MAIN FEATURE


... glossy temperate models have been exported out of the West and are replicated all over tropical Asia, with many developers and corporations trading context-sensitive designs for climatically inappropriate, hermetically sealed, energy-guzzling towers.


Designed for the tropics, WOHA’s environment matrix opens up its internal spaces to the climate and nature in the form of breezeways and porous living skins, allowing it to breathe. Adapting from the first principles of tropical vernacular architecture, WOHA’s climatically responsive buildings are characterised by semi-enclosed spaces with shade, shelter, daylight and cross breezes in order for human activity to flourish. This breathable matrix achieves thermal comfort without being solely reliant on mechanical systems, therefore consuming less energy.


century requires more than a shift in technology to deliver solutions for a sustainable future. It demands a paradigm shift in our collective mindset. Changing deeply ingrained cognitive frameworks, however, requires hard work in education. For this reason, WOHA has been actively involved in running masterclasses with NUS as part of the Integrated Sustainable Design (ISD) course for the past six years. This extends WOHA’s investigation into self-sufficient cities by applying systems thinking at a nation-wide scale in the context of Singapore. The studios have demonstrated that if all of Singapore’s buildings and infrastructure are conceived and designed with the capacity to generate energy, produce food and collect water, Singapore can become self-reliant in meeting its own essential needs within its city limits (see sidebar of The New Paradigm). These concrete proposals have been presented to the local government, as a means to reimagine Singapore’s urban future. In 2016, WOHA published a manifesto—Garden City Mega City: Rethinking Cities for the Age of Global Warming (authored by Patrick Bingham-Hall)—to further share its ideas with other world governments, institutions, planners and architects as WOHA recognises that it takes wide acceptance, collective effort and global political will to change the trajectory of 21st


SELF-SUFFICIENT SINGAPORE The 21st


century urbanisation.


WOHA’s concept of a Self-Sufficient City is not a romantic utopian ideal, but a realistic vision of our urban future. This is encapsulated in WOHA’s design of the Singapore Pavilion for the 2020 World Expo in Dubai, which is a microcosm of a self-sufficient Singapore. With the theme of Nature, Nurture, Future, WOHA conceives the Pavilion as a dense, multilayered, immersive garden matrix that showcases Singapore’s innovations and aspirations as a biophilic and resilient city in nature. Adopting the Inverted Skyline concept, WOHA expresses the Pavilion’s form as a vast cantilevered photovoltaic canopy that shades three voluminous thematic garden cones that create an immersive oasis. This oasis is a self-sufficient ecosystem, which operates entirely on solar energy and solar desalination systems. Against the odds, WOHA demonstrates that it is possible, through systems thinking and regenerative design, to create an oasis anywhere in the world—even in the Arabian desert, and within Dubai, the capital city of commercialism. WOHA’s Expo Pavilion not only sets a new paradigm for combating climate change, but also offers the world a captivating new perspective of the urban future and a progressive yet buildable blueprint for a 21st Self-Sufficient Garden City Mega City that is resilient, liveable and sustainable.


century


References: 1


2 3 4


5 6


7 8


United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights (ST/ESA/SER.A/423)


Nature in the Urban Century: A Global Assessment of Where and How to Conserve Nature for Biodiversity and Human Wellbeing (2018) Stockholm Resilience Centre, The Nature Conservancy


Angel S et al. (2011) Progress in Planning 75(2): 53-108 The Dimensions of Global Urban Expansion: Estimates and Projections for All Countries, 2000-2050


Pimm, S.L., et al., The Biodiversity of Species and Their Rates of Extinction, Distribution, and Protection. Science, 2014. 344(6187): p. 1246752


Seto K.C., et al., (2012) Global Forecasts of Urban Expansion to 2030 and Direct Impacts on Biodiversity and Carbon Pools


United Nations Economic and Social Council (2017) Urbanisation and Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific: Linkages and Policy Implications


The Circularity Gap Report 2020 by Circle Economy The Systems View of Life, A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi FUTURARC 75


Richard Hassell is the co-Founding Director of WOHA. He graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1989 and was awarded a Master of Architecture degree from RMIT University, Melbourne, in 2002. He has served as a Board Member of DesignSingapore Council, the Board of Architects as well as the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore. He has lectured at many universities and served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology Sydney, and the University of Western Australia. As co-Founding Director, Hassell leads its project teams in design execution and contract implementation of innovative private and institutional works. All projects in WOHA are conceptualised out of jointly-developed schemes and strategies.


Wong Mun Summ is the co-Founding Director of WOHA, an internationally recognised architectural practice based in Singapore. He is a Professor in Practice at the Department of Architecture, School of Design & Environment, National University of Singapore. He sits on the Nominating Committee of the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize and other design advisory panels in Singapore.


Alina Yeo first joined WOHA as an intern in 2002 before returning permanently upon completion of her Master of Architecture in 2005 from the National University of Singapore. She topped her cohort in the 2009 Professional Practice Examinations and was promoted to Director in December 2017. She is the Director-in-charge of the new Singapore Institute of Technology campus.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119