PUN / Punggol Macro Development

How might a high density housing development break the trend of homogeneity and energy inefficiency while also introducing quality outdoor green spaces that foster community and engage a newly created waterfront?
Adopting simple sustainable design strategies at both the urban and architectural scales, aiming for variety over homogeneity, and reinterpreting traditional housing typologies in a modern context, our proposal imagines a sort of vertical Kampong, a layered greenscape for waterfront living.
Sensitive to the warm tropical climate of Singapore, the housing blocks are made as thin as possible and oriented along the sun’s path – an east-west arc that remains directly overhead for much of the year. This creates optimally oriented north-south facing apartments with minimal solar heat gain, and allows maximum cross ventilation, reducing dependence on inefficient and energy-greedy air conditioning units – simple urban strategies for passive cooling.
The serambi, or veranda, of the traditional Kampong (village) houses in the Singapore region served both a climatic and social purpose. The tropical veranda not only improved thermal comfort by providing shade, enabling cross ventilation, and reducing cooling load, it also acted as a casual semi-open social space that mediated between public and private, fostering familiarity, neighborliness, and community.