TRANSFORMING OLD INTO GOLD

Singapore can take a more imaginative approach to its older residential buildings, suggests regular columnist Justin Zhuang. The throwaway mentality must be reconsidered.

Singapore is ageing. Not just its people, but its buildings too. After five decades of accelerated urbanisation, many of the city-state’s once gleaming modern developments — particularly its housing stock — have reached middle age.

Peeling paint, leaking ceilings and creaking infrastructure are some common problems homeowners are increasingly grappling with. The solution for many is to move to a new development by selling their homes en-bloc. It’s no wonder many Singaporeans see their homes as property assets, a shelter built out of money to be cashed out later in life.

While wrecking old(er) buildings for gold seems pragmatic and even inevitable for many, it also reflects the lack of imaginative alternatives in Singapore. As architects and conservationists have sought to demonstrate in their on-going campaign to save Singapore’s modernist icons, there are creative — and even financially attractive — means of adaptive reuse. The city has successfully conserved historic buildings and repurposed them for new uses. Just look at how the former Supreme Court and City Hall were turned into the National Gallery. Nearby, there are also the rows of cramped and dirty shophouses that have been repacked as the entertainment districts of Boat Quay and Clarke Quay.

What’s different in today’s discussion is that many of the threatened buildings are private apartment blocks with multiple owners. For them, Singapore’s current conservation narrative suggests residents either keep their home as the building and lease ‘decays’ or cash in when the property market is hot. The government’s recent Voluntary Early Redevelopment Scheme for public housing offers a similar endgame for public housing owners: sell the flat when it reaches about 70 years of age or wait until the 99-year-old lease runs out.

A third way – regeneration by upgrading and transforming a property – has yet to be fully explored in Singapore’s housing sector. Such a proposal for Pearl Bank apartments failed because not all residents agreed to it. But there are success stories overseas. In Italy, the iconic Torre Velasca, a 1950s commercial-cum-residential skyscraper, has been revitalised to include a public square. Some of its apartments were converted for short-term leasing.

In France, several ageing social housing projects have been upgraded by Paris-based Lacaton & Vassal while keeping the buildings and their residents intact. In an early project, a new shell was created to envelop a four-decades-old block without changing its footprint. This resulted in upgraded common spaces, a fresh facade, and most importantly, extended floor space that also brightened up the previously dark and cramped apartments. The cost? Just over half of the price to demolish and rebuild the block.

While Singapore’s public housing has undergone similar renovations, the outcomes have been less transformative. The government’s Home Improvement Programme — which all public housing will now undergo twice in its 99-years-lease — is about upkeep. But what if architects worked with residents to come up with more imaginative options? Architecture can be retrofitted for new lifestyles and changing demographics, or even to extend leases and introduce new residents.

The redesigns can even vary across estates, in line with the government’s efforts to draw up unique design guides for all of Singapore’s 24 public housing towns. Similar efforts can be explored with private apartment blocks, ensuring regeneration is the first approach to ageing instead of the last.

As cities get older and more built up, the current throwaway mentality toward buildings cannot go on. Regeneration can be more sustainable for the environment and keep communities in place. While it is true that the old must eventually make way for the new, why can’t the new grow out of the old too?

Justin Zhuang is a writer and researcher with an interest in design, cities, culture, history and media. justinzhuang.com