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

Gilstead Brooks

This cluster housing project was designed in 2001, placing 28 houses on a site that previously had 2 bungalows on it. The houses are compact terrace and semi-detached houses arranged around a central landscaped pool. The site was conceived as strips that slip and slide alongside each other, allowing the terrace houses to conform to the irregular site profile. This detailing developed the concept at various scales, such as the sun shading and fenestration.

Client
Petesbury Pte Ltd
Location
39 Gilstead Road
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Status
Built
Design Inception
March 2000
Completion
December 2004
Type
Interiors, Landscape, Masterplan / Conceptual, Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
4780m²
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Tan Quee Lan Suites

The architectural concept allows for a contrast between the old conservation shopfront façade and the rear new lightweight steel structure separated by a series of courtyards. The front traditional shop-house structure contains the commercial 1st and 2nd floors for restaurants, retail and/or office, as well as 6 loft apartments.

The rear contemporary structure, which includes 14 apartments, was designed as a solid metal box with open-able aluminium panels and overhangs. The perforated metal panels allow natural ventilation and lighting while maintaining a sense of privacy for occupants. The elevated penthouse unit has views toward the city skyline.

Client
Dawnatron Pte Ltd
Location
9 Tan Quee Lan Street, Singapore
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Status
Built
Design Inception
March 2002
Completion
December 2005
Type
Conservation, Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
3,211m²
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Hua Guan Avenue

This house was designed in 1999 and completed in 2001. The owner collects contemporary Chinese brush paintings and appreciates works that feature strong, bold brush work.

The semi-detached house was designed as a linear stroke, a dramatic verandah overlooking a 25m pool. Architectural devices include folding, sliding, rhythm and repetition. The internal arrangement features the common party wall as a double volume gallery, lit from above by a clerestory window, and animated by reflection pools and the staircase.

Client
-
Location
Hua Guan Ave. Singapore
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Status
Built
Design Inception
March 1999
Completion
October 2001
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
577.75m²
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Maple Avenue

This house was designed to suit the lifestyle of a family with 4 daughters. It expresses the tension between privacy and openness through the alternating areas of glass and screening, and between the sensual and the rational through the use of curves and rectilinear forms.

The house is “split” by the void for circulation and staircase into front and back, and then brought together by the enfolding roof. The architectural devices used function on emotional, formal and climactic levels, such as the operable louvre screens allowing privacy, air and views to be controlled to a high degree of flexibility. Materials are treated as stretched surfaces of metal, glass and plaster that alternately enclose and reveal as they fold and overlap.

The interiors and landscape were designed together with the architecture. The interiors continue the stretched, weightless, folding and opening language of the architecture. The elliptical swimming pool raised from the rectilinear carpet of grass creates a shimmering focus to the garden, while accentuating the diagonal of the small site to create a feeling of space. Detailing throughout serves to blur the interior and exterior, such as pebbles and stepping stones used in the interior circulation and timber decks extending the interior timber floor outside to the lawn.

Client
-
Location
Maple Avenue, Singapore
Status
Built
Design Inception
March 1999
Completion
December 2001
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
570m²
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Cairnhill Road

Designed in 2006 and completed in 2008, 128D Cairnhill Road is a pre-war 2-storey transitional terrace house, originally built as a row of 9 units in a streetblock. Built in the early 1900s, the streetblock has a strong urban presence. The terrace houses are designed with simple but elegant plaster mouldings with a balcony and forecourt fronting the main road.

The client’s brief called for a naturally-ventilated house with light filling the interiors via skylights fenestrations and courtyards. The design addresses the client’s needs by enhancing the qualities of the traditional shophouse- the courtyard was celebrated as the focal point of the house that forms a contiguous space with the living and dining areas. The spatial quality of the shophouse is maintained by minimizing the amount of internal partitions, especially at the conserved main building. The main staircase linking first and second floors of the conserved building was placed along the party wall and detailed to be visually transparent to create a generous contemporary living area which accentuates the linearity of the shophouse.

The central courtyard with its water feature, green wall and sculptural planting provides a focus for the first and second storeys, while a new rooftop swimming pool and terrace at the third level allows full enjoyment of the roof and views over the surrounding area. The main balcony is used as part of the master bathroom. The linear staircase, bridge and spiral staircase create an internal world filled with spatial incident and surprise.

Client
-
Location
128D Cairnhill Road, Singapore 229712
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Status
Built
Design Inception
August 2006
Completion
July 2008
Type
Conservation, Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
338.17m²
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Rochalie Drive

This house is located in a quiet central area in Singapore. The concept was a “house as verandah” – a linear plan, one room thick, cross-ventilated, which opened up to the garden.

The house occupies an edge of the site. Towards the street, a series of walls, screens and environmental filters creates privacy. Towards the garden, the house opens up as indoor-outdoor spaces. A huge verandah roof seems to hang weightless over the terrace, and creates a tropical outdoor space to host guests, and a place for daily outdoor living.

The house is environmentally-sensitive, taking simple materials and traditional and vernacular strategies – overhangs, louvres, cross ventilation – into a contemporary vocabulary and new directions.

Client
-
Location
19 Rochalie Drive, Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
January 2003
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
944m²
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Victoria Park Road

These three bungalows at Victoria Park Road represent a new level of contemporary tropical living. The houses provide a combination of practicality, comfort and luxury. They project a clean and elegant statement in design, which compliments their pleasant garden setting.

The houses are well appointed, each with 4 bedrooms and separate living, dining, family and kitchen areas, which are placed like glass pavilions amongst the greenery. Internal glass roofed courtyards make every room a bright and airy delight, yet screens and louvres allow the light to be filtered to maintain a comfortable ambience. These full height courtyards make the basement level as well lit and ventilated as the other parts of the house.

Glass is used extensively in the living and dining areas with the swimming pool built into the house as a cool and calming heart. The careful integration of the internal and external areas permit the occupant to live in the garden and dine by the pool even without going outside. Materials and design details have been developed to maximise the spatial flow, space utilisation and comfort of the occupants, yet are simple to maintain.

Each house has a unique and individual layout yet the same simplicity, practicality and beauty of the design.

Client
-
Location
6, 6A & 6B Victoria Park Road, Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
January 2001
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
1070m²
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Linden Drive

Three young owners teamed up to buy an older single bungalow in Singapore and develop it into 4 semi-detached residences. The uneven site boundaries guided the creation of two pairs of similar but different units.

The brief required 3 bedrooms with attached bathrooms, guest room/study, living, dining, and small swimming pool.

To make the most of the small site, the houses were conceived of as “apartments on the ground”, with service areas moved away from the ground floor to free up precious land for recreation and garden views. This allowed the entire ground floor behind the front wall to be opened up to the garden as glass pavilions. Spatially, the ground floor extends to the boundary walls, becoming a composition of water, stone, timber and grass.

Above the ground floor, where privacy becomes an issue, the houses become increasingly more solid.

A central void created private internal views and makes a calm and peaceful heart to the house. The staircase winds up around a service core housing guest bath and utility spaces. The staircase, cantilevered above the pool, is conceived as an “Escher-esque” construction of folded planes of teak and steel, creating a sculptural focus. Electrically controlled canvas blinds can be lowered across the courtyard opening in bad weather, and when privacy is required.

Client
-
Location
Linden Drive, Singapore
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Status
Built
Completion
May 1998
Type
Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
1408m²
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Emerald Hill

This conserved shophouse at Emerald Hill Road, Singapore was designed in 1995 and was completed in 1999. Shophouses are dark and gloomy in their unrestored state, and the concept proposed to place something new within the shophouse form.

By inserting a clean new box within the enormous slice of space exposed by removing the internal walls and floors, a new perspective was created where the previously concealed volume could be read. The tension between the crooked old walls and the crisp new addition adds drama to life in this theatrical house.

Client
-
Location
62 Emerald Hill Road, Singapore
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Completion
October 1998
Type
Conservation, Residential Low-Rise
Gross Floor Area
380m²
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Typology: Residential Low-Rise