INTERNATIONAL: Singapore’s Massive M-F Complex Wins CTBUH Urban Habitat Award

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has announced The Interlace, a sizeable residential development in Singapore, as the winner of the first ever Urban Habitat Award.

The Interlace is one of the the largest and most ambitious residential developments in Singapore and perhaps the world. It was developed by CapitaLand Residential, a leading developer in Asia, and Hotel Properties Ltd., after designs by Ole Scheeren, a former partner of the Rotterdam-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).

The apartment complex covers about 1.8 million square feet of land, and features 1,040 two-, three- and four-bedroom units, as well as penthouses and townhouses. Amenities include communal gardens, pools, fitness station, clubhouse, tennis courts, gymnasium, as well as parking for 1,132 vehicles.

Its design is different than that of the usual apartment tower, as it turns the vertical into horizontal. The Interlace consists of 31 apartment blocks, each six stories tall and 230 feet long. The apartment blocks are stacked in hexagonal arrangements around eight large-scale, permeable courtyards. This interlocking design allows air and light to flow through the complex.

The CTBUH established the Urban Habitat Award this year to highlight projects with a positive impact on the surrounding environment. All the developments are judged by a panel of industry experts.

“The Interlace creatively realizes the potential a tropical environment provides for inverting the ‘towers in the park’ typology in favor of the tower as park,” said Awards Jury chair Jeanne Gang, founding principal of Studio Gang Architects, in a prepared statement. “By integrating horizontal and vertical living frameworks, it becomes much more than the sum of its parts.”

“The Interlace is far beyond being just a worthy winner of the inaugural Urban Habitat award,” CTBUH Executive Director and 2014 awards juror Antony Wood added. “It demonstrates dramatically the real opportunity tall buildings have for creating quality urban space at height, if we can only break down our preconception of designing skyscrapers as stand-alone, unconnected icons. It is no surprise that it is Singapore that has fostered a building such as this, given its recent history in connecting tall buildings with sky gardens at height. In The Interlace, we finally see the intentions of the Japanese Metabolists come to fantastic effect.”

The CTBUH is best known for its Tall Building Awards. This year’s four regional winners were announced on June 19:

• The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, Portland, USA – Americas;
• One Central Park, Sydney, Australia – Asia & Australia;
• De Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands – Europe;
• Cayan Tower, Dubai, UAE – Middle East & Africa.

All award winners will be recognized at the CTBUH 13th Annual Awards Symposium. The event will take place at the Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago, on Nov. 6.