National University of Singapore, School of Design & Environment

Department of Architecture
AR4101 Design 7
AY2013/2014 Semester 1
INTEGRATED & RESILIENT COMMUNITIES
Studio master: Dr. Tan Beng Kiang, DDes (Harvard), MArch II (UCLA), BArch Hons (NUS)

Over 80% of Singapores population live in public housing and close to 90% of these own their flats.
Singapore has seen a big transformation from slum housing in the 1960s to the present landscape of
satellite housing estates with its mix of public & private facilities, educational, recreational and private
commercial facilities. While the hardware of the built environment has evolved and improved over the
years, the software of community and building relationships faces great challenges. Many factors such
as increasing population, immigration, greying population, better education and thus higher expectations
are testing the notion of community. The built form and planning of public housing has changed
incrementally in the last 50 years but fundamental design principles remain. It is time to re-examine the
status quo:
Has the planning and built form constrain the development of community?
What kind of built form will facilitate the development of community?
Is our housing form designed for economic resilience and empowering of people? E.g. In time of a
financial crisis, does the built form have the flexibility to convert housing to small enterprises for
livelihood?
How to develop an architecture that is participative?
How can older people be integrated as full and productive members of their respective communities?
This studio will examine the topic of integrated and resilient communities through the concept of
Collaborative Services creating resource sharing community that suits diverse needs and lifestyles. And
in the process empower the people to take charge of their environment. What kind of built form and
facilities are required to support this concept? What kind of organization structure and processes need to
be in place? Already, a local entrepreneur has started a website, Block Pooling, of similar idea. The
studios approach is people centric. We will study a public housing estate/precinct, map its assets and
needs through interviews and observations and hopefully through workshops with residents. The
deliverable is a masterplan (hardware & software) in the first half of the semester and architectural
design in the second half. Results of the studio may be submitted for the International Competition
Integrated Communities: A Society for All Ages organized by the International Council for Caring
Communities (www.international-iccc.org).
Some References:
Eizo Manzini Collaborative Services Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability
Richard Sennett The Architecture of Cooperation (video)
Block Pooling - http://www.blockpooling.sg/
Past Community Design projects
MacPherson 21st Century Estate
Smile Village in Phnom Penh
Community Building & Enchanted Farm for Gawad Kalinga Philippines
Rail Ides: Visions for the Rail Corridor

BA (Arch) AR4101
Semester 1, AY 2013/14
Tutor: Tan Cheng Siong, Zhang Ji

Skyland
With a projected population of 6.5 to 6.9 million by 2030, Singapore is facing tremendous challenges
to accommodate the growth of urban population and provide a better urban environment for live,
work, play and commuting, and for all ages. A primary concern regarding these challenges is the
expansion and efficient use of our limited land resources, to which various planning strategies have
been proposed. However, one should question the continuous consumption of land resources in
our traditional planning methodologies. Skyland, artificial lands created up in the sky and
concentrated in key node areas to be owned by the citizens, is proposed as a revolutionary vision,
perhaps the last frontier for the future Singapore, a city in the garden, and other compact cities in the
region with increasing urban population and higher life aspirations.
The idea of Skyland is threefold which may generate new urbanism and architecture:
1) Skyland is a master plan for integrated land use. There are limitations inherent in the
approaches to expand the reservoir of land resources through outward coastal reclamation,
inward plot floor space densification, and downward underground development. Besides,
premature demolishment of young building for land is wasteful and detrimental to our
environment. Skyland is proposed to create and amalgamate various land uses vertically, thus
avoiding the disintegration and fragmentation of urban life as a result of horizontal functional
land use zoning currently applied which keeps gobbling up land resources.
2) Skyland is an architecture that rejuvenates. Skyland is composed of frame and infill: the
former will be funded and built by the government as the overall structure to provide land in the
sky, and it will be created around transportation hub and some development areas with elegant
and sophisticated architectural manifestation; whereas the latter is to be developed by people or
other parties according to their own needs and requirements. Skyland is architecture as
infrastructure that adapts to an aging population, thus continuously self rejuvenating and
remaining relevant to the changing needs of the society.
3) Skyland is a construction by people. In response to the shoebox dwelling model of which
identical flats sandwiched in between similar flats that have low flexibility to cope with the
housing demands emerging in the process of life, Skyland enables the customization of home
according to residents evolving life expectations, needs, and preferences. This implies the
development of new economic and industrial opportunities catering to the new ways of home
building that promote light weight, prefabricated and green technologies.
The Skyland concept has identified the following benefits:
1. Creating Land in the sky, increasing our countrys landbank;
2. Promote a new architecture that rejuvenates;
3. Spawn a new construction industry that is less reliant on manual labour;
4. To eventually recover current land use for other uses; and
5. To prevent high underground rail infrastructure construction cost by integrating mass transit
network with Skyland above ground.
This studio is set to seek architectural design solutions to reflect the above mentioned benefits of
Skyland.

Program
The studio will be conducted by integrating topic based research investigation and context based
design exploration in a mutually supporting way.

Based on understanding of the momentum and vision of the Skyland concept, the students will
implement it around selected HDB new town centers or transportation hubs using hypothetical urban
scenarios for the near future of Singapore, such as year 2030, as references.
In the process, the students will also be guided to conduct research on relevant topics to address the
challenges implied in the implementation of the Skyland concept that will contribute to the
exploration of architectural design solutions.

Deliverables
The students will work as a group to establish the urban design framework and quantitative
parameters to address the vision and benefits of the Skyland concept for the given site based on
island wide and town level of analyses. On individual level, the students will identify within the site a
specific Skyland component or housing typology to develop detailed architectural design.

Evaluation
Students will be evaluated at both the group and individual levels based on the quality of their
contributions to and dedication in both components.

Initial Readings
National Population and Talent Division, Ministry of National Development (2013) The Population
White Paper A Sustainable Population for A Dynamic Singapore, retrieved from
http://population.sg/
Ministry of National Development (2013) Land Use Plan to Support Singapores Future Population A
High Quality Living Environment for All Singaporeans, retrieved from
http://www.mnd.gov.sg/landuseplan/
The Open Building concept:
http://www.habraken.org/index.html
http://open building.org/ob/concepts.html