Friday, November 20, 2015

Urbanism: Go Vertical - What We Could Learn From Singapore

(Drivebycuriosity) - Rents are rising, especially in New York City, London, San Franciso and other popular cities. The causes are clear: Many people want to migrate to these metropolises and many investors want to buy there real estate. But these cities have just a limited supply of land. Therefore real estate prices and rents are going up.

But is the supply really limited? In New York City you can see a lot of new towers which multiply the number of available apartments per square foot (driveby). Going vertical seems to be the answer to the rising demand for the limited supply of land. But the new skyscrapers in Manhattan are build for a very wealthy clientel and therefore expensive too. There are cheaper solutions as you also can spot in New York City and many other cities. But these affordable tenement towers are often ugly and unpopular.

It seems that Singapore has the solution. A "vertical village" in city-state has been named the World Building of the Year (independent). "Judges at the eighth annual World Architecture Festival, held in Singapore, awarded the top prize to "The Interlace". The village, designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and Buro Ole Scheeren was praised for its “radical and alternative” approach" (image above). "The building contains 31 ‘stacked’ residential blocks and is six stories tall. Swimming pools, tennis courts, gardens and roof terraces are also featured in the village".

The image above shows that the "vertical village" piles a lot of apartments onto a relatively small piece of land without being ugly. Maybe New York, San Francisco and other crowded cities can learn from Singapore.






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