The Wesley Methodist Church, founded in 1907, has grown over the years into a large complex from a small chapel. Our design for the refurbishment of the sanctuary clarifies the old and new by introducing a clear aesthetics for the old and the new.
We drew inspiration from the biblical reference of salt and light. The old church is enhanced with deep tones and natural materials with rich patina with its cruciform from plan clearly preserved. The new part is rendered as light planes with diffused lighting to accentuate the geometric planes.
We reinstated the altar to entrance axis by creating a brand new entrance to the atrium. A hospitality lounge that opens into the atrium is added together with a new gallery to record the heritage of the church.
The upgrading works of Tampines West Community Club give a brand new identity with a balance of community, memory and a sense of place.
Inspired by the angular shapes of origami and the colour of existing pitch roof tower, the bold red, brown and grey panels create a visually stimulating façade of the newly erected basketball court. The covered public space provides much-needed shade, plenty of ventilation through the porous façade and fans on the ceiling, and functions also as an event space.
Our simple addition of a covered public space fulfils multiple functions. It provides a totally new identity to the community club and creates a large event space for large functions. The large fans and skylight create a sheltered space for basketball and provide a spill out space for the surrounding programmes. This forms a vibrant public space where people are encouraged to meet and for friendships to form.
We see St. Joseph’s home, which provides elder care as a place that celebrates homecoming where the community comes together in common vulnerability and experience new life with grace.
Entering the site along a tree-lined ceremonial like driveway, the chapel ahead acts as a visual focus and landmark announcing the central arrival and departure plaza. Service areas are separate and discrete. The simple and functional form of the vertical residential blocks beyond is appropriate to the context and enhances the area with the nature interwoven through the levels.
The garden is a vibrant, integrated space, full of life where residents can immerse themselves in a stimulating atmosphere, actively sharing with all generations of family. A homely multipurpose hall as well can be used for gathering. Clusters of dining and living area accommodate wheelchairs as well as seated residents, carers or visitors.
The naturally ventilated and day lit open pantry, with the tabletop planters around the perimeter, becomes a serving space during meal times. Furthermore, residents could personalise their own private garden right beside their bed window. Viewed from the rooms, the peace gardens provide a calm, reflective space for dementia patients, as well as stand as monuments commemorating the lives of those that have passed.
The traditional waterway relationship of path, water and greenery is re-imagined as interlaced strips where path, water and greenery combine dynamically in varying proportions to create a series of habitats with smooth transitions in between them. We call this a Weavescape. Set amidst the new habitats and the Weavescape, instead of just a simple balancing water channel, it is designed as a community strip that combines a park, commercial and water activities to form community spaces that adapt to growing changing needs of users.
Weavescapes while providing a pastoral alternative to the high-density built environment incorporates permaculture ideas, in which natural systems of wetlands, swales and vetiver grass strengthened slopes are woven into the landscape to filter, protect and treat the water and the land.
Recognizing that the park is subjected also to external cycles that determine usage pattern, the park spaces are intentionally programmed to be multifunctional spaces. Whilst embracing the short-term changes, cyclical flowering of trees with a longer cycle could be planned in order to animate the landscape with a slower yearly cycle. Finally our proposal considers a hundred year maturity period by creating the Pavilions – a project that matures on the centenary anniversary of the creation of the park.
Our church is expressed as a jewel: the worship hall, supported by three levels of inter-connected socio-educational spaces organized around a large atrium-Social Dynamo. Like the metaphorical rock, a stream of water flows out in t he form of a g rand staircase to t he community and t he Social dynamo. Inspired by five loaves and two fish, t he central atrium i s a naturally ventilated and day-lit multifunctional plaza infused with trees, pods and kiosks.
A processional staircase with a skylight at the end, connect all the spaces in the atrium. Devotional niches are placed at the bottom and top of the staircase to constantly remind one of the Holy presences of God.
We designed a covered public space with a simple skin of vertical aluminium sections that would become the new identity for this community club.
The new volume curves around the corner and has two layers of screens, creating a noire effect t hat changes as one moves a round the corner. At night, the skin is rendered in coloured lighting creating a unique urban corner that changes with the season.
The covered public space has a basketball court with a fast food pavilion and small pantry areas. A refinished multi-purpose hall opens into this triple volume space allowing large gathering and parties to spill out. Large fans and skylight create a comfortable naturally lit and ventilated environment. On the second storey, a new courtyard allows the kindergarten and classrooms to spill out into an outdoor deck with a large rock-climbing wall. On the roof, the new culinary studio, together with intimate pockets of community-grown herb gardens are new additions to celebrate cooking and to promote a healthy lifestyle and active community culture.
An-Nur Mosque, with its iconic blue minaret, is a distinctive religious building and gathering place for Muslim communities at Woodlands since 1980.
By designing a simple roof over the existing blocks and creating a contiguous floor level on the first storey, we were able to transform the mosque into a universally accessible mosque.
A brand new façade gives the mosque a refreshed identity with better circulation and improved functionality.
A simple Islamic geometry was used to unify various elements of the mosque. Throughout the design process, we aimed to create a project that expresses the virtues of clarity and simplicity.
The mosque is also designed for use as classrooms and a community centre. Classrooms are designed to be multifunctional so as to open up to be used as extended prayer space.
New and vibrant community spaces such as interactive learning zones, rooftop communal and children’s play area, are created with additional pre-school, after school and counselling services to foster a close-knit community and to be all-age-friendly.
We imagined the National Art Gallery (NAG) as the new cultural that ties up the surrounding individual cultural nodes to form a larger “cultural network”. As such, underground shopping links fused with art, from surrounding cultural and transport nodes to NAG’s basement “Tropical Art Piazza” is proposed to provide diverse experience for the visitor.
To soften the uninviting and fortified image of existing buildings, a permeable strip of retails and cafes is formed on elevation with multiple entrances. The old and new is juxtaposed in a way that new spaces have less rectilinear forms with light and softer materials, contrasted against the form and material of the existing neo-classical buildings.
The permanent exhibitions, and cafes are coupled with temporary educational and commercial areas and interlaced with the path connectors for maximum activation of spaces throughout the gallery. To facilitate horizontal circulation for visitors and sculptures, a low-speed “art mover” looping around the central void is introduced on most levels. Diversity of volumes such as a six-storey-high void and qualities of space are offered in this proposal, so as to give curatorial flexibility and customization.
