ELEVATED PUBLIC REALM IN HIGH-DENSITY HIGH-RISE PUBLIC HOUSING OF SINGAPORE

Back to Page Authors: Zwe Lynn Maung

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Keywords: public housing, public realm, Singapore, vertical urbanism

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Abstract: Singapore has embraced high-density high intensity living in their iconic high-rise public housing design with the implementation of elevated public realm at all possible levels for achieving social, environmental and economically sustainable urban living and to cope with typological and programmatic challenges and negotiations with a growing diverse user which is generated by urbanization and land scarcity. Although these provisional off-ground public spaces represent great design intentions, they are not necessarily effective to achieve a balance between publicness and preserving residents privacy and providing intense and diverse uses without generating conflicts among the users. This study explores evolutionary trends and challenges of provisional and informal elevated public space in different Singapore’s public housing generations, as an attempt to identify role of public space at higher elevation by adopting empirical research focused on norm and regulations, anatomy of elevated space, their relationship with users and urban realm and, consequently, the impact of all these factors on design decision. This study admits that the roles of the elevated public realm have evolved significantly since its inception, and is becoming an icon and extension of public space in the sky. It is also found that it caters to a wider proximate community compared to its predecessor, with its improvement of amenities provision in design while ground to sky privacy gradient still exists.

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