All of us must have heard of the announcement by Minister Mah Bow Tan on the desire to prepare Singapore for a population of 6.5 million people in 50 years time. Its impact on us as creatures and designers of the urban realm is quite clear – there will be new design and social challenges. Perhaps it is time to look at our role in meeting these new challenges.
Most architects and urban designers are probably advocates of densification, commonly citing aims of achieving more efficient land use and the injection of life into urban space. Often, we talk about how increasing the number of people in the area could augment the potential for a more vibrant urban realm. This move to prepare for an increase in population is perhaps something we have secretly looked forward to.
Also, with this projected increase, we are now dealt the question of how to fit more people per square metre of land and yet maintain a comfortable standard of living. Since it is unlikely that buildings in Singapore will go taller if existing height restrictions are anything to go by, we are instead looking at new forms of landuse planning, and possibly, redefining what we know of as urban planning and zoning.
Densification is not a new phenomenon and with a range of precedents from other countries to look at, it will be interesting to see what Singapore will become when the population eventually grows to that number. It is quite obvious that the future urbanscape will definitely be something that the country has never seen before. However, while we all have a certain repertoire of techniques to achieve this goal, there might be a more important question for us to deal with.
In Singapore’s social context, owning your own home ranks high as one of life’s priorities. This might have its roots from our early independence where the Government saw home ownership as a form of giving Singaporeans a sense of ownership to the country. Since then, we have evolved to become proud home owners. This is perhaps clearly manifested in the amount of time and money local homeowners spend garnishing their homes, furnishing them with the most contemporary styles and installing the latest in household gadgets.
Singaporeans are also always looking to ‘upgrade’ their flats from a 3-room to a 4-room and hopefully one day to a piece of private property in the form of a condominium apartment or a semi-detached house. In a typical Singaporean’s busy daily life, home is the haven and urban retreat for us, a place we can proudly call our own, where we are free to do whatever we wish.
With the news of the projected increase in urban density, we can hear in the distant background, talks of smaller apartment sizes and more communal facilities. Somewhere out there, one can also probably hear people lamenting about how the ‘old HDB’ flats were much more spacious as compared to those in the newer estates. In fact, the authorities have also projected that the average square meter per person might be reduced in the long term in order to accommodate such urban growth.
It is here that I am proposing that the real challenge of coping with a higher urban density is less architectural in nature and more of a mindset change. This is perhaps an issue that is very real but seldom discussed in architecture circles.
To live in smaller apartments requires some re-configuration of the mindset of the general public.One will probably have to reexamine the definition of home ownership and also the very notion of an urban lifestyle. What is termed as ‘comfortable and attractive’ lifestyle will not be the same as we know it today.
While we, as designers, redefine the built form and configuration of the home, is it enough for us to stop there? Does our role as designers extend to more than just designing the building but finding means of instigating the mindset change? Or is the building itself enough to instigate the reconfiguration of the mindset?
When Singapore started to clear the slums to make way for the first generation of HDB flats, efforts were taken to ease the general public into accepting this new form of living. Tours were conducted and many promotional and educational materials were created to facilitate this transition.
Fast forward to today’s context and we see advertisements and showrooms taking over this role. Pamphlets highlight the ‘modern living’ which one will enjoy when purchasing an apartment. Showflats are furnished in detail to communicate the home of the future. Television advertisements show rendered animations of what the future lifestyle can be.
Therefore, as architects, it might then be possible to envision a role as beyond being just creators of the built form and to take it upon ourselves to propose and portray the real lifestyle that might be possible for the future. Perhaps by taking a more active role in the creation of these promotional materials, the designer can use these as a tool for educating and bringing the discussion of future living options to the masses. While this might seem to many as going beyond the domain of the architects and into the realm of advertisers and graphic designers, I believe that these design boundaries are there to be dissolved.
As architects, we deal with the built environment and we should take responsibility for our addition to the urbanscape. Our work can be more than simply being mentioned as ‘a unique architecture’ in the promotional pamphlet. It should also be more than a mention of being ’5 minutes away from shopping centre’ but rather the potentials of being part of the urban culture could be highlighted instead. The promotional materials should be seen as more than a marketing tool but rather an educational tool for a proposed urban lifestyle that would be itself a genuine, tangible benefit.
In our quest to living a denser urban environment, we designers have a very important role to play. Perhaps, our responsibilities lie not just in the creation of spaces for this new condition, but also in setting the foundations upon which this new brand of urbanism will grow – [FFW]
