Forbes Residences

Applecross is known for quiet leafy streets and neighbourhood charm. Inspired by its surroundings, this project does not eat up the leafy, green suburbs. The design keeps everything that is charming about Applecross – the Jacarandas dripping with purple flowers, the beautiful gardens, the backyards and barbecue pits – and envisages the building as an environment, creating gardens that extend into the sky and a seamless connection between exterior and interior.

Forbes Residences is designed, not as a stand-alone urban object, but as a three-dimensional “vertical suburb” that contains liveable, generous homes, shared facilities, common spaces within gardens, natural light and fresh air that weave throughout every level. The building reads as four organically shaped towers, connected via a series of sky gardens. It is expressed as a landscape, with residences akin to villas within that landscape and a façade inspired by the limestone formations around the Swan River.

“Hanging gardens” drape the podium form and extend up the roof. They preserve the garden suburb quality, create greater privacy, frame views, and enhance sociability. They also perform meaningful environmental services that benefit not just the development site, but the district – reducing the heat island effect, reducing noise and dust, preventing glare, and providing a habitat for biodiversity.

When the Jacarandas are in bloom, the building will be covered in a canopy of vibrant purple flowers. The leafy greenery that characterises Applecross will flow seamlessly through the building, capturing the essence of the neighbourhood.

Forbes Residences is a next-generation residential project, a development that generates greater amenity along with its higher density. It is a building that enhances its environment, enriching the quality of life for all.

 

Duxton Plain Competition

WOHA explored strategies of high-density living in a high-rise tropical environment, and urban strategies unique to the site. A central issue to the design was what Singaporean public housing should be. WOHA proposed that for subsidised housing, a higher degree of community interaction would be encouraged, building of community spirit. The design facilitated several scales of interaction.

At city level, a strong image on the skyline of the cluster of towers with hanging gardens was proposed. At the neighbourhood level, a strong street edge was made based on the shophouse structural bay and form, with commercial activities, a five-foot way, and the public park extended under the towers the popular Duxton Plain Park. This form enhanced the Chinatown busy street edge, while providing recreational areas within the site for public use. Views down the historic streets were improved by the rhythm and scale of the street-edge.

At village level, the “sky villages” were created – homes are placed in a high-rise community, linked by “sky streets” and “sky parks”. The covered sky streets led from the local village to the high-speed lifts, which brought the inhabitants down to street level. Sky parks were provided as places for recreation and socialising. In these common areas, people would be brought into contact in a natural way, and social bonds formed.

Huaku Sky Garden

Huaku Sky Garden is located at the base of the foothills of the Yang Ming mountain range, in the Tianmu district of northern Taipei. This project is the only high-rise residential tower in its neighbourhood.

The architecture addresses a very scenic view with rolling mountains as the backdrop and vibrant cities in the foreground. The building is expressed as twin towers in a symmetrical, interlinked form with thick columns. Earthquake and typhoon-proof requirements demanded a strong and symmetrical structural frame, which led to the architectural solution of a Chinese-inspired screen in multiple scales, from the oversized structural frame to the delicate metal filigree.

The façade adapts the rectangular asymmetry of traditional Chinese joinery and screen designs and possesses a delightful abstraction. It is enhanced by the depth of the recessed gardens on the double-volume terraces of each apartment. To ensure privacy between the apartments and to embellish the Yang Ming panorama, the slender east and west elevations are veiled with ornamental screens. The permutation and repetition of simple modules in the ornamental screens of this 38-storey tower not only express the beauty of the building, providing a landmark for the area, but also acts as a sun shade in the hot summer months. As the load is borne by the external walls, the interiors are column-free, spacious and uncluttered – a release from the congested city below.

The interlocking section is designed with three objectives in mind: The first is dual frontage apartments with views of the city and the mountains. The second is natural cross-ventilation, and the third is spatial excitement. The interlocking allows a double-height terrace and entryway despite being a single-level apartment. The double-volume terraces create an outdoor garden quality, underlining the ‘villa on the mountain’ concept and giving the apartments a grand view of the mountains.

In keeping with WOHA’s interest in sociable architecture, the ground level design provides continuity of the street blocks and an appropriate scale in view of the adjacent buildings and surrounding neighbourhood, with gardens, green walls and retail shops that interact with the streetscape.

2019

  • Green Good Design Award - Winner

    Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

2018

  • Good Design Award - Winner

    Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

  • World Architecture Festival - Shortlisted

    Housing, Large Scale – Completed category, awarded by World Architecture Festival

CapitaMall Tianfu

Drawing references from Chengdu’s natural heritage, Capitamall Tianfu adopts a geological metaphor that is inspired by the rock formations, peaks and ridges of the city’s famous Qingcheng Mountains. The integrated mixed use development is conceived as a gargantuan mass of stone, chiselled and sculpted to reveal crystalline volumes and facets with distinctive colours and textures. “Crevices” between the sculpted volumes at podium level read as narrow “ravines” filled with luxuriant vegetation from terraced gardens and cascading waters. Landscaped sky gardens are further extended up into the towers, multiplying greenery vertically throughout its height and making nature accessible to residents and office workers. An extensive Commercial Plaza on the podium roof gifts the city with an urban communal space, which is designed as part of a retail loop connected to the atrium urban spaces below, creating a continuous and fully integrated retail experience.

The Tre Ver

The Tre Ver is a unique tropical residential living located at the riverfront, with multiple tiers of landscaped decks, pools and gardens. The development overlooks Kallang River and is an integral component in the rejuvenation of the Kallang River Masterplan. Organised to fit within the irregular-shaped plot, the development comprises of 729-units distributed across 5 tall blocks and 4 short blocks, above a 2 storey landscaped carpark podium.

The configuration and orientation of 5 tall blocks and 4 short blocks is designed to maximize river views. The design capitalizes the river and existing line of raintrees as a 200m long frontage and extends the blues and greens seamlessly into and up the development as a series of gardens, terraces, courtyards, pools and waterfalls, creating multiple amenity points in varying scales and characters.

The development is connected by 3 key amenity layers – Raintree Valley (2nd floor), Village Plaza (3rd floor) and Sky Loft (8th floor), providing amenities and gardens at the residents’ doorstep. The residential blocks continue the greenery vertically. The short blocks are designed with tiered contours planted with flowering and colourful shrubs and trees. The tall blocks contrast as orthogonal forms with sky gardens on every storey, terminating at both ends of the cross-ventilated lift lobby.

Overall, The Tre Ver is a building-as-garden with a variety of common spaces to promote vibrant communities, sustainable living and a distinctive home.

Newton Suites

This 36-storey residential tower is designed to create houses in the sky. Residents come home via a garden lift lobby, and can use the cantilevered skygardens as spillout spaces as an extension of the compact apartments. For over a decade, the green wall along these sky gardens was the world’s tallest green wall. The design, integrating sun shading elements and creeper screens positions itself as a blurry, green, domestically scaled, and spatially engaging environment, rather than a sealed, hermetic, abstract object.

The area of vegetation exceeds 130% of the total site – this achievement within a normal commercial budget led to the planning authority legislating for 100% replacement green in Singapore, a policy which has transformed the city in the intervening decade. This first resolution of the skygarden with structure, circulation and plan has been subsequently adopted across the city, and now the region, in numerous developments.

2013

  • Asia Pacific Property Awards - Highly Commended

    “Best Apartment” category, awarded by the International Property Awards

  • Asia Pacific Property Awards - Highly Commended

    “Best Residential High Rise Development” category, awarded by the International Property Awards

2010

  • ULI Awards for Excellence - Asia Pacific Winner

    Awarded by Urban Land Institute

  • MIPIM Awards - Finalist

    Residential Developments category, awarded by Reed MIDEM

2009

  • MIPIM Asia Awards - Winner

    Residential Developments category, awarded by Reed MIDEM

  • 3rd LIAS Awards for Excellence - Gold Winner

    Awarded by Landscape Industry Association (Singapore)

  • International Architecture Award - Winner

    Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

  • Green Good Design Award - Winner

    Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

  • ULI Awards for Excellence - Asia Pacific Finalist

    Awarded by Urban Land Institute

  • FIABCI Prix d'Excellence - First Runner Up

    Residential Category, awarded by The International Real Estate Federation

2008

  • Design for Asia Awards - Gold Award

    Awarded by Hong Kong Design Centre

  • President's Design Award - Honorable Mention

    Awarded by the DesignSingapore Council and Urban Redevelopment Authority

  • CTBUH 2008 Best Tall Building Award - Nominated

    Awarded by Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, Chicago, Illinois

  • Award for International Architecture - Winner

    Awarded by Australian Institute of Architects

  • SIA-NParks Skyrise Greenery Award 2008 - Design Award

    Awarded by the Singapore Institute of Architects and the National Parks Board, Singapore

  • Emirate Glass LEAF Awards - Finalist

    Category: Residential Building of the Year – Multiple Building Level, awarded by the Leading European Architects Forum

  • World Architecture Festival - Finalist

    Home, Housing Category, awarded by World Architecture Festival

  • The International Highrise Award 2008 - Finalist

    Awarded by City of Frankfurt, Deutsches Architekturmuseum and DekaBank

  • 9th SIA Architectural Design Awards 2008 - Honorable Mention

    Residential Projects Category, awarded by the Singapore Institute of Architects

  • Cityscape Asia Real Estate Awards 2008 - Best Developer

    Residential Built Category, awarded by Cityscape Asia

  • 2007 Emporis Skyscraper Awards - Silver Award Winner

    Silver Award Winner, awarded by Emporis

No. 1 Moulmein Rise

WOHA’s first high-rise reinvents the tropical tower through re-imagining the curtain wall as a climatic device. Here, the bay window element allows the cool winds of the monsoon to naturally ventilate contemporary apartments even when it is raining. The monsoon window reinterprets in aluminium a bamboo device from the Borneo longhouses. The monsoon window is incorporated into a composition of repeated different functional facade elements – planter boxes, overhangs, sunshades – a design strategy of repeated, artfully distributed components which has been explored in subsequent projects.

2007

  • President's Design Award - Design of the Year

    Awarded by the DesignSingapore Council and Urban Redevelopment Authority

  • Aga Khan Award for Architecture - Winner

    Awarded by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

2006

  • ArcAsia Awards for Architecture - Special Recognition

    Category A-2: Multiple-Family Residential, awarded by ArcAsia

2005

  • FIABCI Prix d'Excellence - Winner

    Residential Category, awarded by the International Real Estate Federation

2004

  • ar+d Awards - Commendation

    Awarded by The Architectural Review

  • Cityscape Architectural Review Awards 2004, Dubai - Commendation

    Residential Building Category, awarded by Cityscape & The Architectural Review

  • 7th SIA Architectural Design Awards 2004 - Design Award

    Residential Projects/Apartments & Condominiums Category, awarded by the Singapore Institute of Architects

SkyVille @ Dawson

Whilst many cities are struggling to house their populations in humane conditions, this project sets a very high standard for subsidized housing, not only providing excellent homes, but setting these within a three dimensional matrix of community space to ensure that strong bonds are formed between neighbours.

SkyVille @ Dawson is a public housing project commissioned by the Housing and Development Board of Singapore on a strict public sector budget. Three main themes – community, variety and sustainability – form the basis of the design.

Each home is designed to be part of a Sky Village comprising 80 homes that share a naturally-ventilated community terrace and skygarden. Every tower is composed of 4 vertically stacked Sky Villages, with the 3 towers linked horizontally. Despite the 960 homes, there is not a single internal corridor in the development. Public space for various types and sizes of community groups are distributed through the towers and the ground plane, and are fully open to the public. The entire roof is a public park with a 300m walking track.

Sky Green

Sky Green a mixed-use development located at the heart of Taichung in a densely developed and vibrant neighborhood. The site is made up of two rectangular plots, one facing the main city thoroughfare, Gongyi Road, and the other facing Daying Street, a quieter secondary street. The development consists of two 26-storey residential towers with apartment units from level 4 onwards, as well as retail spaces. To connect to its setting, and the hustle and bustle of the streets, the building’s retail spaces are located from ground level to level 3. The shops have staggered patterned glass cladding to give an urban backdrop to the tree-lined pedestrian walkways and modern outdoor street furniture.

Away from the busy street life an intimate, serene landscaped courtyard greets the residents as they return to their homes. Above the retail shops rise the two residential towers as well as generous recreation facilities for indoor and outdoor activities. Both towers have deeply recessed windows and the façades are enveloped with protruding balconies with trees, sky gardens and mesh screens that serve as a trellis for green creeper plants. Landscaping is treated as a key material in creating the building envelope for the residential towers. The façade elements create deep sun-shading and the greenery acts as an active and living interface between the interior and exterior environment.

Large sky terraces at every five floors within the block extend the living space of residents from indoors to outdoors, creating a biophilic environment within a high-rise development. Every unit is visually connected to greenery outside their apartment windows. A series of open, yet sheltered sky gardens, terraces, balconies and planters create a breathable façade and visual interest, enhancing the real estate value of these apartments in a densely built up area while providing spatial relief to apartment owners.

 

 

2021

  • CTBUH Best Tall Building Award - Award of Excellence

    Residential/Hotel category, awarded by the Council on Tall Building & Urban Habitat

  • CTBUH Best Tall Building Award - Award of Excellence

    100m-199m height category, awarded by the Council on Tall Building & Urban Habitat

2020

  • Good Design Award - Winner

    Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

  • World Architecture Festival (China) Awards - Excellent Design Award Winner

    Awarded by the World Architecture Festival

  • World Architecture Festival (China) Awards - Excellent Design Award Winner

    Awarded by World Architecture Festival

  • 19th SIA Architectural Design Awards - Building of the Year

    Commercial Projects category, awarded by the Singapore Institute of Architects

  • 19th SIA Architectural Design Awards - Design Award

    Commercial Projects category, awarded by the Singapore Institute of Architects

The Met

Most tropical high-rise housing in developing countries replicate cold-climate models with sealed facades, reliant on air-conditioning. However, in the tropics, light winds, year-round balmy weather, constant temperatures and high humidity make outdoor living desirable. This high density (Plot Ratio 10.1) provides a model of a naturally ventilated, perforated, indooroutdoor, green tower, which is a necessary alternative to the sealed, glazed curtain wall buildings being erected across the tropical regions.

The apartments are houses in the sky with breezeways, full exposure to light and views, outdoor living areas, planters and high-rise gardens, and open-air communal terraces with barbeques, libraries, spas and other facilities.

Sky terraces, both private and public, link the blocks every 5 storeys, creating dramatic yet human-scaled external spaces. The building is planted on every horizontal surface, including private balconies. Vertical faces are shaded by creeper screens. All apartments are cross ventilated, and all face north and south. The staggered block arrangement gives apartments light and air on all four sides. The design makes possible living without airconditioning.

Thai elements– ceramic tiles, textiles and timber paneling – are abstracted to organize forms. The cladding reinterprets Thai temple tiles, the staggered balconies recalls traditional timber paneling. The walls incorporate random mirrored stainless steel panels, a contemporary interpretation of the sparkling mirrors of Thai temples.

2013

  • Aga Khan Award for Architecture - Shortlisted

    Awarded by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

2011

  • RIBA Lubetkin Prize - Winner

    Awarded by Royal Institute of British Architects.

  • International Architecture Award - Winner

    Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

  • Green Good Design Award - Winner

    Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

  • Green Good Design Award - Winner

    Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies

2010

  • The International Highrise Award 2010 - Winner

    Awarded by City of Frankfurt, Deutsches Architekturmuseum and DekaBank

  • The Jorn Utzon Award for International Architecture - Winner

    Awarded by Australian Institute of Architects.

  • RIBA International Awards - Winner

    Awarded by Royal Institute of British Architects

  • BCI Green Design Award - Green Leadership Award Winner

    Multiple Houses category, awarded by BCI Asia Construction Information Pte. Ltd.

2009

  • President's Design Award 2009 - Design of the Year

    Awarded by the DesignSingapore Council and Urban Redevelopment Authority

  • World Architecture Festival - Finalist

    Housing category, awarded by World Architecture Festival

  • CTBUH 2009 Best Tall Building Award - Finalist

    Awarded by Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

2008

  • 2007 Emporis Skyscraper Awards - Silver Award Winner

    Silver Award Winner, awarded by Emporis

2006

  • Asian Habitat Award for Planning and Designing - Winner

    Awarded by Asian Habitat Society

2005

  • MIPIM Architectural Review Future Project Awards 2006 - Winner

    Tall Buildings Category, awarded by The Architectural Review