Community in a high rise environment
Enjoying the last few moments together before it walks into history – Block 9 Ghim Moh Road Appreciating the obstacles to its emergence, the need for community in high-rise residential housing estates has always been an important concern of planners and architects. Invariably, every architectural drawing of a single blocks of flats will provide...
Queenstown – the cradle of Singapore’s housing development
Queenstown MRT Station signage and HDB flats flanking the MRT station in the background Picture adapted from : http://shutterventures.wordpress.com/ Queenstown was the first Satellite new town to be proposed in Singapore. It the proposed site for Queenstown was an amalgamation of acquired land from the Commissioner of Lands in 1926 and the villagers. The...
Place making and identity in housing estates: who murdered public spaces in HDB estates?
Almost Void Deck – HDB Serangoon © Übersee ‘Void decks’ or the vacant space on the ground level of each block became an architectural feature of HDB residential blocks from the 1970s onwards – as the ‘sheltered space in the ground floor’ of most blocks [Ooi and Tan, 1992], designed to fulfil a number of different functions....