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Urban Transformation Study Tour: Day Four

Day 4 of the trip was a later start for many of us including me due to sore feet and exhaustion. After getting up some of the girls and I headed for breakfast at fun toast and got the biggest iced coffees I’ve ever seen.

After breakfast we meet the rest of the group and Wilford Loo at the Housing and Development Board (the HDB Hub). Here we had a tour learning about the history of Singapore planning, how Singapore are creating liveable and vibrant towns and communities. The hub was first established in 1961 and the first project was completed in 1966. It houses more than 80% of the Singapore population. Singapore has some very interesting planning concepts such as the checkerboard concept, the neighbourhood concept and the concept of hierarchy. The Hub displayed many future developments one included the 3D virtual interactive map with lights highlighting the five districts in the town of Tengah these included plantation, garden, park, brick land and forest hill. There were also 3D structures of other future urban structures within Singapore. Another interesting plan included the Plan of Punggol. In this plan all the roads connected to the water, everything was within a walking distance of 500m and the LRT. Due to the HDB Hub being the place to buy public housing there were show flats of up to five bedroom much like IKEA.

The HDB Hub

We then went to the Pinnacle at Duxton an urban structure consisting of five 50 storey separate buildings connected by a skybridge on the top and middle floors. From the top we had an amazing view of Singapore. Along the sky bridge there were various seating areas, a beach that wasn’t really a beach and a rock-climbing structure.

The Pinnacle at Duxton

Our last stop for the night was the Gardens by the Bay. The first dome we went into was the flower dome. It contained many different gardens from all around the world. The other dome we went into was the cloud forest. This had a massive waterfall in it with many rainforest plants surrounding. The dome also consisted of various sky and tree top walks over the plants and waterfall. Lastly, we went to the light show at the outside gardens which was amazing seeing the structures change different colours to synchronised music.

Gardens by the Bay

After we headed back to our pods for a good night’s sleep and to prepare for our early flight the next morning.

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