Case Study extracted from Salat, Serge. 2021. Integrated Guidelines for Sustainable Neighbourhood Design. Urban Morphology and Complex Systems Institute 2021. © UMCSII.

 To stop horizontal expansion of cities that takes away land from natural systems, we need to move beyond 2-dimensional urban planning. Kampung Admiralty in Singapore demonstrates that instead we can design buildings and cities as integrated 3-dimensional green structures and layer urban environments (residential, recreational, commercial, infrastructural and agricultural) vertically.

context

The project is an integrated breathing green block for a tropical climate. It blends harmoniously mixed use, people-centric design and high-quality public space with bioclimatic architecture. It implements core principles of Context, Design, Integration and is aligned with the shared vision on Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods. Its innovative concept re-greens more than 100% of the plot with sky gardens and a collective farm stepping on several levels enhancing both human interaction and biodiversity, while creating a comfortable microclimate in hot and humid Singapore. The project represents Singapore’s first integrated public development that brings together a mix of housing, public facilities and services under one roof. The traditional approach is for each government agency to carve out their plot of land, resulting in several standalone buildings. Kampung Admiralty integrated complex, on the other hand, maximises land use, and is a prototype for meeting the needs of Singapore’s ageing population (WOHA, 2016). 

Key partners and actors

Kampung Admiralty, designed by WOHA Architects, is the first-of-its-kind development in Singapore. It integrates housing for the elderly with many social, healthcare, communal, commercial, and retail facilities. It is a multi-agency project developed by the Housing & Development Board (HDB) in partnership with the Ministry of Health (MOH), Yishun Health Campus (YHC), National Environment Agency (NEA), National Parks Board (NParks), Land Transport Authority (LTA), and Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA).

People centric design derived from Southeast Asian context

Traditionally, South-East Asian communities have gathered underneath huge trees, such as banyans, which provide shade and shelter. Similarly, the breadth of its roofs characterises vernacular construction. Like banyan trees, they function as giant umbrellas. In contemporary projects, tropical community spaces – naturally lit and cross-ventilated – can be at ground level or at intermediate levels. A large open public space beneath or within – as a garden in the sky – an institutional or private building provides more than ventilation; it encourages sociability (WOHA, 2016).

The Community Plaza in Kampung Admiralty is a fully public, porous and pedestrianised ground plane, designed as a community living room. Within this welcoming and inclusive space, the public can participate in organised events, join in the season’s festivities, shop, or eat at the hawker centre on the second storey. The Medical Centre above shades and shelters the breezy tropical plaza, allowing activities to continue regardless of rain or shine. 

Locating a Medical Centre in Kampung Admiralty means that residents need not go all the way to the hospital to consult a specialist, or to get a simple day surgery done. To promote wellness and healing, the centre’s consultation and waiting areas are washed in natural daylight from perimeter windows and through a central courtyard. Views toward the Community Plaza below, and the Community Park above also help seniors feel connected to nature and to other people. The close proximity to health-care, social, commercial and other amenities support intergenerational bonding and promote active aging in place.

The Community Park is an intimately scaled, elevated village green where residents can actively come together to exercise, chat or tend community farms. Complementary programmes such as childcare and an Active Ageing Hub (including senior care) are side by side, bringing together young and old to live, eat and play. One hundred and four apartments are provided in two 11-storey blocks for elderly singles or couples. Shared entrances encourage seniors to come out of their homes and interact with their neighbours. The units adopt universal design principles and are designed for natural cross ventilation and optimum daylight.

Integrated bioclimatic design in hot and humid climates: Greening a breathing urban fabric with a green plot ratio above 100%

Among the places worst hit by climate change are urban growth areas in the warm, humid tropics of Asia and Latin America. In these places, rapid urbanisation and local heat islands amplify global climate change. Design for city fabrics, blocks and buildings in these tropical climates should be different from that in cold climates. Tropical architecture has always relied upon shading and the perforation of a building’s exterior, allowing light and air to penetrate in the internal spaces. Applying this principle at every scale consists in opening out a room, an apartment, a building, a cluster of buildings, a neighbourhood, so that they can ‘breathe’ and be cooled without the aid of artificial ventilation.

The Green Plot Ratio – the measure of re-greening – compares the total landscaped area of an urban development with the size of its plot. Three-dimensional greening of the urban block allows reaching high Green Plot ratios above 100%. Re-greening blocks mitigates the urban heat island effect and saves cooling energy, while providing sheltering and shading for communal spaces. Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority stipulates that 100% Green plot Ratio should be the minimum requirement in the city’s new developments. If newly planted vegetation equals the size of its natural (untouched by humans) condition, the Green Plot Ratio would be 100%.

Greening in three dimensions with green façades and sky gardens allows achieving 100% Green Plot Ratio – or more – and minimise the need for artificial cooling. Sites for re-greening in Kampung Admiralty are above ground level – on the walls, the roofs, and in intermediate sky gardens between the floors. Screens of vegetation on building walls transform the cityscape’s appearance from hard, engineered surfaces to verdant landscapes with buildings as gardens replacing buildings as mass. Interweaving fine grain gardens at multiple levels ventilates and cools the urban fabric. The gardens perform as environmental filters to absorb carbon and reduce heat gain while creating large-scale communal space at various levels.

Breathing urban fabrics can offer outdoor community spaces at many scales and at multiple levels within a ‘3-dimensional green matrix’.

In Kampung Admiralty, a terraced and forested sky park covers the mixed-use scheme. It can be directly accessed from the community and health-care facilities layered on the upper floors of the building.

Lessons Learnt

The Kampung Admiralty project is part of a wider governmental policy framework. Since the 1960s, Singapore government has favoured the development of mixed and affordable housing, greener constructions and integrated strategies to improve liveability while promoting innovation, paying attention to the critical management of resources within the territory. Kampung Admiralty shows how an approach based on key principles (Context, Design, Integration) can successfully shape Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods: creating a thriving and inclusive community while saving resources and energy. The project displays an architectural approach that successfully mitigates Singapore's hot and humid climate, while creating an inclusive ‘urban village’ integrating different generations, promoting social exchange and bonding. This has been made possible by a comprehensive vision and strategy rather than fragmented approaches. 

References 

WOHA and Patrick Bingham-Hall 2016. Garden City/Mega City. Rethinking Cities for the Age of Global Warming. Pesaro Publishing. Oxford, Singapore, Sydney.