Sharing the Singapore model with the world

Venice Biennale exhibit showcases Republic's ability to perfect social, economic, environmental balance
Paul Gilfeather Today Online 4 Sep 10;

While Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was paying tribute to architects Khoo Peng Beng and his wife Belinda Huang during his National Day Rally speech last Sunday, the couple were more than 11,000 km away in Venice selling Singapore as the greatest compact city on the planet.

I travelled to Venice, one of the world's most beautiful cities, with the couple who, along with National University of Singapore professors Eric L'Heureux and Florian Schaetz, are responsible for the Singapore pavilion at the annual Biennale International Architecture Exhibition.

The husband-and-wife team are behind one of the most innovative public housing blocks on the planet, The Pinnacle@Duxton, which houses a phenomenal 7,000 people on an area of land the size of two football pitches.

And since the theme of the Singapore pavilion is "superdensity" - or how you house 5 million people on a land area of only 710 km sq - their appointment has proved a masterstroke.

The four curators are using their exhibit in Venice to make the point that if you used the Singapore model of compact living 1,000 times over, you could in theory house the world's entire 5-billion-strong population.

If you do the sums, you'll find that the concept does, in theory, actually work.

The pavilion, "1000 Singapores - A Model of the Compact City", is captivating, thought-provoking and was born out of four months of brain-storming sessions.

It is designed to show the rest of the world that sprawling urbanism is not the only answer and as land becomes more and more sacred, high-quality, sustainable living can be achieved using a different model.

Peng Beng and Belinda used their experience in designing The Pinnacle to demonstrate how high-density doesn't have to mean low-quality.

The exhibit, using graphs, charts, photographs and a scale model of Singapore, explains that if the world's population was housed on an equivalent land mass using the Republic's model, just 0.5 per cent of the Earth would be required.

Peng Beng told me: "That would mean 99.5 per cent of the world would be natural landscape - a portion would remain for farming and natural resources surely but the rest of the area would remain significantly natural.

"1000 Singapores as a proposition is dense, efficient and green. Visions of sustainability seem even more plausible in such a vision."

And he's right. With rapid urbanisation taking place all over the world, cities face the common challenge of accommodating extraordinary growth in a sustainable manner.

To do this, cities need to work out strategies and measures to balance social, economic and environmental priorities.

And it's because Singapore copes so well with these challenges that it's uniquely placed to teach the rest of the world how to adapt to these changes.

The Republic's unique set of circumstances means that it has always had to adopt land conservation as a core policy objective. Singapore has been at this for almost 50 years. Now the rest of the world is catching up.

But that's where the Singapore pavilion comes in. These events, primarily for the architecture and urban planning communities, are designed to give other cities a leg-up in the areas where they are found wanting.

So, in terms of achieving this goal, Singapore does it brilliantly by demonstrating the success of its compact new towns and affordable, high-rise public housing.

The fact that 80 per cent of Singaporeans live in public housing, with 95 per cent of them owning their flats, is an accolade in itself.

"1000 Singapores" throws up many other interesting scenarios.

If the entire world population could live on just 0.5 per cent of the planet's land, can you imagine what it would mean for energy consumption?

And travel? The furthest journey would be minimised to a 45-minute flight.

Around 900km would be the maximum distance end to end - around the size of Texas.

Footprints of all kinds - carbon, pollution and emissions - would be compacted in relation to current urban models.

Wi-Fi and high-speed mobile and data communications would be available everywhere with just a few transmission towers. And housing would be dense, diverse, walkable and full of the amenities that the world's population aspires to. Utopia?

A MODEL FOR OTHERS

It will never happen, of course, But there are many, many lessons to be learned from the Singapore exhibit. And although it receives no special mention from the Biennale judges, you get the feeling that the concept has caused something of a sensation.

To be honest, it was a pleasure to be in the company of such bright talents as Peng Beng, Belinda, Eric and Florian, and I enjoyed every minute of my time with them.

Even though I've only lived and worked in Singapore for the past 18 months, I feel proud that the city I have chosen as my home produces and attracts such incredible thinkers.

While Peng Beng and Belinda are at the forefront of the design and planning revolution taking place here, Eric - a native New Yorker - and Florian - a native German - are responsible for producing Singapore's next generation of architects by teaching classes at NUS.

Talking to me inside the pavilion, housed in a side-street building where Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi produced his greatest works, Eric said: "Instead of looking to Singapore hoping to find dirt, poverty and struggle as indicative of a 'real' urbanism, or the Orientalism imagined by the West, Singapore now represents the model that other cities the world over look to for strategic inspiration.

"In our exhibit, we have tried to show how Singapore is built for success."

He highlighted the recent Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize as evidence, adding: "Here in Singapore, awarding Spain's Bilbao as an innovator, the tables are finally turned and East judges West."

As is usual when world planners look to Singapore, it is the city's HDB scheme which continues to inspire.

And it is only right that Peng Beng and Belinda's Pinnacle HDB project is featured in the exhibition.

In many ways, it is the very epitome of the superdensity living the pavilion invites the world to consider.

The project became operational in December last year and rises 50 storeys on the edge of the Central Business District. The building itself has sky bridges, of which you can pay $5 to access and take in views of Singapore. It also has a public park on the ground level and almost a hectare of sky gardens woven through its seven blocks on the 26th and 50th storeys.

In fact, the 26th storey houses an 800-metre running track.

I congratulated the couple for beating off 200 other firms to win the contract and as we studied images of the building on the walls of the pavilion, you could not help but look forward to what this incredible team might produce next.

Peng Beng said that the Pinnacle will give the Biennale an opportunity to watch the superdense model at close quarters.

He added: "The Pinnacle is a model of superdensity and warrants deeper observation over a longer period. How compact can our urban habitation become and consequently how tight and efficient the network?

"Interestingly, an Internet community has formed among the residents to discuss issues and observations.

"But the Pinnacle does require that we imagine new architectural spaces and programmes that are attractive alternatives to the spaciousness and the individuality of sprawling urbanism."

So, I'll say it again. Well done to the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts and the DesignSingapore Council for choosing such a talented and progressive curatorial team.

They took this project by the scruff of the neck and produced something truly wonderful and thought-provoking.

They took a slice of superdense Singapore and displayed it among the beautiful canals and cathedrals of ancient Venice. And that was something truly worth seeing.