a disease when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death1 Singapore has always been in crisis: a communist insurgency, a colonial contamination, a claustrophobic position, a racial tinder box, a poverty underbelly, an economic collapse and now an environmental apocalypse. Crisis is opportunistic. Crisis empowers. And crisis fuels action. In the case of Singapore, crisis is a surgical instrument, sometimes sharp; other times blunt that keeps the city state in an atmosphere of continual change --a process of radical transformation the envy of the world.

Singapore Transcripts depicts a foundation to a city as a speed bump to the country’s own frictionless efficiency.

It represents a moment of pause and reflection in an orgy of doing.

And yet, Singapore Transcripts remains Singaporean at heart, embracing crisis as opportunity in an offering of future visions to spur the experiments and radical transformation forward, if ever so slightly, askew.

In Singapore, crisis keeps the economy moving forward and the jack-up cranes rotating throughout the night. This ballet of construction, silent but ever going, illuminates the blackened sky, expanding a landscape for the country’s expansionist desires one square kilometre by kilometre.

Architecture fills the land with objects and forms, infrastructure and parks, highways, and subways, facilitating a growing city as if there is no other choice. In the race to fill herself, Singapore and her architects dance with ever increasing speed and freneticism. If only one had a moment to

Erik G. L’Heureux, AIA LEED AP, Editor Assistant Professor Department of Architecture National University of Singapore

Oxford English Dictionary, http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0191250#m_en_gb0191250, Sampled August 10, 2010 2 See articles by Michael Sorkin, Rem Koolhaas, and William Gibson.

1

3

Exuberant Singapore.

A Love Story of Radical Ambition in the Face of Ecological Catastrophe.

Erik G L’Heureux, AIA LEED AP and 2009, are shockingly familiar, an uncanny resemblance that resides in one’s architectural subconscious: two islands crossed by rivers and lakes, surrounded by ports and sea traffic, visions of the Garden of Eden. Large landmasses to the North anchor the two island visions where a multitude of new towns are dispersed across the landscape; Utopia has fifty-four, Singapore only twenty-five. But Singapore is only 44 years old, Utopia: 493.

This is a love story. It is a story of our own love for Singapore.

It is a narrative of Singapore’s desire to remain relevant. A tale of Singapore’s continued foresight and ambition. As in all love stories, there are seemingly irrational and extravagant ideas that create acts of absurdity. Yet in the context of love, everything seems completely appropriate and entirely plausible.

Singapore’s unique history of perpetual transformation is combined with speculations of a future Singapore illustrated with visions of a Singapore reaching for its logical conclusion. But more than any fiction, this is about Singapore’s survival and the strategies required to overcome its historical burden and self-created geographical challenges.

Scene Three: For the Love of Topos, for the Love of Water, for the Love of the City Rudolph De Koninck, in his text “Singapore,AnAtlas of Perpetual Territorial Transformation”, notes of Singapore’s Topophilia. Topophilia is a love of ground, a love of place, a love of topography, and it sets the stage for an amazing history of battle. Land fights sea growing day by day. Sea attacks land in a slow process of erosion. A give and take forming the basis for Singapore’s continued transformation and continual reinvention, fighting ocean currents, monsoon deluges, and territorial reclamation. Topos is fundamental to the island’s existence. Without topos the amazing Singapore Story would be just a seafaring myth awash in the Straits. Then again, for Singapore, land equates with modernity; surely a floating city is bound to sink.

Scene One: The First Hydrological Nation State Set in 1516, a map of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, the first Hydrological Nation State.

Scene Two: The Most Developed Hydrological Nation State Singapore, 2009 – the most developed hydrological nation state – looks forward to its own radical transformation in the next eighty-eight years, a tripling of the nation’s history of autonomy. The parallels between the two scenes, 1516

Singapore’s topography has been entirely constructed from its earliest 4

beginnings; at present, at least 25% of its original size has been added. Dredging hoppers form new topos on a 24-hour cycle, “rainbowing” sand to an ever growing island. Albeit at the expense of her neighbors continually shrinking. In South East Asia geopolitics is literally about geology: sand. Singapore is a fully constructed landscape inside as well as out – new territory created from ocean bottoms or a nearby island, a flattened surface topography to make building that much easier and more expedient.

Its engorged perimeter retained with a stone beachfront, encloses a 365-day green interior, an average 28°C 80% Humidity atmosphere produces complete atmospheric consistency. In this landscape of continual transformation, we see the traces of Utopian aspirations: a city in self created constant growth, a city that is at once an idea and in a process of becoming, a green garden manicured and constructed, a city of modernist icons sampling the best of everywhere, encapsulated by a glistening blue sea; the lubricant for a frictionless city the envy of the world.

Singapore is now an urban prototype influencing the development and growth of cities and nations the world over: Dubai, Russia China along with its ASEAN neighbours closer to home. It has simulated its city experiments and exported them to Tianjin and Suzhou summoning its internal talent for external expansion. The model 5

with every new water reclamation plant.

Tremendous quantities of energy are expended to fabricate water, yet it rains more in Singapore than ninety percent of the world’s cities.

is as if Singapore was embedded within the pages of Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

Kubla Khan sits in his garden listening to the travels by the Venetian Marco Polo… imagining a city like no other – the envy of all cities. To know Singapore is to know where the urbanized world is heading.

And to imagine a future Singapore is to imagine future urban configurations of massive global impact. Singapore represents the biggest wet dream of urban and architectural transformation – a vision of the city for perpetual architectural employment and enjoyment. It is a city constantly reinvented – a radical proposition of a future coming to fruition only to be remade on the peaks and valleys of the shifting tides.

In 2011 and 2061 the water treaties between Singapore and Malaysia will expire. Will the tap be shut off permanently? Aquatic autonomy must be the new answer for security in this little red dot. In Singapore, and now the world over, the black gold now appears more and more -- blue.

Despite Singapore’s architectural love for topos, its most important real estate is not land. Le Corbusier and his fascination with Cruise ships a century earlier seem all the more pressing now.

Raising an architecture on Pilotes, the ships in the landscape appeared to float over the vegetation. Tranformed into the ubiquitous HDB project, 83 percent of the nations population believes high is the only way to go. A more literal interpretation is what we need now.

Singapore is one of the greenest cities on earth, and with 2.37 metres of rainfall each year. It is also one of the wettest. Beside its population of 5 million, Singapore’s only other resource that makes it so successful is the water and the ships over its sea lanes. In Singapore, water is everything. Yet in a biblical twist of fate, Singapore has no significant fresh water source. It imports or recycles almost all of its drinkable water. Singapore’s best invention for liberty may well be drinkable water from her own effluence, affectionately embraced as “New Water.”

With “New Water”, Singapore literally drinks up to thirty percent of its own discharge – a percentage that grows

In Singapore, water is everything.

Aquatic territory gives Singapore its geopolitical power, its functioning port, and its reason for existence. Even the UN knew this in their vision for a hydrologically inspired urban Singapore in 1963 – the “Ring City” with mass transport by rail and sea in concentric circles of developing 6

urbanism all with a green heart.

The most public of spaces is found at Singapore’s perimeter. Ports are free and open for business 24 hours a day – measured in fractions of a second – with surrounding shipping lanes packed with ships from all over the world. Singapore now has a “New Padang” at the very site of the old harbour, now constructed as Marina Bay. A city square transformed into a constructed lake. A floating arena in the centre of the lake is Singapore’s newest spectacle. A yearly act celebrating nationhood is acted out annually on August 9th in a feat of amazing proportions and choreographic precision the envy of any international performance. And water is its foundation.

Singapore claims to have one of the highest population densities of any urban environment. Yet it never feels like that on the street. It has planning parameters to grow from today’s size of 4.8 million to 6.5 million or even larger. Yet when compared to Manhattan, Singapore could fit a population the factor of nine. 34 million bodies fighting for blue gold in this utopian island…that is if only everyone loved Singapore as much as “I love New York”. In its quest for urban supremacy and aspiration to be one of the top cities of the world, Singapore competes for tourism dollars, creative talent and investment against Hong Kong, London, 7

want to be overly flashy, overly glitzy, too Dubai, whatever you want to call it….”

Anything Dubai is now a liability.

Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, and Moscow. The average size of those cities is over 8.1 million. Why isn’t Singapore competing with smaller cities such as Boston, Geneva, Frankfurt, Capetown, Yokohama, which have populations closer to her own? Because Singapore as an idea, fully embraces its slang stereotype: Kiasu-ism – a fundamental fear being left behind. The burden of being irrelevant is too much to ignore. But fundamental to living on this small island is to be threatened, on the verge of erasure, of being irrelevant. Crisis is operative and an instrument for architectural execution.

Over in Dubai, an even smaller population before the impeding financial ciris seemed to do a better job at eclipsing Singapore’s shine in their own aspiration to be the best of everything. Dubai’s own hydrological ambitions had momentarily overtaken Singapore’s transformation in every category. The Palm, The World and the planned Universe were the euphoric spectacles of Google Earth. What will Singapore ever do in its own rationed growth?

In Singapore’s state of constant selfconstructed urban and architectural crisis, fear and change are best friends. Singapore fears many things: shifting economies, powerful neighbours, departing talent, interior terrorism, returning poverty. It is also afraid that the water might run out.

The one thing it is not afraid of is the consequences of its own ambitions.

Scene Four: That Sinking Feeling And now more than ever, Singapore is afraid, not of “too Dubai” but that climate will massively reconfigure its landscape, undoing its history of self-modification and extension. The flattened landscape or land reclamation of Singapore has become big but it has also become vulnerable.

Volume and area are inextricably linked.

The dictums of architectural geometry return with a vengeance. In a landscape of increased area and radically reduced volume, the biggest threat to Singapore’s made form is the sea. It has always been this way. Singapore has been fabricated from the sea and it now very well could undo it.

Will it give up to being second best?

Luckily for the planners of singapore the spectacles in the desert are now coated in a layer of sahahra sand particles, abandoned cars, and empty glass towers.

Anna Wintour, the veritable fashion editor states “I don’t think anyone is going to

We know Florida is about to go under. The Netherlands has been fighting for a very long time. New Orleans was inundated in 2005. Malaysia was swamped 8

in 2007. Venice tried to accommodate the Mediterranean but is currently spending billions to hold back the sea in a mechanical wall. And now Singapore, due to its reconfigured topography, is threatened to sink right back in. The flattened landscape is perfectly functional – the ideal tabula rasa for new invention – yet entirely vulnerable to the sea it depends on. A few meters of additional sea will submerge this fantastically functionally flat landscape and undo forty-four years of ambition.

Singapore’s emulation of the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, made for an orgy, not of culture, but of consumption was recently inundated with a tropical flood. Shopping landmarks were filled with a few meters of what it means to live in a tropical jungle: rain and mud. But Singapore with its techonological prowess embraced its own amnesia and forgot where it came from: the equator Even the Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew had to respond to the mounting criticism “No amount of engineering can prevent flooding”. This is after 45 years of embracing technology as the means to transform the swamp to the city. Clean up crews were dispatched in effortless expediency and now Hermes if open for business once again. The irony remains to be noticed.

Coupled with Singapore’s sinking shrinking feeling, it plans to grow if only to keep competing with all the top cities 9

of the world. An increase of 1.7 million people by 2050 - 26% more bodies to occupy a limited territory. Where will these bodies go? More importantly, where will they go when the rising sea erodes all that we love: topos. Water and land – it is a constant struggle, a conflict like no other.

And it is about to get much worse.

innovation happens as a product of the best shopping market practices. Imagine a city that everyone likes and maybe not immediately love...but eventually does.

Imagine a city where the extension of this thinking is taken to its logical conclusions, a city that becomes the most amazing, constantly changing fantasy, securing its relevance, if only due to its ambitions and tremendous ability to change. Imagine a city where change is the norm, where architects live out their fantasies, and the Tower of Babel exists – though rather than reaching for the sky, it reaches out to the sea. Imagine the solution to Singapore’s impending irrelevancy found precisely in Singapore’s extraordinary history of transformation projected forward. Imagine a city where the culture of crisis is deployed for positivistic ends.

Only a radical transformation of Singapore will save it from this nightmare.

Only by imagining such a complete makeover will we reassert Singapore’s ability for massive change, to reassert the constant state of changing relevance, a path to utopia. It is the fulfilment to embrace the history of hydrological urbanism – the uniquely Singaporean experiment in Southeast Asia.

If only now amnesia can be prescribed again, in limited doses to repress its Modern aspirations and embrace its previous equilibrium with its surroundings.

Scene Five: A Fight for Survival To love is to fight for survival.

Two acts of survival Singapore must take in this battle for her territory: 1. Flood herself 2. Float herself

Imagine a city of equilibrium rather than restriction, a city embracing its hydrological past as a beginning for a new future. Imagine a city as a laboratory incorporating its almost theme-park-like ever-changing culture as shopping; where everything and everyone is on the market, where the most economic space on earth reaches its spatial manifestation. Imagine a city with the best of everything and

Act 1: Singapore floods herself in the nation’s largest “New Water” reservoir. Singapore has already started self flooding – a fresh water Marina Bay. Aquatic bigness secures autonomy, sustenance, and recreation. Le Corbusier’s 10

“Machine for Living” in cruise ships finally acknowledges its hydrological beginnings. A heartland where the “void” in the “void deck” returns to sea – a sea of self constructed New Water – and a nation of HDBs embrace their typological lineage. Flooding insures Singapore’s hydrological security. It puts its interior in equilibrium with the rising sea level change and provides for a new landscape of aquatic production.

Act 2: Singapore floats herself to establish perfect equilibrium in rising seas.

Equilibrium is the only sure act of self defence. Floating future Singapore thrusts new development in equilibrium with its surroundings, an ocean one. Manufacturing is re-tooled for self preservation. In this new engine for growth, urban form meets ocean technology at a colossal scale. In such an absurd act, Singapore dreams for an eventual complete national relocation to more beautiful surroundings. Moving the entire nation to international waters secures the global symbolism of a nation willing to dream and more importantly: to execute.

A short term expense insures long term viability. Singapore does both in this crazy almost plausible story.

And of course on a massive scale.

The Singapore government has 11

already started to act. So have the engineers. Even the scientists are in on it. But where are the urban designers?

Where are the architects? Individualistic performance keeps them with eyes which do not see.

Scene Six: Individual Propositions The new Singapore envisioned; imaginings for the future, “An Hydrological City of Tomorrow”: 1. A flooded national interior with floating exteriors 2. Floating Density is the way to go 3. Sampling the world over –the best of everywhere; typological imports is the new vogue as a Grand Architectural Sampling.

4. Co-opt international city strategies rather than invent new ones – displacement always forces innovation 5. Floating ideal cities: to be the best of anyplace in a near perfect tabula rasa 6. Deform idealism for maximum aquatic frontage for a perfect calibration of real estate and value -- A landscape of maximum frontage, minimum environmental impact 7. Create a continuous monument of housing and idealism: 6.5 million people in a 390km perimeter, only five stories high, eight streets deep is required to fit everyone. It consumes only 20% of the nation’s territory permitting complete ecological freedom. Each citizen can walk to the jungle and to the sea.

8. Maintain a continued safe haven for 12

shipping; a port with massive floating docks, safe harbours, and not forgetting, a dramatic form 9. Legions of cruise ships go nowhere but change all the time ensures variation and dreams 10. Return Singapore to its ocean faring roots, embracing its uniquely Singaporean history where the kelong is the typology of choice 11. The city embraces itself as nation of objects now in a glistening blue sea: a new field of possibility.

12. The city is of tides and containers, a city of piercing verticals and floating horizontals 13. Singapore’s green heart becomes an international symbol – Even New York City’s Central Park is jealous.14.

Clean green and blue takes on massive proportions.

15. The nation embraces the perfect gated community on a global scale. Bucky Fuller would be envious in a Truman show like display of technology.

16. The garrison city returns where everything is protected inside the gate : even the military planners are happily on board.

17. Imagine a city of leisure and internalized pleasure, of exclusivity and luxury, of autonomy and freedom.

18. Imagine a city of the most advance research occurs in the strangest of spaces.

19. Imagine a city where Wal-Mart and Carrefour is the port on a massive scale.

13

Shopping is direct and package free.

20. Imagine a city which is a host of Dormitories for Everyone….

21. A city of canopies and connectors – there is no other option for spatial interconnectivity 22. A city of absurdity and logic; a scenario of a city that OMA is already building 23. A city of Greenpeace resting on Exxon Mobile; a city of oil and a city of abalone farmers supporting one another; a city of Monsanto and floating rice plantations 24. A city of contrasts and contradictions of big things and small things.

25. A city of architectural dreams waiting to be realized…

A city in love with itself.

A city in love with all cities.

A city like no other.

An Exuberant City.

An Exuberant Singapore

14

15

After Death

Diong Fuhan In ancient Egypt, funeral practices and burial customs were based on the belief in the rebirth after death. By preserving the physical form of the body through mummification, the dead is immortalised and prepared for an afterlife.

1 Before the Old Kingdom, bodies were laid in desert pits and preserved naturally through dessication. The wealthier Ancient Egyptians laid their bodies in stone tombs.

This led to the construction of the burial monument, The Great Pyramid of Giza, for an Egyptian Pharoah.2

and landscapes of death in Singapore?

1) Cemeteries in and around the valuable city area were exhumed. A stateowned public cemetery at Choa Chu Kang was offered as an alternative to deal with the disposal of the dead.

2) A 15 year leasehold on burial plots in Choa Chu Kang Cemetery is imposed.

All graves are to be exhumed in 15 years.

If one was not bounded by religious reasons, the remains will be cremated.

A grid pattern is now imposed onto this state-owned cemetery to facilitate burial and exhumation.

During the Ming Dynasty, the people believed in the existence of an afterlife, so the rulers sought to build massive tombs for themselves. Over a period of 200 years, tombs were built at the foot of hills and protected by walls totalling 40 kilometres.

These tombs cover an area of more than 40 square kilometres, northwest of Beijing, the capital city of China.3

3) Cremation is advocated. It is the preferred way of dealing with the disposal of bodies.

4) Besides temporary burial and cremation where you place cremated remains in an urn, you could also opt for the scattering of ashes into the sea, 2.8km South of Pulau Semakau, a landfill site.4

These ancient societies were built upon totalitarian values.

More than 4000 years after the completion of the Great Pyramids of Giza and 400 years after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, how different are our policies regarding the remembrance of the dead

http://www.crystalinks.com/egyptafterlife.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramids 3 http://www.crystalinks.com/chinartifacts.html 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_in_Singapore 1 2

16

Probes into the Values of the Coast

Kenneth Koh Qibao The coast has to be read in its multifariousness: as cultural object or commodity; as territory or political field; as a geographical feature; as an outline around a landmass; as a demarcation between ground and sea; as a figureground relationship; as a fractal edge; as a place where boats harbour and dreams ebb into the frothing waves.

Changi and the East Coast where strips of new virgin ground were created, and later, transformed into new housing estates like Marine Parade. In the process of reclamation, “one thousand acres of land are reclaimed”, forming an appendage that stretches half a mile out to sea”, as narrated in the film. The earth comes from the Changi Hills, transplanted and formed into the homogeneous rectangle of land displayed in the film.

Peering from the full-height glass railings of the Marina Bay Sands’ iconic Skypark, the first thing that strikes me is how immaculately framed this particular view is. It was apparent that the immense cantilevered platform was designed to present this interface between land and water as Singapore’s glowing scoreboard of triumphs and successes-to-come. The apparatus responsible for this massive moving of the landscape – scaffolding, machinery – all proudly assembled and displayed. This scenario somehow recalls artist Shen Shaomin’s bonsai installations: plants shackled and bolted with torturous devices designed to wrench the woody stems into beautiful forms, the metal clamps and screws equally compelling.

As I furiously flip the pages of my street directory printed less than a year ago, I realize that the three roundabouts that were supposed to be along the road are now gone, along with the many colonial-era bungalows that used to dot the landscape of coastal Seletar. The roads are now straightened and the hilly terrain leveled to make way for the new Aerospace Hub envisioned by Singapore’s planning authorities. A peek at online forums would reveal the collective lament of these changes by the people who once lived here - it is these fragments or unclaimed shards of the city that go unnoticed, and are silently rendered obsolete by the mappings of change.

In Berita Singapura: A New Look at Housing, a propagandistic film produced in 1967, the many scenes of HDB flats are interrupted with images of a coastline of dense vegetation fringed with a wide band of virgin soil that expands into the sea.

This is the result of land reclamation at

While I do not personally feel any attachment to the changing coast and its artifacts, it is slightly inconvenient to keep purchasing new maps.

17

Clockwork Configurations

Loo Boyan developing nations. With topographical influence at its minimal, (like the Cite Industrielle, on a plateau in Southeastern France) the range and depth of the sea becomes the first and perhaps only layer of inhibition. Such featurelessness shall influence buildings to generate themselves as landforms, as undulations to respond to muted landscapes.

Imagine you would stare exactly 5 kilometres off a coastline and decide that that would be your new ground for architectural contention. You would sum up your thoughts by conceiving a ship / factory right there, abandoning all maxims of civil engineering for naval architecture.

You would tread new ground(water), beyond the physical limits dictated by planning, just to know what you can achieve. And then there is more.

This suggested infinite capacity for expansion and, as such, an escape from romantic ideas about place, for a place2 (heavy industries) which has surely little if not no inklings about romance becomes strangely appropriate. Superstudio did it and claimed irony – exaggerating concepts of a technological utopia to the point of absurdity. The fashioning of industrial landscapes, usually out of reach of architects but often the bread butter for engineers and technicians encounters an intentional role reversal, a possible dystopia and utopia.

93 years back, the publication of Tony Garnier’s Une Cité Industrielle1 informed of the separation of land into parcels, tagging them as appropriate into functions organic to urbanism. Imaginary lines drawn on paper became actual physical sites of ideological battles latent with heterogeneous pressure. That very idea is not unlike Singapore herself, who has often battled at its coast to build and rebuild its coastline facing wrath from the choppy Singapore Straits. Its land is subdivided into parcels – from 5 main regions to 55 planning areas.

Yet, was it Anthony Burgess who mentioned in A Clockwork Orange if it was better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him? Inventions generate reinventions, reinventions are reinvented. The skewing of ideological thoughts, like a skipped beat in clockwork, generates new momentum in discourse.

At the point where functionalism pushes land planning to its limits, water as ground (and dumping ground) becomes less a daunting thought and more a hydrological ambition - a flippant retort towards the aimed exodus of the industrial image towards an economical front in 1 2

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/118760/Cite-Industrielle http://blog.eyemagazine.com/?p=63

18

Macro-Radicalism in the Age of Crisis

Ma Xiao In 1975 during a talk organized by Rotary Club Central on “Alternatives to Public Housing”, Tay Kheng Soon presented the research1 based on Leslie Martin and Lionel March’s urban investigation that served as an antithesis of high-rise living as the only solution to Singapore’s land scarcity. When being asked by the press, Mr. Liu Tai Ker, who was then the Chief Architect of HDB, gave a political answer in response to this technical proposition, that, “he obviously has a different calculator from mine.”2

and Lionel March propagated itself into a mode of massive urban model that thrives on the flatness and connectivity. Not only did Martin and March’s theory manifest itself as an anti-HDB statement here, it also suggests a departure from Corbusian ideology that was adopted by Singapore in its early stage of development.

Being a model of “Macro-Radical” approach, a term coined by Erik G L’Heureux, “one that proposes largescale speculative changes to the city, economy, politics, culture, transportation, hinterland and architecture to counter the negative climatic effects of development and current models of urbanization”3, The Wrong Calculator offers an alternative vision that echoes with its predecessors such as Constant Nieuwenhuy’s New Babylon Project and Yona Friedman’s Space City, a grand speculation that is created to reassert the authority of the architect as the visionary in order to make direct influence on the making of the new sustainable world in an age of crisis.

The “Macro-Radical” approach, being the most latent paradigm in architectural field in the current age of crisis, has essentially extended the scope of design and architecture to related fields such as

Such studies on low-rise high density housing were initiated approximately 40 years ago at Cambridge University. Leslie Martin and Lionel March, in their book Urban Space and Structures, and later in the essay From Sky-Scraping to Landhugging, proposed various speculations and hypothetical situations based on mathematical models that suggested a non-direct variation between the plot ratio and density. It is further demonstrated that the equivalency in plot ratio can be achieved using perimeter blocks with much lower heights compared to its skyscraping compatriots. In the thesis The Wrong Calculator, the perimeter configuration proposed by Leslie Martin

1 Newsintercom. "NewSintercom » Tay Kheng Soon and SPURS: Activism in the Early Days of Singapore’s History." NewSintercom. 15 May 1999. Web. 10 Aug. 2010. <http://www.newsintercom.org/?p=18>.

2 Ibid.

3 L'Heureux, Erik G. "Radicality", Winy Maas MVRDV. Vol. 4. Singapore: Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, National University of SIngapore, 2008. Print. Ong Siew May Distinguished Lecture Ser. 2008 "Sustain/Ability" p. 10

19

infrastructural, economical, sociopolitical, ecological and cultural aspects, creating an amalgamation of specialized domains in which the agency of design needs to be repositioned. Nonetheless, as architects are compelled to deal with increasingly larger contexts and the mushrooming eco-cities, the unprecedented crisis that we are facing today points to more than a shift in the scale. It spells an opportunity to rethink the alternatives in the process of expanding the scope of architecture and urbanism: in this case, the reinterpretation of Leslie Martin and Lionel March’s theory that was crystallized more than 40 years ago.

20

Inquiries into the Economics of Land

Yang Han Singapore holds as its reserves. Land value can no longer remain planar, but is now associated with its volume that allows it to be effectively useful above the sea level.

This new economics depends on the most efficient distribution of the commodity of sand as reclamation material. The basic construct of land should be re-read in the new context, as previously reclaimed land should be reassessed for opportunities that allow it to achieve a net gain of usable land area, though utilizing the same absolute volume.

For Singapore, land scarcity is a threat inculcated from young. From Civics and Moral Education lessons as early as Primary One, the physical limitations to Singapore as a cold hard fact is constantly instilled, ringing a perpetrual siren of insecurity in all Singaporeans’ hearts.

Truth be told, Singapore’s land anxieties are no more life threatening than the country’s water issues, but the extravagant investmentss in the drive to expand the nation’s territories is much more costly than sustaining the lifeline of water supply: at S$15 per m2, Singapore imported 300 million m2 of sand just in the year of 2001, of which construction usage is on average 4.3 million m2 per year1. Since independence than 50 years ago, Singapore grew 13% of its current land mass from reclamation of its coast 2 . However, with the stoppage of supply of sand material from neighboring countries, the expansion has to come to a halt. Singapore’s ceaseless dredgers have finally hit a grinding stop.

Instead of the typical flat uniform reclamation, a new scenario can be extrapolated, where Singapore finally embraces the only resource that it has in abundance: water, to achieve a new equilibrium of a hydrological nation state.

Singapore will finally be completely independent of geographical resources, as the nation becomes self-sufficient in providing material for expansion.

With the new land order, it inspires new imaginations and romanticism of the hydrological urban state. A more suitable building typology better adapted to the conditions of tropical Singapore can be derived, that generates a model of true water front living for the tiny island nation.

But can Singapore remain satisfied with its current land area?

When Singapore once again feels the urge to expand its territories, this time we re-examine the value of the land that

Bill Guerin, ‘The Shifting Sands of Time – and Singapore’, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/EG31Ae01.html (accessed 11 July 2010) 2 De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet and Marc Girard, An Atlas of Perpetual Territorial Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008 p15.

1

21

Land/Water

22 22

Reclamation over Time

1957 : 581 km2 (40%)

1990 : 633 km2 (43%)

2000 : 660 km2 (45%)

[2006 : 723 km2 (50%)]

2009 : 776 km2 (53%)

Total reclaimed (13%)

23

Quantity of Undersea Topography, Land Topography and Water Bodies (2009)

Area of Land Topography 776 square km (53%)

Area of Undersea Topography 646 square km (44%)

Area of Water Bodies 36 square km (2%)

24

Total Volume of Earth and Sea

6671m

3475m

2000m

2000m

2000m

Total Volume of Earth = 13.90 cubic kilometres

2000m

Total Volume of Sea = 26.68 cubic kilometres

UOB Plaza (280m high)

25

Topography of Singapore - Plan

26

27

Topography of Singapore - 3D Model

28

29

Topography of Singapore

30

Percentage of Singapore’s Land Less than 5m Above Mean Sea Level: 45%

31

Located Defense Technologies along Singapore’s Perimeter

9 8

7 5

6

32

1. Pulau Ubin Naval Base 2. Police Coast Guard Loyang Base 3. SAF Ferry Terminal 4. Changi Naval Base 5. Police Coast Guard Gul Base 6. Tuas Naval Base 7. Tuas Checkpoint 8. Police Coast Guard Lim Chu Kang Regional Base 9. Woodlands Checkpoint 10. Punggol Jetty Police Post

10

1 2 3

4

Total length of coast: 268km seawall

113.0km (42.2%)

beach

53.7km (20.0%)

mangrove / vegetation

51.8km (19.3%)

reclaimed

27.8km (10.4%)

breakwater / groynes

15.5km (5.8%)

dyke

3.4km (1.3%)

tidal barrier / dam

2.8km (1.0%)

33

Water Comparisons

Water Import: 1,131,838 m3 / day

NEWater: 240,000 m3 / day

Rainfall: 4,523,974 m3 / day

452.4

100 100

126.2

113.2

Water Consumption: 1,262,000 m3 / day

68

24

Reservoir Water: 680,000 m3 / day

13.6

Desalinated Water: 136,000 m3 / day

UOB Plaza 280m high

Average Cost of 1 cubic metre of Water

Domestic Usage: $1.59/m3

Non-Domestic Usage: $1.77/m3

Shipping Industry Usage: $1.92/m3

Industrial Usage: $0.43/m3

= $0.10/m3

35

Typical Quantity of Water Consumption

DAILY: 1,262,000 cubic metres

MONTHLY: 37,860,000 cubic metres

YEARLY: 454,320,000 cubic metres

= 1,000,000 cubic metres

= <1,000,000 cubic metres

36

Typical Import of Water from Malaysia

2011 Contract 325,545 cubic metres / day

2061 Contract 946,353 cubic metres / day

Volume of water sold back to Johor 140,060 cubic metres / day (2002) Total Net Import 1,131,838 cubic metres / day 37

Typical Amount of Water from Rain

4,523,974 cubic metres/day equivalent to 1810 swimming pools spread out over area of Singapore: 4,523,974 / 710,000,000 m2 = 0.0063m = 6 mm

38

Amount of Water Catchment Area to Total Area

Water Catchment Area: 421.8 sq.km Total Land Area: 710.2 sq.km

39

Typical Amount of Water Subtracted by Evaporation Pan Evaporation : 1565mm / year

40

41

Typical Amount of Water Subtracted by Evaporation 129358 cubic metres / day

1000 cubic metres of water

42

Form of the City

44

Building Typologies in Singapore Low Density Housing

vernacular hut

stilt house

parti-wall courtyard house

terrace housing

semidetached housing

detached housing

High Density Public Mass Housing

low rise slab block

straight slab block

skybridge-connected super block 45

bent slab block

point block

Building Typologies in Singapore High Density Public Mass Housing

joined parallel blocks

box block

curved slab block swiss roll block

horse shoe block

diagonally joined segmented blocks

semi-enclosed block

46

uneven twin block

butterfly blocks

enclosed blocks with uneven height

bent slab block

joined jigzaw blocks

continuous podium with tower blocks

High Density Private Mass Housing

low-rise assemlage of blocks

horseshoe block

short slab block

high rise block with podium

Commercial Mixed use

multiple high rise blocks with podium

mega podium 48

Industries

high-rise light industry

heavy industry

Political Building

modern

neo-classical 49

1 km x 1 km Urban Fabric Bukit Timah Road

Population: 4,620 Total Open Space: 774,264 m2 -- 77% Footprint of Building: 225736 m2 -- 23% Total Floor Area: 564,340 m2 -- 56% 50

51

1 km x 1 km Urban Fabric Jurong West

Population: 52,100 Total Open Space: 741,842 m2 Footprint of Building: 258,158 m2 Total Floor Area: 3,815,780 m2

-- 74% -- 26% -- 380% 52

53

1 km x 1 km Urban Fabric Tuas Industrial Estate

Population: 3, 840 Total Open Space: 6798550m2 -- 70% Footprint of Building: 300145 m2 -- 30% Total Floor Area: 450 000 m2 -- 45% 54

55

1km x 1km Urban Fabric Little India

Population: 11595 Total Open Space: 857,573m2 -- 86% Footprint of Building: 142,427m2 -- 14% Total Floor Area: 647,438m2 -- 65%

56

57

58

59

Footprint of 6.5 Million in Single Storey Building Height = 248.3 sq. km

Total Floor Area (Shop + Office + Warehouse + Factory) = 45.2 sq. km Total Floor Area (Residential) = 115.2 sq. km Total Road Area = 30.7 sq. km Overall Area (Present) = 191.1 sq. km Area Required Per Capita = 38.2 sq. m Area Required by 6.5 Million = 248. 3 sq. km 60

61

Footprint of 6.5 Million in Four Storey Building Height = 62.075 sq. km

62

63

Footprint of 6.5 Million in Max. Building Height of 280m= 3.547 sq. km

64

65

Resulting Natural Lanscape (6.5 Million in Four Storey Building Height )

66

67

Resulting Natural Lanscape (6.5 Million in Single Storey Building Height)

68

69

Resulting Natural Lanscape (6.5 Million in Max. Building Height of 280m )

70

71

1km x 1km Urban Fabric Single Storey Building Height (Ideal Situation) Population: 13,600 No. of Cars: 1,800 Projected GDP: SGD$723,411,200 Energy Consumption: 20,703,620 KWH / year Area Required by PV Cells: 7.35 sq. km Area Required by Wind Turbine: 113,073 sq. km Water Consumption: 767,351 cubic. m / year Petrol Consumption: 1,019,258 bbl / year

72

73

1km x 1km Urban Fabric Four Storey Building Height (Ideal Situation) Population: 56,800 No. of Cars: 7,200 Projected GDP: SGD$3,021,305,600 Energy Consumption: 86,468,060 KWH / year Area Required by PV Cells: 30.7 sq. km Area Required by Wind Turbine: 472,248 sq. km Water Consumption: 3,204,821 cubic m / year Petrol Consumption: 4,256,902 bbl / year

74

75

1km x 1km Urban Fabric Fifty Storey Building Height (Ideal Situation) Population: 405,000 No. of Cars: 50,625 Projected GDP: SGD$21,542,760,000 Energy Consumption: 616,541,625 KWH / year Area Required by PV Cells: 218 sq. km Area Required by Wind Turbine: 3,367,265 sq. km Water Consumption: 22,851,281 cubic.m / year Petrol Consumption: 30,352,909 bbl / year

76

77

Projected Parking Lots to House All Automobiles

Scenario 1 One Multi Storey Carpark 1km by 120m = o.12 sq.km

Scenario 2 1 Open Compound Parking Lot 10km by 1.3km = 13 sq.km

1 Open Compound Parking Lot 10km by 1.3km = 13 sq.km

Scenario 3 867 Multi Storey Carparks 100m by 30m, 5 storeys each = o.oo3 sq.km

867 Multi Storey Carparks 100m by 30m, 5 storeys each = 0.003 sq.km

78

Amount of Total Road Surface Area = 30.709 sq. km

79

Natural/Unnatural

80

Quantity of Land Required to Feed 6.5 Million

Intesnsive Indoor Farming 182 sq.km

Vegetarian Diet 4550 sq.km

North American Diet 52500 sq.km

81

Amount of Solar Energy Available per year (calculated based on a ten year average weather report, coupled with the hypothetical situation of covering the entire land area of Singapore with solar panels of maximum efficiency 21%, and maximum daylight hours from 7am- 7pm.)

Amount of Solar Energy Available per year

2.0 billion KWH = 0.17 billion KWH/ month = 0.0056 billion KWH/ day

Amount of Electricity Consumed per year

30.4 billion KWH Area of land required to generate 30.4 billion KWH of solar energy per year

x

15.2

10, 792 square kilometres 82

Amount of Wind Energy Available per year

Amount of Electricity Consumed per year

30.4 billion KWH Amount of Wind Energy Available per year

/ 7, 692

0.00013 billion KWH Amount of Wind energy generated per day = Power of wind x time x efficiency = 0.5 x swept area x air density x velocity3 x 0.3 = 14.1 x (365x24x60x60)x 0.3 = 0.00013 billion KWH/ year = 0.000011 billion KWH/ month = 371 KWH/day

Area of land required to generate 30.4 billion KWH of wind energy per year

x 233, 846 166, 030, 769square kilometres 83

Total Building Footprint 92 square kilometres 13% of Singapore’s land area

84

85

Total Built-up Space = Building footprint x No. of floors 161.4 square kilometres 24.2% of Singapore’s land area

86

87

Total Green Surface Area 328.7 square kilometres 46.3% of Singapore’s land area

88

89

Quantity of Green Volume

90

Height h = 5.56m

Total Green Surface Area x Average height of trees = h x Total Land Area of Singapore h = 5.56m

91

Quantity of Interior Volume

92

Height h = 1.10m

Total Building Footprint x No. of storeys = h x Total Land Area of Singapore h = 1.10m

93

Animals in Singapore, Exotic and Native

Hornbill Buceros bicornis

Orangutan Pongo pygmaeus

Parakeet Psittacula longicauda

White Tiger Panthera tigris

Greenwing Macaw Ara chloroptera

Pink Dolphin Inia geoffrensis

Miner Bird Geositta cunicularia

Macaque Macaca fascicularis 94

Plants in Singapore: Exotic and Native

Bird of Paradise Strelitzia reginae

Tali Palm Corytha taliera

Orchid Vanda Miss Joaquim

Bird’s Nest Fern Asplenium nidus

Frangipani Plumeria rubra

Sealing Wax Palm Cyrtostachys renda

Fishtail Heliconia Heliconia rostrata

Weeping Fig Ficus aurea 95

Economics/Demographics

96

Energy Consumption per capita per annum

6870.6 Watt

3087.6 Watt

3194.8 Watt

1516.0 Watt

10381.2 Watt

1000 Watt 97

Personal Wealth vs Govermental Assets

GNI per capita: S$49,996

GDP per capita: S$53,192

98

Rate of Return: (Governmental assets from GIC and Temasek per capita) S$93,750

GDP by Contributor GDP per capita --foreigner (1.2 million) SGD$98,305

GDP per capita --residents (3.6 million) SGD$38,371

99

GDP per capita --average SGD$53,192

Average Range of Income per person

1000 Singapore Dollars

GNI (Gross National Income) per capita: S$49,996

Annual Savings per capita: S$24,350.5

GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita: S$53,192.2

Annual CPF Contribution: S$17,250

101

Comparison of Singapore’s Wealth with Others

1000 US Dollars (1USD=1.4 SGD) Gross Domestic Product per capita

USD$47,440

USD$38,996

USD$3,259

USD$34,760

USD$2,770

Gross National Income per capita

USD$47,580

102

Gross National Income per capita

Development Status accredited to Singapore

USD$47,580

developed countries

USD$34,760

USD$3,855

USD$2,770

USD$975 103

developing countries

USD$11,905

Transported Volumes In and Out of Singapore Assuming volume of 1 tonne as 1 cubic.m

400 m 200 m 200 m Air Passenger Movement 37,700,000

200 m 200 m Air Freight 1,857,000 tonnes

Assuming average weight of a person: 65 kg Total weight: 2450500000kg=2450500 tonnes

400 m Shipping Total Cargo 515,415,000 tonnes

Flight Volume into Singapore

100 planes

Daily: 317 flights

Monthly: 9660 flights

Yearly: 115930 flights 105

Flight traffic from Singpore to the world (Singapore Airlines)

106

107

Airports in Singapore

108

109

Ship Traffic into Singapore

100 ships

Daily: 360 vessels

Monthly: 10,824 vessels

Yearly: 131,695 vessels 111

Ship traffic from Singpore to the world

112

113

Ports of Singapore and Shipping Channels

114

115

Typical Quantity of Automobiles in Singapore

Cars: 487,804 Taxis: 24,300 Rental cars: 12,391 Buses: 15,327

Motorcycles & Scooters: 146,120

Goods & other vehicles: 156,089

116

Comparison of Private Car Ownership

Singapore: 8.2pax/car

USA: 2.1pax/car

China: 142.9 pax/car 117

Petrol Consumption

DAILY: 916,000 bbl

MONTHLY: 27,480,000 bbl

YEARLY: 329,760,000 bbl

= 1,000,000 bbl

= <1,000,000 bbl

118

Total Quantity of Petrol Usage in Singapore

Petrol consumed in Singapore: 916,000 bbl/day

Petroleum refined in Singapore: 1,350,000 bbl/day

Petroleum imported into Singapore: 2,440,000 bbl/day

Petroleum exported from Singapore: 1,270,000 bbl/day

= 1,000,000 bbl/day

= <1,000,000 bbl/day

119

Consumption of Water vs Consumption of Petrol

Blue Gold H20

Black Gold Oil

Consumption: 1,262,000 cubic metres / day

Consumption: 916,000 cubic metres / day

120

Water and Gas Pipelines from Malaysia and Indonesia

1

2 3 4

5

1. Gunong Pulai 2. Pierce Reservoir 3. Marina Bay 4. Jurong Island 5. Pulau Batam

1 4

2

121

3 Malaysia - Singapore Water Pipes 5 Indonesia - Singapore Gas Pipes

Geopolitical Air Quality Sulphur Dioxide

PM10

122

Carbon Monoxide

Ozone

123

Volume of Sand Imported from Indonesia before 2007 Total: 93.3 million m3 / year

Reclamation: 89 million m3 / year

Construction: 4.3 million m3 / year

1 million cubic metres of sand

Volume of Burial Spaces needed to house the dying population Volume of an allowable coffin 2.1 x 0.9 x 0.6 = 1.13 cubic metres Volume of Burial space needed to house the dying population in a year

Allowable volume for one coffin x crude death rate per year = 1.13 x 17,140 = 19,436 cubic metres

Volume of space needed to bury the Muslim dying population in a year Percentage of Muslim population x Total Volume of burial spaces for the dying population = 2, 915 cubic metres Volume of space needed to house the cremated

14,569

155

16,463 cubic metres

174.8 cubic metres

Total Volume of space needed to house the dying population in a year = 3, 090 cubic metres

1000 cubic metres 125

Thesis

126 126

The Floating Cemetery

Health Regulations.

The Floating Cemetery is a critique of the state’s unrelentless, concerted effort to reduce, compress and homogenize deathscapesin Singapore.

The Floating Cemetery is then sited at “the black hole” of the nation’s seascape, beyond the functional Singapore port limit and yet within the Singapore International Maritime boundary, in the western part of Singapore, where most industries are located.

Pragmatic reasons, such as the lack of land, have been repeatedly cited to justify the exhumation of old cemeteries and the advocation of cremation. Entire public housing estates have been builtupon old cemetery grounds.

A single unit grave is designed for, within a system which allows for a change of angle between adjacent graves. One could also pay a premium to choose its orientation and customize their graves with add-ons.

At present, only 1.29 square kilometres of land is open for burial.

A 15-years leasehold on burial plots is imposed to maximise the functionality of the land. After 15 years, all graves have to be exhumed and the remains cremated, as long as one was not bounded by religious considerations. This is in spite of the fact that only 3000 cubic metres o space is required to house the Muslim dying population and others who chose cremation annually.

Besides, new cemetery grounds were replanned to singularly face the perpendicular of Mecca, in a bid to regularize cemetery grounds, and in the process, sacrificing cultural preerences specific to ethnic groups in Singapore.

In addition, there are also legislations prohibitng the burning of joss sticks and candles exceeding a certain height or cross section, found under Environmental Public

Diong Fuhan 127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

Land’s End: Aquaculture Matrix at Chek Jawa

This thesis proposes that the current contestations between meaning of Chek Jawa’s coast can be reconciled with an alternative seascape of aquaculture farms.

of aquaculture farms forming a system of complementary relationships and spatial adjacencies.

A system of poles extend across this field. It organizes and anchors the elements of this system into place, while floating pods that hold specific functions like labs, hatcheries and living units are attached to these production fields.

The investigations begin with the gradual modifications of Singapore’s coast over history, observing that extensive reclamation has created a highly controlled and urbanized coast that wraps around its southern edge. On the northern edge, the coast is left as a deliberately rural, green landscape.

Bamboo construction is explored as a primary material for its rapid growth and availability, and lightweight properties.

Chek Jawa lies at the intersection of these 2 visions. Its shallow, sheltered waters is home to a variety of ecological habitats and is seen by the public and environmentalists as a haven for biodiversity. The state, however, sees this intertidal zone as an ideal spot for land reclamation and creation of a tabula rasa.

The thesis explores how a matrix could be established on water that simultaneously fulfils that government’s vision of a productive landscape, while extending the intertidal ecosystem of Chek Jawa. A system of fish, seaweed, oyster, algae and abalone farms extend over the territorial waters slated for reclamation.

The production fields of these farms are arranged in accordance to relationships between each crop, depth of water and water current directions. This matrix comprises of a system of various types

Kenneth Koh Qibao 145

146

147

148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

162

MAX

163

164

165

166

Seascapes

The notion of this thesis is about landscapes in the sea, and how the sea exists as a dumping ground and repository for anything that exists in excess on land. The project envisions a water treatment facility consisting of wastewater reclamation and seawater desalination off the coast of Changi. Cast 5km away from the coast, the facility becomes an extraction from the city and finds new relation to its neighbors in the shipping straits.

with greenery and secured with chain link fences, an intentional subterfuge.

The project illicits how the continuing trends of national image obsession and idea of land as a scarce resource might evoke a solution, hereby termed as Seascapes, in uniquely water locked Singapore.

Taking on the form of a micro city; the project represents a dystopian imagery where such suppressed landscapes find relevance only in their non-existence. It is the pioneer of a displaced industrial society, floating and existing almost entirely below sea level, hidden as an undesirable and unseen entity. Once shrouded by pristine imagery, formal systems can then evoke expression, where the literal act of dumping machines into the sea stretches and distorts the sea surface, creating erotic curves that sink below the sea level. From a flat deck, the facility morphs downwards into a logical rhythm of machine hulls, structural shafts and lightwells.

Like a poche space of discontinuity, infrastructural facilities are often placed in land planning at whim to market forces.

In Singapore, envisioned water hubs are located on the far western and eastern corners, shying away from civilization.

Up close, such facilities are camouflaged

Loo Bo Yan 167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

179

180

181

182

183

184

185

186

The Wrong Calculator?

In 1975 Tay Kheng Soon presented his research based on Leslie Martin and Lionel March’s urban investigation, an antithesis to the dominating view of high-rise living as the only solution to Singapore’s land scarcity. When being asked by the press, Mr. Liu Tai Ker, who was then the Chief Architect of HDB, gave a political answer in response to this technical proposition, that, “he obviously has a different calculator from mine.”

This thesis is the continuation of the legacy. In the first part of the thesis, an investigation will be carried out based on Leslie Martin and Lionel March’s theory in order to debunk the myth of high-rise living as the only solution to the land scarcity in Singapore, hence finding the answer for the “right calculator”. The next part of the thesis seeks to carry forward the result of investigation in the form of architectural manifestation, using data and relationships extracted from Yishun (a typical HDB new town) through various means, a completely horizontal landscape of equivalency in various aspects can be achieved, yet creating a total architectural, social and political deviation from the HDB model that was engineered after a Corbusian ideology.

Ma Xiao 187

188

189

190

191

192

193

194

195

196

+PVGTUGEVKPI 2QKPV 2QVGPVKCN 5GTXKEG %QTG ` O

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

The Floating City: An alternative developmental proposal for Marina South

The thesis develops the Marina South Finance and Business District as a flooded quarter with the introduction of water to divide the land into parcels, resulting in an eventual increase in combined surface area, and the manifestation of a new typology of skyscrapers as a response to the transformed landscape.

entirely new order and modus operandi has been carved out.

The new urban response to the changed landscape called for an inversion of the typical skyscraper model, to have top-heavy forms with much smaller foot prints, stitching a canopy with their masses.

The exterior in between the buildings is interiorized with the shade and enclosure created, while the interior of the buildings are exteriorized in their layered exposure to the elements. The eventual form would be more reflective of Singapore’s hydrological and tropical condition.

It is a discussion of the imminent stoppage of supply of sand from our neighbouring countries to Singapore. To step ahead of this threat, Singapore carries out a self-consuming act: digging into one’s own soil reserves for the continuation of the nation’s physical growth in the form of land reclamation.

The experiment takes place at Marina South, where a system of subtraction of earth takes place on the pancake-flat reclaimed site to form canals, in the process enlarging the Marina Bay freshwater reserves and parceling up the land into plots of different shapes and sizes. The system maintains a steady and efficient workflow, achieving the final network of water bodies in phrases, in synch with the development of building blocks by zones.

The fill material is then strategically redistributed and re-used, resulting in an increase in the absolute national size and usable space of Singapore. A varied hydrological urban situation with an

Yang Han 209

210

211

212

213

214

215

216

217

218

219

220

221

222

223

224

225

226

227

Bibliography

228

Land/Water Reclamation over Time

De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet and Marc Girard, An Atlas of Perpetual Territorial Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008 p15.

Quantity of Undersea Topography, Land Topography and Water Bodies (2009)

Lee, Kim Woon, Zhou, Yingxin, Geology of Singapore. Singapore: Defence Science and Technology Agency, 2009.

Total Volume of Earth and Sea

Lee, Kim Woon, Zhou, Yingxin, Geology of Singapore. Singapore: Defence Science and Technology Agency, 2009.

Topography of Singapore - Plan

Original Drawing Lee, Kim Woon, Zhou, Yingxin, Geology of Singapore. Singapore: Defence Science and Technology Agency, 2009.

Topography of Singapore - 3D Model

Original Model Lee, Kim Woon, Zhou, Yingxin, Geology of Singapore. Singapore: Defence Science and Technology Agency, 2009.

Topography of Singapore - less than 5m above mean sea level

“Flood Maps.” Flood Maps. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Jan. 2010. <http://flood.firetree.net/>.

Located Defense Technologies along Singapore’s Perimeter

Google. “Google Maps.” Google Maps. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Nov 2010. <http://maps. google.com/>.

Water Comparisons

“MEWR - Key Environment Statistics - Water Resource Management .” Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Singapore. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2010. <http:// app.mewr.gov.sg/web/Contents/Contents.aspx?ContId=682>.

Average Cost of 1 m3 Water

Public Utilities Board . “Water Tariff.” PUB. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2010. <http:// www.pub.gov.sg/general/FactsandFigures/Pages/WaterTariff.aspx>.

Typical Quantity of Water Consumption

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 February 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Typical Amount of Water from Rain

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 February 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>

Amount of Water Catchment Area to Total Area

“Local Catchment Water.” PUB Singapore. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2010. <http://www. pub.gov.sg/water/Pages/LocalCatchment.aspx>.

Typical Import of Water from Malaysia

Public Utilities Board. “Imported Water.” PUB. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2010. <www. pub.gov.sg/water/Pages/ImportedWater.aspx >.

Typical Amount of Water Subtracted by Evaporation

Tan Stephen Boon Kean, Eng Ban Shuy and Chua Lloyd Hock Chye, ‘Modelling hourly and daily open-water evaporation rates in areas with an equatorial climate’, Hydrological Processes, vol. 21, no. 4 (Wiley: Chichester, 2007), pp. 486-499

229

Form of the City Building Typologies in Singapore

Original Models according to town plans by HDB

1km x 1km Urban Fabric Bukit Timah Road Jurong West Tuas Industrial Estate Little India CBD

“Singapore Information.” SG & Singapore Map - Singapura, Singapur, Singapore Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 July 2010. <http://www.streetdir

Footprint of 6.5 Million in Single Storey/ Four Storey/Max Building Height of 280 m

“Singapore in Figures 2009.” Singapore Department of Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2009.pdf>.

Assumptions: Total floor area not inclusive of military facilities, seaports and airports. *280m is chosen as it is the height of UOB Plaza, one of three tallest skyscrapers in Singapore.(“UOB Plaza.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. )

Resulting Natural Lanscape (6.5 Million in Single Storey/Four Storey/Max Building Height of 280 m

“Singapore in Figures 2009.” Singapore Department of Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2009.pdf>.

Assumptions: Total floor area not inclusive of military facilities, seaports and airports. *280m is chosen as it is the height of UOB Plaza, one of three tallest skyscrapers in Singapore.(“UOB Plaza.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 21 Feb. 2010. )

1km x 1km Urban Fabric Single Storey /Four Storey/Max Building Height of 280 m (Ideal Situation)

“Singapore in Figures 2009.” Singapore Department of Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2009.pdf>.

Assumptions: Total floor area not inclusive of military facilities, seaports and airports.

Average floor area per person = total floor area / 6.5 million

Projected Parking Lots to House All Automobiles

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 February 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf> Assumtions: Carparking space at LTA standards 2.4 x 4.8 for cars, etc. + 30% for circulation, each floor designed as double ramp at sides of floor slab

Amount of Total Road Surface Area

Road Length In Lane-Kilometer”. Land Transport Authority, Singapore.N.p., n.d. 27 February 2010. <http://www.lta.gov.sg/corp_info/doc/Road%20length_lane-km%20 (2008).pdf> “Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 February 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

230

Natural/Unnatural Quantity of Land Required to Feed 6.5 Million

“The Vertical Farm Essay”. Vertical Farm. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2010. <http://www. verticalfarm.com/essay_print.htm> “The next green revolution”. Indian Academy of Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 May 2010. <http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/feb25/articles16.htm>

Amount of Solar Energy Available per year

Water, Electricity and Gas Sales, 2008, Utilities, “Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/ reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Guide to Singapore’s weather,NEA Meterological Services, National Environment Agency. N.p., n.d. 27 Mar 2009. < http://app.nea.gov.sg/data/mss/pdf/26March07.pdf>.

Amount of Wind Energy Available per year

Water, Electricity and Gas Sales, 2008, Utilities, “Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/ reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

“Small wind turbine works at low wind speeds.” cnet News. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2010. <news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10258176-54.html >.

“Introducing the Honeywell Wind Turbine from WindTronics .” Welcome to Alternative Energy . N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Aug. 2010. < http://www.earthtronics.com/honeywell. aspx >.

Total Building Footprint

Google. “Google Maps.” Google Maps. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 July 2010. <http://maps. google.com/>.

Total Built-up Space

Building Commencement, Construction and Real Estate, “Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/ pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Stock of Residential Properties, Construction and Real Estate, “Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat. gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Stock of Commercial and Industrial Properties, Construction and Real Estate, “Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Total Green Surface Area

“Annual Report 07-08.” National Parks Board, Singapore. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2009. <www.nparks.gov.sg/cms/docs/about-us/annual-report-08/Content-Page.pdf>.

Quantity of Green Volume

“Annual Report 07-08.” National Parks Board, Singapore. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2009. <www.nparks.gov.sg/cms/docs/about-us/annual-report-08/Content-Page.pdf>.

Quantity of Interior Volume

Take assumption floor height equals 4.5 m.

Animals in Singapore, Exotic and Native

Animal Life and Nature in Singapore. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1973.

Print.

Plants in Singapore: Exotic and Native

Animal Life and Nature in Singapore. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1973.

Print.

231

Economics/Demographics Energy Consumption per capita per annum

World Bank. “Energy use.”Data | The World Bank. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 May 2010. <http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.PCAP.KG.OE?cid=GPD_26>.

Personal Wealth vs Govermental Assets

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 February 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>

GDP by Contributor

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 February 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>

Average Range of Income per person

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 February 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>

Comparison of Singapore’s Wealth with Others

World Bank. “GNI per capita, PPP (current international $) .”Data | The World Bank.

N.p., n.d. Web. 26 July 2010. <http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP. PP.CD?cid=GPD_8>.

CIA. “World Factbook.” CIA - The World Factbook. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2010. <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/>.

World Bank. “World Development Indicators database.” Data | World Bank. N.p., n.d.

Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP_PPP.pdf> CIA. “World Factbook.” CIA - The World Factbook. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2010. <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/>.

Development Status accredited to Singapore

World Bank. “World Development Indicators database.” Data | World Bank. N.p., n.d.

Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP_PPP.pdf> CIA. “World Factbook.” CIA - The World Factbook. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 May 2010. <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/>.

Transported Volumes In and Out of Singapore

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Flight Volume into Singapore

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Flight traffic from Singpore to the world (Singapore Airlines)

Singapore Airlines. “Singapore Airlines--Global Route Map.”Welcome to Singapore Airlines: Asia’s leading airline with flights serving over 35 countries. N.p., n.d.

Web. 26 July 2010. <http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/en_UK/content/flights-fares/ routemap/GlobalRouteMap.jsp>

Airports in Singapore

“ Singapore Information.” SG & Singapore Map - Singapura, Singapur, Singapore Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 July 2010. <http://www.streetdirectory.com/>

Ship Traffic into Singapore

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Ship traffic from Singpore to the world

Port of Singapore Authority.”Our Core Business.” PSA Singapore. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2010. < http://www.singaporepsa.com/transhipment.php>

Ports of Singapore and Shipping Channels

Lee, Kim Woon, Zhou, Yingxin, Geology of Singapore. Singapore: Defence Science and Technology Agency, 2009.

232

Typical Quantity of Automobiles in Singapore

“Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

Comparison of Private Car Ownership

“Worldmapper.” Worldmapper. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Aug. 2009. <http://www.worldmapper.org/> “World Population 2002”. United Nations. N.p., n.d. 23 Jan 2010. <http://www.un.org/ esa/population/publications/wpp2002/wpp2002wc.htm>.

Petrol Consumption

CIA. “World.” CIA - The World Factbook. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Jan 2010. <https://www. cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html>

Total Quantity of Petrol Usage in Singapore

“Singapore Energy Data.” US Energy Information Administration. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 June 2009. <http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Singapore/Oil.html>.

Consumption of Water vs Consumption of Petrol

“Worldmapper.” Worldmapper. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Aug. 2009. <http://www.worldmapper.org/> “Singapore Energy Data.” US Energy Information Administration. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 June 2009. <http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Singapore/Oil.html>.

Water and Gas Pipelines from Malaysia and Indonesia

“Batam threatens to block Indonesian natural gas supply to Singapore .” SG Energy Crisis. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2009. <http://sgenergycrisis.com/blog/all/batam-threatens-to-block-indonesian-natural-gas-supply-to-singapore-alert/>.

Geopolitical Air Quality

“Ambient Air Quality 24-hr PSI Readings At 4 PM on 15 Oct 2009”. National Environment Agency. N.p., n.d. 15 Oct 2009. < http://app2.nea.gov.sg/psi.aspx>.

Volume of Sand Imported from Indonesia before 2007

Bill Guerin, ‘The Shifting Sands of Time – and Singapore’. N.p., n.d. 15 Jul 2010. <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/EG31Ae01.html>.

Chia, L.S. and Chou, L.M. (eds.), Urban coastal area management: the experience of Singapore. Singapore: International Center for Living Resources Management. 1991

Volume of Burial Spaces needed to house the dying population

Ethnic Population, 2008, Population, “Yearbook of Statistics Singapore 2009.” Singapore Statistics. N.p., n.d. 27 Feb 2010. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/ yos10/yos2010.pdf>.

“Permissable Dimensions of Coffin”. National Environmental Agency. N.p., n.d. 14 Jan 2009. < http://app1.env.gov.sg/atad/action/ATAD0101BurialRR?moduleID=A_ REG&docInd=&rr=BUR>.

233

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge and extend our heartfelt gratitude to the following people who have made the completion of this book possible.

Assistant Professor Erik G. L’Heureux Tay Kheng Soon And also, Owen Lam Vikas Kailankaje Thank you,

234

Studio Exuberant Singapore From left to right Loo Bo Yan Ma Xiao Yang Han Erik G L’Heureux Diong Fuhan Kenneth Koh Qibao

235

Erik G. L'Heureux, AIA LEED AP Erik G. L'Heureux AIA, LEED AP is an architect and educator. He is an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore where he researches utopian visions of the city, hydrology, and cruise ships. A former boat builder, he practiced architecture in New York City while teaching at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union. Erik received a Master of Architecture from Princeton University where he received the Susan K. Underwood Design Award. He studied as a Fitzgibbon Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis where he was recently honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award.

Erik is a registered architect in the USA, NCARB certified, and a LEED Accredited professional. His professional design work is marked by formal clarity, material richness, and environmental calibration and has won several international awards including a Cityscape Award, two MIPIM Future Project Awards, and two AIA NYS Design Awards.

His work has been published in Architectural Record, Architectural Review, Space, Form, and Singapore Architect among many others.

Diong Fuhan

Kenneth Koh Qibao

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Loo Bo Yan

Ma Xiao

Yang Han

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Born in China, Yang Han has spent half her life in little Singapore, the country where she now calls home. A meticulous dreamer,