Can we build urban cities that last for generations

a lot of people say why didn’t you

continue with your father’s career as a

painter

my answer to them is very simple i’m

also a painter

the only difference is that my father is

painting is only a few square meter in

size

my painting is a few thousand

kilometer in size that’s the only

difference

singapore when the british left us

say in 1960 we were ranked

behind ho chi minh city behind yangon

behind manila was rated as one of the

most backward cities in southeast asia

actually in 1960 three out of four

people

lived in squatter areas you probably

don’t even know what is the squatter

area but

in those days it’s just all over town

so the government of singapore decided

that

we if we want to have a

sustainable city compatible

with all the other larger countries

we must achieve excellence and one of

the

signs of removing backwardness

is to remove the squatters and house

everybody

in housing and to do so since

the people in those days were very poor

we then introduced

public housing to build subsidized

housing good quality

housing but subsidized with affordable

rental and affordable selling price

that is a very important key to the

transformation of singapore so within 25

years

between 1960 and 1985

we actually got rid of all the squatters

we housed every singaporean into

public housing as well as of course

private housing

so that transformation is

very thorough very impressive and

actually

not many cities around the world today

can claim that they don’t have squatters

they don’t have

homeless people but we actually achieved

that

in 1985. that’s a remarkable story of

singapore

if you want to plan a city the first

thing to ask

how many people are we planning for in

1991 when we planned the city i proposed

to plan

for 100 years to 2091

but nowadays when i plan for other city

i

suggest that we plan up to 2-0-7-0

because beyond that really the whole

world may have to control population

growth

so it’s like planning for the ultimate

population science

because every city wants the city to be

unique

so for singapore and for cities i plan

i look for the design gene

of that locality to give it its unique

character

now what are the key design genes you

see different locality has different

characteristics

for example they have different climates

the climates

also affect planning and design and they

also have different customs

and that also affects what you put into

the city plan or to the design

and also some kind of architectural

heritage

for example in southeast asia

because of the strong sun we never have

very strong colors if you look at the

malay villages

the colors are kind of pastel color

why because if you paint very strong

colors

on the malay village buildings after a

few years

under the hot sun they all turn into

pastel

color and second is heritage as i

mentioned earlier every city

has its own locality conditions

so even though in singapore we have

sub-houses

but our sub-house design and the shop

house design

in malacca in hong kong they’re

different

because of a local influence so we must

protect

the our own heritage they’re very very

unique

and the third thing which very very few

people talk about

is density so as i mentioned earlier

the large city we must have a higher

density

and make the design more grand small

city we have low density make design

more romantic

so so if we pick the right density for

the

cities of different sizes when you

arrive at the city without even looking

at the buildings

you already know you’re going into a

different kind of cities

i told myself that despite the high

density

building high density city that we plant

we should not use high density as an

excuse for not creating a good

environment

so i told myself how can i live with

high density

policy and yet create a nice urban

environment

it dawned on me that you can have a high

density city with

a nice environment by using the western

chess board idea because in the western

chessboard

you have the black square and white

square alternating

so if we put the high buildings

in the black squares then the white

square will put the parks

or schools or

low rise shopping centers and so on so

in that case if you can disperse

the high density building with a lower

density development

you don’t feel the oppressiveness of

high density

so in the new town i planned it this way

and later when i plant

singapore the whole city i also

alternated for example some of his

darker area

is naturally low density and

not far from a historic area like

shenton way

we allow high density but when you’re in

center

you don’t feel oppressive because if you

just turn your head around you see the

sky

and that’s how singapore was planned you

don’t actually go through miles and

miles of

high-rise building you go a few miles

one or two miles then you go to a medium

sensor you go to the low density and you

go to higher density again

so that creates a variety of environment

and actually makes the city a better

city i realized that we should not treat

a city as one body we must treat the

city

as a family in a family you have

grandparents

below that you have several parents and

below the parents each parent you have

several children

so in a city like in singapore i divided

the city

below that i dive into regions each

region would have a population size of

around a million people and below the

region i divide them into

new towns each utah we have a population

size of

around 150 to 200 000

occasionally up to 300 000 people and

below the new town we have neighborhoods

below the neighborhoods we have precinct

that’s how singapore was planned

you see if you take a city like

singapore

the it would take for example

the commercial center the city this

the highest level of commercial center

is cbd

in in the central part of singapore but

in the region

i have regional centers it’s a one

rank below the cbd and below the region

we have

town centers in new towns is one rank

below

the regional center in other words and

below the

town center i have neighborhood center

so if i live in a neighborhood

i want to buy a piece of soap i don’t

have to go to cbd

i just walk to the neighborhood center i

can get it

but if i want to have a

kind of maybe a special dress

i may have to go to town center i’ll get

it

so we actually cascade them uh

in ranking and in a similar way in a

in a city i would plan for

hospitals in different regions uh

universities in different regions but

below that and new towns i would plan

for polytechnic

below that in neighborhoods are planned

for high school primary school

so we cascade the functions facilities

and amenities according to the different

family members

in other words if you’re a grandfather

you are very mature

you take care of the big issues but when

you are

a father you are still mature but you

cannot take care of

as many things as your grandfather but

if you are a son

you can you’re not depend independent

you depend on your father and

grandfather

you can take care of only certain

limited things

so it’s like that’s how a cities should

function

see if we don’t subdivide the city

into this kind of manner

and we treat the city as one city

the problem is that it’s like

putting the weight of five or six people

onto one person now what kind of person

is he

he is he he cannot function he can’t

move

you know that’s what i mean by traffic

jam i’m quite worried

about the fact that in today’s world

when things are changing very fast

people

say well we should not really plan the

city long term because

things are changing very fast what you

plan today may be different tomorrow

i should just plan short term i totally

cannot accept that because a city

is made up of concrete and steel

it’s a long term you cannot say oh i

built a

50-story building today and i accept

that five years later i pull down

for change circumstances it’s not

possible

but on the other hand you can ask how

can we

can we be sure that whatever we built

would last a long time

my answer is that if you spend time

studying the basic human needs

of a city and also understanding the

basic

need of the land for the city if you

spend time studying that

and find out the answer and you plan

accordingly then the city should be able

to last for a long time i just feel that

there’s too much noise nowadays

to say that the world is changing so

fast

and therefore we have to be we have to

go with the change and also there’s kind

of

believe that the more sexy sexy looking

the city in other words if the plane is

uh

have a crazy looking road layout crazy

looking

buildings that would actually

become creative i don’t go for that

because

if you live in a city what you want is

calmness legibility

a kind of i would say a sense of

community

predictability and we should never

turn a city into a theme park

in other words despite the fact that we

must be very disciplined

and create calmness tranquility and so

on

but we still have to create a city that

is enjoyable to live in so it’s fun

now once you know what creates fun for

the people

then you identify the functions to

serve the fund would mean including

education

cultural activities and so on so then

you identify the functions

and once you identify the functions then

you create a city form

to satisfy the function form follows

function follows fund is the guideline

for me in city planning and we must give

them housing

we must give them commercial centers

so that they create jobs we must give

them industry

and also schools hospitals

and even police stations and

fire station and sports complex

because we want the city people to be

able to

to live a healthy life and also

parks so even a small simple thing like

parks

we have parks at the city level between

in the region where regional parks new

town we have town parks

neighborhood neighborhood parks and

precinct we have preaching parts so and

the

location of the past the sizes of each

title

was also studied and kind of calibrated

and that’s how singapore is seen as a

garden city something to do with that

and on top of that we take good care of

the net

all these things were identified as

basic human needs and incorporated in

the

in the plan to plan a city well

i said you just have to remember three

things to have the humanist

heart a scientist’s head and

an artist’s eyes humanness heart

in a sense that you have to plan for

people

and land you have to create a plan where

people who live inside find the city

livable

and also the society resilient

land you want to design a city where

this the land is highly functional

and also ecologically highly sustainable

now the scientists had is that

to my mind a city is like a machine

for living now to design a machine

you must know all the machine parts the

sizes of each parts

the number of the parts that you need to

put together

and put them at the right places so it

is

a very precise science it’s not

something you just draw according to

your fancy

but to put this machine onto the land

we have to massage a machine so that

when the machine

is put on the land it would complement

nicely with the land

and will not destroy the land and to

help you understand that

so you need to have an artist’s eyes to

romance with the land that’s uh

how i always keep in my mind when i

in the city