50/50 City

This 4D masterplan explores how tropical cities can become places that answer the resident’s need to live, work, play and learn while promoting community and cultural engagement. The design aims to create a sense of identity while embracing an ecosystem of integration and systems thinking focused on qualities, beneficial relationships and productive networks to create self-sufficient, sustainable and sociable cities of the future.

The 2020 design commission was to create a new vision for defunct industrial estates in Singapore that develops a unique identity offering dynamic uses and activities. The emergence of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic during the commission pushed us to consider what the future of cities and the future of live, work, play and learn will look like.

The 50/50 city is a district designed to transition from today to 2050 and beyond, leveraging the evolution of technology to create a vibrant, liveable and fun city for people. The design shows how highly developed and dense cities can transition to the future, envisioning how society will move into a new and diverse mobility system with an outlook on how people will move through the city in the future.

The masterplan pushes boundaries, merging futuristic and innovative design solutions catering to industry 5.0 and beyond, within a lush regenerative environment. A key component of the design was designing the transition over time, where roads are dieted, and then eliminated, and nature is brought back in a choreographed sequence yet each stage is viable and liveable.

At its core, the 50/50 city is a response to the urgent need to rethink city planning and urban design, setting aside half the land to restore our ecology and biodiversity to help slow down, and heal the man-made global crisis that threatens our existence.

Client
-
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
September 2020
Type
Masterplan / Conceptual
System
Ecological, Economic, Energy, Food, Social, Waste, Water
Gross Floor Area
5,990,413m²

Self-Sufficient City

Self-Sufficient City is a design concept for a new town in Indonesia that is regenerative, high density, high amenity, self-sufficient in food, energy and water, car-free and has high biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The brief was to house 210,000 people on a 730 Ha site that is overgrown with secondary rainforest and constrained by a 60m building height control limit. A 3-Dimensional master planning approach was adopted to create a tropical ‘eco-town-in-a-forest’, retaining over half of the existing green landscape.

Four distinct layers run through the town, integrating regenerative systems into the urban form:

A Transportation and Services Layer that segregates pedestrians from vehicles. Town-wide infrastructure includes pneumatic waste and recycling collection system, district cooling for the industrial estate and combined underground services tunnels under roads;
A Parkland Layer beneath blocks that comprises Tropical Community Spaces for public functions and social interaction. The Parkland Layer prioritizes people with well-connected mobility paths and trams, and a safe car-free environment within public gardens. A diverse topographic landscape, with terraced knolls and elevated decks, overlooks forest glades and the waterways of the town’s reservoir. Pavilions and venues for meetings, parties, and community events are located on the reservoir waterfront, along with boutique-style shops and cafés;
A Residential and Workplace Layer organized into a series of Breezeway Courtyards that form an Inverted Skyline;
A Rooftop Canopy Layer that is both protective and productive, providing shade and shelter as well as solar energy and food harvested from Sky Field crops. More than 3km2 of photovoltaic panels installed on the Rooftop Canopy Layer generate a 40MW system that can support the fully net zero energy town. With the Inverted Skyline typology, all building rooftops are capped at the same height, which ensures that no energy losses occur from over-shadowing.

Client
-
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
July 2014
Type
Commercial, Educational, Infrastructure, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use, Offices, Residential High-Rise
System
Ecological, Economic, Energy, Food, Social, Waste, Water

Agri-food production in Singapore

More information coming soon.

Client
Singapore Food Agency
Location
Lim Chu Kang
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
December 2021
Type
Civic / Institutional, Commercial, Competition, Conservation, Cultural, Educational, Hospitality, Infrastructure, Landscape, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use, Offices
System
Ecological, Economic, Energy, Food, Social, Waste, Water
Gross Floor Area
363,895 m²

Carnival of Life

The project showcases the Singapore story, reinforcing core values and cementing

Singapore as a beacon of transformative thinking. We imagine an ultra-Singapore that we know but can’t yet find – an experience that is super lush, tropical and shady, a blend of eating, shopping, and people-watching.

The Carnival of Life takes everything we love about Singapore and catapults it into the most desirable future to become a showcase to the world. It addresses how might we live better, longer and with lives filled with joy and wonder. The vision for the Carnival of Life creates a stage to answer these questions, while creating the most immersive and innovative attractions in Asia.

The Carnival of Life is tied together via a whimsical ribbon. This iconic promenade is a stage for community life and connects visitors to a sequence of attractions celebrating the best of Singapore, centred on food, water, and health. It is a new free lifestyle destination for Singaporeans, promoting community and wellbeing

Diverse yet thematically linked attractions are spread along The Ribbon, a linear park comprised of delightful public spaces.

We envision the Carnival of Life to be Singapore’s 4^th Major Public Garden, creating a Regional Public Space for the North. Using Wonder, Multi-Sensory Exploration and Education, the Carnival of Life will be the most immersive and innovative masterplan of attractions in Asia, piloting and engaging global audiences in new regenerative ways of living.

Client
-
Location
Singapore Racecourse
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
February 2020
Type
Adaptive Re-Use, Civic / Institutional, Commercial, Competition, Conservation, Cultural, Educational, Hospitality, Infrastructure, Landscape, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use, Resort
System
Ecological, Economic, Energy, Food, Social, Waste, Water

Green Habitat Karachi

More information coming soon.

Client
-
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
March 2021
Type
Civic / Institutional, Cultural, Infrastructure, Landscape, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use, Residential High-Rise
System
Ecological, Economic, Energy, Food, Social, Waste, Water
Gross Floor Area
1,711,000m²

Future City Xicen

Xicen Country City masterplan presents a holistic solution for the upcoming development of a 7.1 km2 site on the southern bank of the Dianshan Lake, which is located in the Yangtze Delta area in close proximity to Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. The site has rich water network that takes up about one thirds of the total site area. This masterplan is a prototype for more livable and sustainable developments of the future that brings all the amenities and convenience typically found in existing metropoles in a location embraced by nature.

The proposed masterplan adopts a 50/50 City approach, allocating most of the urban development to the northern half of the site while preserving nature and indigenous culture in the southern half. In the urban half, surface vehicular roads are reduced to a minimum and the land is divided into a series of thematic islands in order to tap into the rich green and blue resources of the site, while celebrating the unique waterfront lifestyle of the Xicen region.

The Urban Core Islands have the highest density and programmatic mix with a district transport hub, civic/commercial plaza and arts/cultural center seamlessly connected to the metro and high-speed railway stations. The R&D Islands integrate garden offices, R&D facilities, and business incubators with residences to suit the future need of high-tech industries. The Residential Islands face the water and benefit from a natural biophilic environment. A series of Rewilding Islands are embedded into the urban spaces, allowing regenerative nature to render bioremediation and ecological services to the built environment.

The nature half is grouped into four zones: Eco-Tourism Zone, High-Tech High Intensity Farming Zone, Campus Village Zone and SME Creative Clusters Zone. By enhancing agricultural and energy production as well as inserting anchor industries and schools, Xicen Country City will become a selfsufficient and resilient urban typology wellequipped for all the future challenges and opportunities.

Client
Shanghai Vanke Investment Management Limited
Location
Xicen
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
May 2021
Type
Civic / Institutional, Commercial, Conservation, Cultural, Educational, Exhibition, Hospitality, Infrastructure, Landscape, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use, Offices, Residential High-Rise, Residential Low-Rise, Residential Mid-Rise, Resort
System
Ecological, Economic, Energy, Food, Social, Waste, Water
Gross Floor Area
394600m²

Future City Maqiao

Maqiao Future City is located in the southwest of Shanghai, 35 km away from the city center. It is the 20-hectare core development area of the future Shanghai AI Innovation Zone. The vision of this masterplan is to create an integrated new town as the driving engine for the larger region and a human-centric destination place that celebrates future live, learn, work and play. It will also be a demonstration project that aims to achieve carbon neutrality in phases.

The masterplan adopts the 50/50 City strategy, preserving half of the land for restorative and regenerative green and blue spaces and the other half for high-density high-amenity urban development, allowing a balanced synergy to grow between nature and the built environment. Programmatically it follows the same concept, proposing half of the development as residential spaces and the other half as a mix of R&D offices, commercial and community spaces.

Maqiao Future City consists of eight interconnected clusters, the Urban Core being the most dense and mixed-use. It integrates metro station, district transport hub, retail shops, urban plaza, and landmark buildings to create a welcoming gateway to the city and a vibrant civic center that forges a strong community spirit and sense of place.

Radiating out from the Urban Core are three Garden Office clusters with SOHO apartment blocks and various embedded business incubators that act as a physical and functional bridge between the urban spaces and the spaces left to nature. The waterfront residential clusters offer community spaces such as sports halls, schools, or healthcare centres.

A 3-dimensional planning strategy is introduced to bring things together. Vehicular roads, district infrastructures and services are buried underground, leaving the ground level fully pedestrianized and maximized for nature. Multiple landscaped ground levels are created above to facilitate stronger connection between clusters and further enhance the ecological system.

Client
Shanghai Vanke Investment Management Limited
Location
Maqiao
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
August 2020
Type
Civic / Institutional, Commercial, Cultural, Educational, Hospitality, Infrastructure, Landscape, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use, Offices, Residential High-Rise, Residential Mid-Rise
System
Ecological, Economic, Energy, Food, Social, Waste, Water
Gross Floor Area
791000m²

SIT Masterplan

Located in Northeastern Singapore on a site containing an existing secondary rainforest, the new Singapore Institute of Technology Campus is envisaged as a fenceless campus with a publicly accessible ground plane containing community facilities and a new public park. The academic blocks are raised above this ground plane in a courtyard configuration to preserve a large portion of the existing trees at the centre of the campus and facilitate seamless connectivity between academic facilities.

This project adopts a 3D layered masterplanning approach, organised into four distinct strata. To create a fully walkable and car-lite precinct with a targeted public-to-private transportation mode share of 80:20, a superblock approach is adopted, supported by integrated major public transport facilities. A ‘vehicular and servicing layer’ contains car parking, servicing access, and district-level services within basements/partial grade.

This is overlaid by a fully public, porous and pedestrianised ‘community park layer’ that encourages active mobility through seamless connectivity and activated public spaces from the town centre to the waterfront Market Village. Above ground, an inter-connected ‘academic and office layer’ comprises shared classrooms, labs and business park spaces. On the rooftop, a ‘tropical umbrella layer’ is made productive by incorporating large scale PV arrays and urban farms that can offset 20% of the development’s energy consumption and feed 100% of the development’s population their daily ration of greens.

The entire campus is organised around a central 2Ha community park, which preserves an existing mature secondary rainforest. As a major public node at the intersection of two community spines, the park forms the heart of the campus, giving it an imageable identity and a strong sense of place. Strategic placement of the community park allows SIT to share this community space with both the adjacent business park and the surrounding residents while fostering industry-institution integration through a park level ‘Campus Boulevard’ and an elevated ‘Collaboration Loop’.

Client
Singapore Institute of Technology
Location
New Punggol Road
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
July 2014
Type
Commercial, Educational, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use, Offices
System
Ecological, Economic, Energy, Social
Gross Floor Area
463,842m²
E-brochure Download

NS Square

NS Square will replace the existing Float @ Marina Bay as an event venue featuring a National Service-themed gallery, community sports facilities and a public waterfront promenade.

A new permanent stage deck will replace the existing floating platform, with a grandstand of 30,000 seats curving around the stage to provide an uninterrupted line-of-sight as well as bring spectators closer to the ‘action’. The space can be configured for events of different scales and types, such as concerts, performances, sporting activities and competitions. When not in use for events, the stage will be transformed into multi-purpose space for community activities. The public can enjoy a new waterfront promenade in front of the stage that will form part of the continuous loop around Marina Bay.

Leveraging on the unique waterfront location, NS Square will feature a water sports facility to support dragon boating, canoeing and kayaking. There will also be a swimming pool and water play areas for the public to enjoy. The development will incorporate a gallery that showcases Singapore’s National Service story in a mix of open and enclosed exhibition spaces.

NS Square will be the central focus Singapore’s new downtown and reinforces its identity as a vibrant, resilient and sustainable city state.

Video
NS Square: Flythrough

Client
Ministry of National Development (MND) and the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF)
Location
Marina Bay, Singapore
See on Google Maps
Status
Under construction
Design Inception
January 2020
Type
Civic / Institutional, Commercial, Cultural, Exhibition, Interiors, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use
System
Ecological, Economic, Social
E-brochure Download

OCT Kunming

Scheme for a mixed-use headquarters complex with office, residential, hospitality and commercial components.

Client
-
Location
Kunming, Yunnan Province, China
Status
Unbuilt
Design Inception
May 2019
Type
Commercial, Hospitality, Masterplan / Conceptual, Mixed-Use, Offices, Residential High-Rise
System
Ecological, Economic, Social
Gross Floor Area
95,900m²

System: Economic

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