VOLUME 0 ISSUE 2
In the last few months, Singapore has been abuzz with initiatives from the people who are trying to build their own space in the city. FIVEFOOTWAY profiles some of these grassroots initiatives and look at what we can learn from them about building a city for all.
Rail Corridor
Malaysia’s railway trains ran straight into Singapore’s city centre for almost seven decades, but this suddenly came to an end when the two countries agreed last year that the lands that the railway tracks run though would be returned.
The Nature Society of Singapore seized this opportunity to push its plans — first drawn up in the ‘90s — to create a “green corridor” on these railways lands, a space for the people to enjoy nature and a respite from the urban environment. They sent their proposal to the authorities and also caught the attention of the press and the people. Momentum to conserve this space grew as the handover in July this year drew near. Other groups like the Green Corridor also came about, helping to spread the message to even more people via social media.
This groundswell of support was acknowledged publicly when the government co-opted the leaders of this movement to become part of a consultative group to help it decide the future of these railway lands, possibly through a design competition next year.
WHAT WORKS:
A great example of what a grounds-up movement should have: a proposal with a vision, activity online and offline, persistence and patience, and a community made up of members from all walks of life. The Rail Corridor movement also benefitted from being one of the first around after Singapore’s General Elections in May, giving the new government the perfect opportunity to demonstrate its pledge to engage the community in decision-making. This movement has inspired the other initiatives featured here, and it will become the reference point on how future decisions on the city’s development can involve everyone.
FIND OUT MORE:
Nature Society’s Green Corridor Proposal and a timeline of the movement’s history
The Green Corridor: the online face of the movement
A member of the consultative group, Jeremy Chan, talks to us about the movement’s history and how it has been working with the government. Read it here
When they learnt their former school building was going to be torn down, Lim Li Hsien and Carolyn Tham started this campaign to rescue the former site of the Methodist Girls’ School, which is today home to a thriving arts and design community who know it as Old School.
In 2007, five entrepreneurs restored the abandoned campus into this work space for creative professionals. Spaces were also set aside and rented to arts groups at subsidised rates, helping the likes of Sinema, a champion of Singapore’s independent film community, to concentrate on development work instead. However, Old School was told by the government this year that its lease would only be extended to June 2012 as the site was needed for residential development. Furthermore, only one of the school’s six buildings would be conserved.
The campaign to rescue it has amassed over 4,000 Likes since it started just over a month ago. A petition letter has also been sent. In response to the campaign, the authorities recently said that not all old school buildings could be conserved. While there is much less “public” history here unlike the railway lands, Singapore will certainly lose some of its credibility as a creative city if they were to convert this space for the arts and culture community that is open to the public, into a private property for a few residents.
WHAT WORKS:
Similar to the Rail Corridor, Save Old School has campaigned its cause through social media, the press and also written to the authorities. It even has a chic-looking campaign befitting of the creative community. But a looming lease deadline next year gives it little time to capture the hearts of people. Moreover, while the space is important for the arts and design community, it is lesser known to the public as compared to the Rail Corridor.
FIND OUT MORE:
S.O.S’s Facebook Page
SAVE OLD SCHOOL
BUKIT BROWN CEMETERY
For years, it was just waiting to be re-developed, but Bukit Brown Cemetery reappeared on Singaporeans’ memories a few years ago when two brothers, Charles and Raymond Goh, started exploring it, uncovering a rich historical site that houses the tombs of Singapore’s early pioneers and even the oldest existing one in the country. Bukit Brown is also rich in natural heritage because it has been left untouched for years.
As the heritage community became increasingly aware of the cemetery, the Singapore Heritage Society published Spaces Of the Dead: A Case From The Living in June this year, a book to show the importance of conserving cemeteries in this city. Around the same time, other heritage buffs also started an online petition to save Bukit Brown and a Facebook group. However, the former gathered fewer than 1,000 signatures while the latter only has some 500 members currently.
The movement came alive again in September when the government announced plans for a new dual four-lane road that will cut through parts the cemetery, displacing some 5,000 of its 100,000 tombs. While this development has come together with a government-funded initiative to document the affected graves, it marks the beginning of the transformation of a space for the dead into residential areas for the living.
WHAT WORKS:
The movement has been very active on the ground, as volunteers and the Goh brothers have led several tours to educate the public about Bukit Brown. This has even led some to rediscover their ancestors in the cemetery. To shore up support, they could take a leaf out of the Rail Corridor and draw up a proposal on how to turn Bukit Brown into something that is relevant to Singapore’s future too. Although, the odds are stacked against them as the train station built in anticipation of future residential development is already ready and just waiting to be made useful.
FIND OUT MORE:
The online community behind the Bukit Brown movement
A digital repository of cemetery’s tombs started by Raymond Goh
This project brings the designer down from the pedestal, applying the participatory design process on a speculative development for MacPherson constituency. Over a period of six months from October last year, Jan Lim and Mizah Rahman invited MacPherson’s residents to take part in various stages of the architectural process — design, construction and post-completion — to help them figure out how to improve their neighbourhood.
The duo walked the ground to talk to residents and conducted several workshops, and they came up with two development ideas: a ‘community mall’ and a ‘play corridor’. These were then fleshed out into design proposals and were presented to the residents during MacPherson’s biannual Town Day. While they remained as ideas, they showed the residents what their neighbourhood could look like if they worked together with designers to create one!
WHAT WORKS:
The duo tested our various methods to engage people in the design process and the lessons learnt are important as more and more projects figure out how to take in everyone’s views. We think the participatory design process should be at the heart of all public development projects so as to give everyone a stake in the city!
FIND OUT MORE:
Read about how project was conducted and check out pictures of the final design proposals.
http://themacphersonidea.wordpress.com/
Jan and Mizah also tell us what think of Singapore in our Instant Asia survey! Read it here.
THE MACPHERSON ID(EA)
WALLS HAVE EARS
What would buildings say if they could speak? This was what Edwin Lim set to find out through Yellow Fever, a community project that has since been documented in a book, Walls Have Ears. The book was launched in October this year, but Yellow Fever started three years ago when Lim learnt that his old school Anglo-Chinese School (Junior) was moving out of its premises at Peck Hay Road.
Over two days, the engineer invited some 300 old boys, students and parents to write their memories of the building on Post-it notes and plaster them all around the old school. He wanted to show that though the building was old, it mattered to people and was a community’s anchor point. Lim also got the Post-Its photographed in situ, but it was only later that he decided to put the pictures together into a book.
Last month, when Lim heard about the Save Old School campaign, he collaborated with the organisers to spread Yellow Fever to Old School, and it is currently on-going.
WE SAY:
An engaging community project that very simply shows how buildings are more than bricks and mortar, but also vessels of memories. Requiring nothing more than Post-Its and a pen, Yellow Fever can spread very easily to any building and space around the city. But on the flip side, the Post-Its also mean there is little longevity to these movements as they can just be as easily taken down as they are put up.
FIND OUT MORE:
Check out the book Walls Have Ears
http://wallshaveearsbook.tumblr.com/
Yellow Fever @ Old School
