Landscape Design Contest For Punggol waterway

Source : The Business Times, May 22, 2008

Competition includes design of Punggol Town Park

FOLLOWING its announcement to develop Punggol into a modern waterfront town, HDB is also engaging with the private sector to design the landscaping of the Punggol waterway through a Landscape Masterplan Design Competition for the Waterway.

The competition aims to draw on fresh and innovative ideas for the landscaping of the 4.2 km waterway, and also includes the designing of the Punggol Town Park - a 10.6 ha land that will provide a range of water-based activities and facilities.

Tapping talent: The winner of the competition will receive $300,000, which will form part of the professional fee to be paid to the appointed firm or team

Besides proposing the landscape design development direction of the waterway, entrants to the competition can also actively participate in creating the communal and commercial spatial typologies along the waterway.

Proposals for the competition are expected to introduce new sustainable development concepts and features, in line with HDB's concept of 'green living by the waters'.

According to HDB, response to the competition has been good, with 17 firms registered as of yesterday.

Design Link Architects is one such company, and its director Mabel Goh said: 'We feel that this project is quite innovative. So far, waterfront housing has been largely limited to the East Coast side, but this is an innovative attempt to integrate the water body with public housing.'

Another firm, Atelier Dreiseitl Asia, which has years of experience in landscape architecture and urban hydrology, is evaluating the competition brief and its director Leonard Ng has expressed interest in the project.

'Right now, it's a clean slate and it gives you the potential to work out a complete approach to design, being sensitive to all the aspects of an urban environment. If that's taken into consideration, it can have a cutting edge design that integrates the urban fabric with the waterway.'

The winner of the competition will receive $300,000, which will form part of the professional fee to be paid to the appointed firm or team. The professional fee will be fixed at 3.68 per cent of the total construction costs of the landscape development. In addition, two merit prizes of $50,000 each will be awarded.

The competition is opened to urban planners, architects and landscape architects from May 17 to September 16 and registration closes on July 16.