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.

Design 2050

As part of the ICSID World Design Congress 2009, “Design Difference: Designing our World 2050”, WOHA spearheaded a vertical studio to explore future scenarios for Singapore.

The task that the studio posed themselves was to make Singapore safe from rising sea levels while shrinking the ecological footprint of the country to the size of the island. The projects are testing new cross-programmed infrastructure, urban and architectural typologies to address the pressing issues of water, food and energy security. Proposals include residential power plants, multilevel factory / agri-villages, and resort dykes.

The output is manifold: With partners NUS, obilia and Black Design, WOHA created a 5 minute newscast from the year 2050, a complete (“commemorative”) paper-print issue of a newspaper of the same day and a whole series of memorabilia of the new world (t-shirts, calendars, postcards, etc). An exhibition in WOHA’s gallery complements the congress contribution and presents the studio projects from NUS architecture students.

Beachfront Destination

The development is a tropical high-rise 3-in-1 beachfront destination comprising of a diverse mix of retail, residences and hotels topped with sky gardens, recreational amenities, demonstrating that high density can be high amenity.

Flanked by a popular beach to the west and the bustling city to the east, the contoured podium is sculpted to form a porous, fully public and pedestrianised retail plaza to seamlessly connect the beach to the city. The tropical beach experience is brought into and up the building – from the breezy event plaza to the stunning infinity pools set in tropical sky gardens.

The project adopts robust passive design strategies such as naturally lit and ventilated lobbies, pre-function areas and access corridors such that these public areas become functional, comfortable, tropical spaces with greenery, natural light and fresh air instead of enclosed, internalised air-conditioned spaces.

The configuration and orientation of the hotel and residential towers are designed to maximize the panoramic sea views for all units with balconies inspired by the organic shapes and colours of corals, alluding to a thriving ecosystem of variegated corals.

Permeable Lattice City

WOHA participated in the Vertical CitiesAsia programme organised by the NationalUniversity of Singapore (NUS) as a jury member for the design competition held amongst participating universities and contributed a paper discussing WOHA’s approaches in designing for high-rise,high-density living in tropical/sub-tropical regions.

Based on the competition brief that specified a population density of 100,000people within a 1km2 site, WOHA compared the inner city centre densities of Manhattan, Hong Kong and Singapore and demonstrated that it would take the equivalent of 4 stacks of Manhattan City or 4 stacks of Hong Kong central district or 9stacks of Singapore’s city centre to achieve a population density of 100,000 people one ach 1km2 site. Within this same footprint, it would take 30 nos. of Dubai’s Burj Khalifastacked in 3.3 tiers or 67 nos. of The Met stacked in 3 tiers to meet the live-work-play components of the brief.

Resort in Rawai

The 270-room resort is located on a seafront site, and encompasses a small hill with 270-degree views to the sea, nearby islands, coconut groves, the Phuket Town bay, and the mountains.

It is comprised of simple, elegant buildings that evoke Thai architecture in a very contemporary way. The design uses clusters of simple rectangular forms, lightened by elegant screens in timber, and embellished with intricate pavilions with screens that emulate Thai silk out of layers of metallic coloured anodised aluminium.

The resort is organized around a series of public spaces that are placed along an axis that connects the sea to the hilltop. Each public space has their own character, which defines a neighbourhood of rooms and facilties. The floral axis turns the hillside into a living textile, changing with the seasons, and providing a stunning foreground to the azure sea and islands behind.

Agri-food production in Singapore

More information coming soon.

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 4th 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.

Melides Masterplan

More information coming soon.

Green Habitat Karachi

More information coming soon.