VISION FOR VITALITY Sustainable biodiversity and people-centric public spaces are central to Woha’s masterplan for the upcoming Punggol HUMAN Digital District NAT U R E WOHA FOUNDING DIRECTORS WONG MUN SUMM AND RICHARD HASSELL SHARE WITH HONG XINYI THEIR VISION FOR CREATING VIBRANT AND SUSTAINABLE ASIAN CITIES What will the future look like? “Blade Runner in the tropics,” says Wong Mun Summ. “Blade Runner meets Avatar,” adds Richard Hassell. The two founding directors of architecture firm Woha have a knack for finishing each other’s sentences and, in this case, they are drawing on two iconic science fiction films to describe a specific swathe of Singapore’s future—the Punggol Digital District, a 50ha development whose construction started this year, and is slated to open progressively from 2023. Woha designed the We are constantly trying masterplan for the district, to push the agenda in all which will house the these systems.” Singapore Institute of How will these ideas Technology’s new campus, a manifest in a district business park by developer rather than a building? JTC, as well as community For starters, “a big chunk amenities. Touted as of mature forest in the an innovative hub for Punggol Digital District will attracting tech talent and be preserved”, says Hassell. catalysing interactions and “A biodiversity study has collaborations that may been done that shows it just help to supercharge already has lots of animals Singapore’s economic living in it, so it will be an growth, the project will also active and diverse forest, be a large-scale embodiment not a dry recreated one. of the core principles that PIONEER VILLAGE The Woha-designed Kampung Admiralty, People should be able to which integrates public housing for the elderly with community Woha has been refining amenities, has won many accolades stroll through a nice shady for decades. environment.” Indeed, there “A lot of the discussion will be an emphasis on about architecture in the last 20 years has been about creating pedestrian-friendly, people-centric spaces, “which will aesthetics. And aesthetics are important,” says Hassell. “But make this place feel very different”, says Wong. when you approach architecture from a systems point of It’s no surprise that the founders of a firm that’s become view, you develop an attitude that looks beyond creating famous for buildings lined, draped and topped with lush a standard podium and tower, then cladding that with foliage would revel in the presence of organic nature in a an interesting design. We are basically saying that every place whose raison d’etre is man-made technology. Addressing construction we make is interacting with all the other systems what they have described as the social dysfunction of densely in a city and the natural world. And we have to really think packed, yet increasingly isolating modern metropolises is also about how it can perform at a very high level in relation a long-standing Woha preoccupation. But make no mistake: to these systems.” the future—in Punggol anyway—may draw on deep-rooted Consequently, Wong continues, the Woha ethos is about ideas about natural and communal vitality, but cutting-edge constantly asking questions that expand the possibilities of technology will also help to make it hum. Think underground architecture. “How can we maximise the collection of solar networks traversed by autonomous vehicles delivering goods, energy? How can we place greenery to bring about well-being rooftop solar power systems soaking up the sun, and sensors DEEP ROOTS Richard Hassell’s and biodiversity? How can we harvest water in a building, that can analyse the very air we breathe. outlook on sustainability and filter it through landscaping features so that the water Imagine, in other words, if we thought about an urbanised was influenced by his that’s eventually discharged into the drains is clean? How environment not as a collection of self-contained inert forward-thinking father’s do we plug into an existing mobility system? How do we structures, but as an ecosystem in its original sense—a environmental interest PHOTOGRAPHY: DARREN GABRIEL LEOW; ART DIRECTION: MATILDA AU; FASHION DIRECTION: DESMOND LIM; AU; FASHION ART DIRECTION: MATILDA DARREN GABRIEL LEOW; PHOTOGRAPHY: YANN; GROOMING: CHERYL OW/INDIGO ARTISANS, USING YSL BEAUTÉ; PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT: BINGHAM-HALL AND K KOPTER OTHER IMAGES: WOHA, DARREN SOH, PATRICK JOEY TAN; STYLIST’S ASSISTANT: create opportunities for social interaction in public spaces? community of organisms whose interactions are fundamental Denim shirt by Prada to collective survival. What if the Garden City didn’t just look green, but was reframed in terms of cultivating resilience? “We can no longer think in a very simple way where one land parcel is only for one use,” Wong stresses. “If all our buildings and infrastructure are conceived as also capable of generating energy, producing food and collecting water, Singapore can become self-sufficient in meeting these needs. URBAN This is a completely new way of thinking about masterplans.” LANDSCAPES Hassell elaborates: “Our architecture prototypes have Clockwise set new directions in showing how systems thinking works. from far left: The contours We’re hoping to test these ideas in this sizeable district to of Parkroyal show they work, and roll them out at an even larger scale in on Pickering the future.” were inspired by organic EVOLUTIONS IN IDEALISM topographic forms; screens Of course, the reason the Garden City, or any city for that of green add life matter, would need to think about becoming self-sufficient to the School in the first place is because of the spectre of climate change. of the Arts’ Increasingly frequent extreme weather phenomena in recent facade; elevated years have pushed the issue more insistently into the public walkways aim to recreate consciousness, and things could well get worse—a lot worse. street-level “I don’t think we’re going to see a gradual decline. What vibrance in I think is more likely is that there will be a tipping point, Skyville@Dawson “If all our buildings and The seeds for their world view were planted in their They started by designing houses, experimenting with youth. Hassell was very much influenced by his father, who strategies in natural ventilation and permeable design that infrastructure are conceived has a PhD in geology and was very ahead of his time in terms tempered the impact of intense equatorial heat and lashing as also capable of generating of his environmental interests. The air-conditioning in the monsoon rains, while not sealing these habitations off from elder Hassell’s office was solar-powered, and he even built their climatic environments. This laid a foundation for what energy, producing food and a zero-energy country house. Wong calls a “contemporary tropical language”. In 2000, Hassell and Wong became architecture students in the they resolved to try for larger public projects and entered collecting water, Singapore 1980s, the former at the University of Western Australia a competition to design two MRT stations. Their winning can become self-sufficient in and the latter at the National University of Singapore. entries would eventually be realised as the Circle Line’s Declining petroleum supply and escalating fuel prices in Stadium and Bras Basah stations. meeting these needs. This is a the 1970s had spurred an interest in alternative energy, In 2001, they entered another competition, this time completely new way of thinking and both men recall being exposed to ideas about to design Duxton Plain, a public housing development. sustainability in environmental science classes. Another They didn’t win that one, but it was nevertheless a seminal about masterplans” prevailing idea at the time was regionalism, Wong recalls, experience. “We proposed ideas that may have been too ahead which examined architecture’s relationship to specific of their time,” says Wong. But the ideas left an impression on climates and cultures. the authorities, and their time would come. where suddenly one collapse triggers another,” says Hassell. But by the time they met in 1990, while working at For instance, in its Duxton Plain design, Woha had “The world is a complex system. We have interrupted the Kerry Hill Architects, the fuel crisis had passed and an proposed high-rise buildings punctuated by interconnected system, and it’s hard to predict where it’s going to go.” era of conspicuous consumption was well on its way. The “sky streets” and “sky villages”, which would not only If, for instance, the planet can no longer sustain food starchitect syndrome, where brand names created buildings be spaces for placing greenery that could contribute production, a place such as Singapore that imports the bulk of with unique forms, dominated the field. “But we never liked to biodiversity, but also recreate the social vibrancy of its food supplies will become exceedingly vulnerable. “Every following trends,” says Wong. “We didn’t think architecture street-level interactions. In 2007, this concept was refined country would say we need our food for our own people, was meant to be fashionable.” for SkyVille@Dawson, and finally realised when that public we don’t care how much you pay us. There could be wars The challenge of creating architecture that addressed housing development was completed in 2015. Says Wong: over water, mass migration to escape the damage of climate climate change was “a problem that we didn’t know the “Those ideas—thinking of a building as a three-dimensional change—the impact could be really terrifying. People should solution to”, adds Hassell. “From a design, research and matrix in the sky with streets, villages and facilities all be a lot more worried than they are right now, enough to innovation point of view, that was actually very exciting.” outdoors and up high—are still being used in our projects.” commit real resources and strategies to solving the problem.” It took them a while to get going.