Award-winning local developers discuss on what makes a good building design.
While most buildings are built to serve a functional purpose of shelter, accommodation or commercial needs, how a building looks and operates often plays a part in adding character to the surrounding area and attracting residents and tenants.
In Singapore, more developers are innovating and pushing boundaries to meet expectations of a building’s safety and usability, as well as provide thoughtful experiences for their clients.
According to Anthony Chia, CDL’s Director (Projects), a building with good design “has to push past the experience of mere functionality into the realm of aesthetics, innovation and user well-being”. Good design, he says, need not necessarily cost more as it depends on whether it was conceptualised from the beginning or as an afterthought.
Increasingly, more thought is put into a building’s impact on the sustainability of the environment. For example, the Tree House condominium creates a fresh and healthy living space for its residents.
Developed by CDL and located in Upper Bukit Timah, the building’s most salient feature is a 24-storey tall vertical green wall. It serves as a “bio-shelter” that provides natural insulation and helps filter pollutants and carbon dioxide from the air. The unique architectural structure is auto-irrigated using recycled rainwater, and each of the planter boxes hosting the climbing creepers is designed with its own access, making maintenance a breeze. Sky gardens on the 7th, 13th, and 19th floors of each of the four blocks double up as vantage points for residents.
Tree House has garnered many awards including the Green Mark Platinum award by the Building and Construction Authority.
Most recently, CDL was among the awardees at the inaugural Singapore Good Design Mark Awards (SG Mark) by the Design Business Chamber of Singapore (DBCS) clinching two SG Mark (Standard) Awards for Singapore’s first five-star resort hotel W Singapore Hotel – Sentosa Cove and CUBE 8, a proposed 36-storey condominium development with 177 units.
Three SG Mark (Standard) Awards were also handed out to Keppel Land for Ocean Financial Centre, the Sliding Integrated Multi-function (SLIM) Wall System and Interactive Multimedia Wall @ The Glades Sales Gallery.
The SLIM Wall System is a “movable wall” in compact-sized apartments that allows for flexibility to configure room areas and maximise space by concealing furniture when not in use, while the Interactive Multimedia Wall @ The Glades Sales Gallery is a multi-touch interactive media screen that replaces the traditional physical scale model displaying a project’s nearby amenities to prospective home buyers.
Keppel Land was also awarded Gold for the Vertical Garden @ Ocean Financial Centre. The installation is the largest potted system Vertical Garden in the world, as conferred by the Guinness World Records, spanning about 110 metres in length and 20 metres in height. It holds 51,000 pots and 25 plant species.
Designed to blend in with its landscaped background, the Ocean Financial Centre’s curvature traces its location at the intersection of Singapore’s old and new business financial districts. It is a fourth generation building on the exact site, and the current structure has retained signature traits of its predecessors, including the funnel shape of the 1974 Ocean Building to reflect its maritime association.
Tan Swee Yiow, President (Singapore) of Keppel Land said that a good design goes beyond being iconic landmarks. It should add value to a unique site location by refreshing the “norms”, with consideration to the environment and local context: “A good building design is one that resonates and harmonises with the environment, the heritage of the site as well as the unique qualities of the occupants that it is designed for. Increasingly, a building’s success has also become connected to its environmental performance.”
Several green breakthroughs are also incorporated in the 245-metre building, including the largest solar panel system for high-rise buildings in Singapore, an energy-efficient hybrid chilled water system and an innovative paper recycling system for all offices.
As Singapore expands and joins the league of global cities, the city has to aspire to be more than clean, green and efficient. Tan said, “To grow in vibrancy, optimism and dynamism, we must be open to explore new and bold development concepts by tapping into the experience of other urban cities.”
While some may have the notion that Singapore lags behind other countries when it comes to buildings with good design, CDL’s Chia believes that Singapore can be said to be among the most well planned cities in the world: “Policies, as well prescribed as they are, can allow more room for creativity and interpretation.”
Photo: Tree House condominium by CDL
Muneerah Bee, Senior Journalist at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact her about this or other stories email muneerah@propertyguru.com.sg
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