Condominium at Yishun, Singapore

Project Description

As the condominium is located next to a reservoir, we adopted a landscape strategy that employs the use of water bodies as a lifestyle element, and as a sub-plot, we generated much of our design by re-interpreting the elements from the traditional Chinese Garden.

One of the main issue we were confronted with was a 200-metre long, 4-storey high multi-storey car-park that many of the lower level residential units had to look at. Instead of using the conventional method of beautifying the wall with expensive stone materials or water-walls, we adopted the light-handed strategy of distraction away from the façade. The façade was lightly veiled, first with metal mesh in an accordion format, then with tall, swaying eucalyptus trees, which appear like tall willows. Four numbers of multi-leveled `pavilions’, which also house the escape staircases of the car-park building, form aesthetic architectural elements that draw focus unto themselves. In the middle ground are reflection ponds with willow trees randomly located as a layering strategy. Dry rock gardens with the occasional shade-loving trees are then positioned just outside the apartments as foreground elements. The narrow space between the apartments and the car-park building is thus layered effectively, and visually `widened’. With the foreground, middle-ground and backdrop elements choreographed as a rich ensemble of dry and water garden scene, the car-park building fades from one’s memory. The project was carried out in collaboration with Base6.