A New Babylon: The Singapore Gardens by the Bayby Stanley Collyer
All photos by Olha Romaniuk In 2006, Singapore staged a competition for a new park on the bay spanning 250 acres. At the edge of the city’s downtown, it was intended to become Singapore’s premier urban outdoor recreation space and a national icon. In essence, what the client was looking for was a botanical garden with an element of adventure added to the mix.
The competition attracted more than 70 entries from 170 firms.
The initial shortlisted firms were:
- Ah’bé Landscape Architects (USA)
- Alsop Design Ltd (UK)
- EDAW Australia Pty Ltd (Australia)
- Field Operations (USA) in collaboration with Foster & Partners (UK)
- Grant Associates (UK) in collaboration with Atelier One (UK), Land Design Studios (UK), and Wilkinson Eyre Architects (UK)
- Gustafson Porter Ltd (UK)
- Office For Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) (The Netherlands)
- Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop (Japan)
- Sasaki Associates, Inc. (USA)
- WIN Landscape Planning & Design Pte Ltd (Japan)
From these Grant Associates and Gustafson Porter were eventually awarded the master plan design for the Bay South and Bay East Gardens respectively. The first phase of the Bay East Gardens opened to the public in October 2011. Featured were a series of leaf-shaped gardens, each with its own specific landscaping design. Wind and water have been introduced into the site to provide a cooling effect.
The largest of the three Gardens, Bay South Garden, opened to the public in June 2012. Due to the inclusion of some significant structural objects, Grant Associates brought Wilkinson Eyre and structural engineers, Atelier 10, onto their team. The result has been nothing less than sensational. The team enhanced the garden experience with “Supertrees,” 25 to 50 meters in height, as well as two conservatory buildings. The Supertrees provide shade in the day and come alive with a display of light and sound at night. In addition, over 160 plants comprising more than 200 species adorn many of the Supertrees at the top of the canopy. To top it all off, one can enjoy the surrounding view from a café atop the highest Supertree.
There will always be speculation as to the origin of some designs. Could it be that Marks Barfield’s design for the 2010 English pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 Expo owed something to the Supertrees design?
Since the Gardens are being developed in phases, one wonders if there are more surprises like this around the corner. If so, this could well be this decades answer to the Bilbao effect, except that here the subject is a park setting If we use the sculpture park as a point of departure, this has taken the idea of a public garden to a whole new level.
Olha Romaniuk, who received her M Arch degree from the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Art, Architecture, and Planning, and a former intern with COMPETITIONS, is presently with Gallagher and Associates’ office in Singapore. |
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Competition 
Image: ©KPMB Architects
Not to be outdone by other Canadian provincial capitals, Halifax has chosen to make its own ambitious museum statement on the city’s waterfront. New museums in Vancouver, BC, Calgary and Fredericton, New Brunswick, the latter two by KPMB Architects, are either in development or already under construction. Saskatoon’s Remai Modern by KPMB and OMA’s Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Montréal were more recently completed, and Vancouver’s new Art Museum by Herzog & de Meuron is still under development. Read more… Young Architects in Competitions When Competitions and a New Generation of Ideas Elevate Architectural Quality
by Jean-Pierre Chupin and G. Stanley Collyer
published by Potential Architecture Books, Montreal, Canada 2020
271 illustrations in color and black & white
Available in PDF and eBook formats
ISBN 9781988962047
What do the Vietnam Memorial, the St. Louis Arch, and the Sydney Opera House have in common? These world renowned landmarks were all designed by architects under the age of 40, and in each case they were selected through open competitions. At their best, design competitions can provide a singular opportunity for young and unknown architects to make their mark on the built environment and launch productive, fruitful careers. But what happens when design competitions are engineered to favor the established and experienced practitioners from the very outset? This comprehensive new book written by Jean-Pierre Chupin (Canadian Competitions Catalogue) and Stanley Collyer (COMPETITIONS) highlights for the crucial role competitions have played in fostering the careers of young architects, and makes an argument against the trend of invited competitions and RFQs. The authors take an in-depth look at past competitions won by young architects and planners, and survey the state of competitions through the world on a region by region basis. The end result is a compelling argument for an inclusive approach to conducting international design competitions. Download Young Architects in Competitions for free at the following link: https://crc.umontreal.ca/en/publications-libre-acces/ Urban Adaptation Competition
Image ©Francesco Allaixand Julio Orduña
Recently we are beginning to see a resurgence of wood as a primary building material, not only for detached residential housing, but also for multi-family and commercial urban structures. Masonry, steel, and composite materials are still the bread and butter of the construction industry; but wood may be making serious inroads into the future of commercial buildings. Yes, we have seen the use of wood in interiors of large buildings: one of the more impressive projects being that of the Christ the Light Cathedral by SOM in Oakland, California. Read more…
Aerial view of site – Courtesy National Finnish Museum
When major cultural institutions in Finland plan a new building project, one can almost always assume that an open competition will be the vehicle by which the client settles on the building’s design. The only question is, will this be organized in a format open to local, Scandinavian, or international architects. In the case of the National Museum of Finland annex competition, it was open to architects throughout the world — resulting in 185 entries. Read more…
The Opening of Taichung’s Central Park by Catherine Mosbach/Philippe Rahm
View from the south with downtown Taichung in the distance image: ©Mosbach/Rahm
The abandonment and closing of airports, including decommissioning those that were used for military purposes, has presented design communities with several opportunities to convert them entirely to civilian purposes. Notable among those which have been the result of competitions are Orange County Great Park, Irvine, California (Ken Smith Landscape Architects), The Estonian National Museum (Dan Dorell, Lina Ghotmeh and Tsuyoshi Tane), and Toronto’s less successful Downsview Park competition, whereby the winning design by OMA, with trees as the primary feature, has been basically ignored. Instead, the area has become the site of numerous commercial and residential projects.
Read more…
|
