ARCHITECT’S FOCUS MOSHE SAFDIE
Featuring one of the world’s most expensive casinos and an infi nity pool 55 storeys in the air, Singapore’s $5bn Marina Bay Sands resort has been making the headlines. Architect Moshe Safdie talks us through the project
Marina Bay Sands includes a casino with four levels of gaming (left). The three hotel towers create an icomic shape (right)
How did you get involved with the Marina Bay Sands project? The Sands Corporation is known for creating fully integrated resorts that address a diverse set of luxury and enter- tainment needs. For Marina Bay Sands, they wanted an architect who would take into account Singapore’s forward- thinking approach to building and city living. For me, there is always a deep sense of connection between the envi- ronment, context, and building structure. They chose me because my buildings refl ect this design philosophy.
What was your brief? We were asked to design a 800,000sq m resort featuring hotels, convention centers, shopping, a museum, a theatre and a casino on a landfi ll site in Singapore.
What was the inspiration for the design? Marina Bay Sands is really more than a project – it’s a microcosm of a city, and it was important to root it in Singapore’s history, culture and contemporary life. The fi rst consideration was how to create an urban struc-
ture that would take all the parts of this complex project and weave them together. We didn’t want to create a generic mall but a place with the vitality we associate with great cities. Historic cities always had a clear hierarchy of urban place
– Greek and Roman cities were organised around the Cardo Maximus [the main street in the city, running from north to sound] and Decomanus [the main road running east to west]. The street, which has always held an important func- tion as the principal urban space of a city, provides a sense of orientation and location and acts as a focus of civic life.
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For Marina Bay Sands I explored a variation on this con- cept. The resort is organised around a pair of principal axes – a slightly curved north/south promenade traverses the entire complex, crossed by two east/west public spines. This integrates the Waterfront Promenade with the grand multi-leveled retail arcade, combining civic space, shopping and indoor and outdoor spaces with views of the city. We created our own Cardo Maximus; a place that’s vibrant and dynamic, and that transforms at night.
How did you approach the design of the outside space? I designed the green space as a series of layered gardens that extend the tropical garden landscape from Marina City Park towards the Bayfront. Every level of the district has public open green space and generous pedestrian streets open to tropical plantings and water views. The 2.5-acre hotel SkyPark is located at 170m (560ft) above the sea, cantilevering 66.5m (213ft) beyond the hotel towers. The park combines a public observatory, gardens, a pool and jogging paths. Shielded from the wind and planted with trees, the SkyPark celebrates the notion of the Garden City that underpins Singapore’s urban design strategy.
The architecture was approved by Feng Shui consultants. Why was this important? Given the location of Marina Bay Sands, I chose to sepa- rate the hotel into three towers in order to maintain a visual line to the sea. In my original designs for the SkyPark, I positioned it symmetrically on top of the hotel towers. Then I started playing with it, and shifted the park over a
ISSUE 1 2011 © cybertrek 2011
PHOTOS: TIMOTHY HURSLEY
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