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