Archisteem 16: Friendly Architecture Curation - The Pinnacle of Singapore
Today's curated project: The Pinnacle in Singapore
As mentioned by @numpypython in my post, there are currently 3 public housing projects that look so exclusive that people will take it as a private housing project. Skyville was curated yesterday and today’s I am bringing The Pinnacle to the stage.
This project is led by Arc Studio in collaboration with RSP which took place in Cantonment Road, Singapore. The project covered an approximate 253,957m² with 1848 units of varying unit sizes and was completed around 2009. The project will be populated by 8,000 residents, thrice the density of a normal housing! This is a proof of concept to create a high-density high-rise housing which fit the context of Singapore.
The conceptual illustration of how the sky garden is connected by the towers.
The Pinnacle held several records as a residential development which is situated in Singapore city center. The project has 7 blocks of 50 stories residential tower to hold a record-breaking 500 meters sky garden on the 26th and 50th floors. Besides that, the project also won several awards like:
- ARCASIA Award for Architecture under Social and Public Housing (2012)
- SIA Architectural Design Award (2011)
- World Architecture Festival under President’s Design Award (2010)
- CTBUH 9th Annual Award for the Best Tall Building in Asia & Australia (2010)
and there are some others too!
No one could ever imagine that an affordable housing scheme could look so gorgeous. Personally, I like how the architect plays with the façade designs which ultimately make the appearance of the heavy and bulky residential tower an art piece. The façade’s components are mostly constructed off-site and delivered to site for installation which consisted of planter boxes, bays, bay windows, windows, and balconies. The arrangement of these components along modular panels is inspired by Bach’s musical fugues. This explains why it looks organic yet appealing as it is able to reduce the perceived building mass.
To be able to host so many residents within a 2.5-hectare land, the development has to be holistic. Within this development, it has facilities like shops, convenience store, food court, community centers, education center, child care center, sky gardens, roof terraces and all kind of fitness & sports spaces for the residents to utilize. Moreover, the units available do consider the different needs of the home buyers like the newly-weds, a family of four or a 3 generation family.
In terms of design challenges, the site itself is an irregular and tight site that happened to be in the prime CBD area. Thus, the land use efficiency is a no tolerance factor whereby the architect is required to fully utilize the land to its full capacity (the land is extremely expensive). In addition to that, having a dense development means people will easily feel the stress if blocks are facing each other and have little breathing space. Thus, the architect created a porous design that allows every unit to gain sufficient daylight and also enjoy natural ventilation. This is indeed a great achievement.
Shared podium with facilities and connections.
As for accessibility, undoubtedly, the project has its upper hand. There are pathways, connections and landscape bands created to link up different places in the CBD towards the project site. On top of that, the Duxton Plain Park, a newly introduced park acts as a buffer zone from the hustle and bustle of the city. Imagine I am able to work nearby and get back to my home just by strolling through the park, it is just so amazing. I might as well stay in the park for some jogging before heading back home!
This is an illustration that shows how the architect plays with the facade treatment.
Getting a bit near to the building will not have such impactful visual effect.
In a conclusion, this HDB public housing project is indeed the first of its kind to achieve such innovation. This is a great case study especially for the megacities that have a problem with the scarcity of land. While maintaining the efficiency of land use, it is important to create a livable and aesthetic place for the people. Then only this is considered as sustainable.
Source of images used and reference article. Click here
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Hope you enjoy the curation. If you have any projects that you wished to be curated, do drop a comment to me. Any critics and suggestions about my curation are welcome!
This is an #archisteem post.
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The floor plan of the building is quite unusual as well, have a bridge inside of each tower and the internal layout of the tower are mostly hollow. Another approach for private and sociable living.
The density and site area allows this to happen, if not it is unlikely to play with such concept too. Through looking and learning from these projects, it actually helps myself to improve too!
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