On a recent stopover in Singapore, I deliberately sought out Kampung Admiralty – the World Architecture Festival’s 2018 ‘World Building of the Year’ – to understand the design elements of an acclaimed social housing success story.

I was not disappointed in taking the detour away from Singapore’s glamorous commercial and tourist developments to find a vibrant, attractive, and functioning community hub.

Located in the Woodlands neighbourhood, adjacent to the ‘Admiralty MRT’ – a Mass Rapid Transport station in the North Region of Singapore, Kampung Admiralty epitomises “the idea of architecture as an agent acting as an advocate for social and environmental sustainability.”

A total of 104 apartments are located in two 11-storey blocks for elderly singles or couples.

“Buddy benches” at shared entrances encourage seniors to come out of their homes and interact with their neighbours.

The units adopt universal design principles for natural cross-ventilation and optimum daylight.

Completed in May 2017, the “modern kampung”, or vertical village, features facilities for the community, including a two-storey medical centre providing specialist outpatient care, an Active Ageing Hub co-located with a childcare centre, dining, and retail outlets, plus a 900-seat hawker centre, offering a wide range of facilities and amenities for both young and old.

Designed with various deliberate spaces to encourage community involvement and ownership, it was thriving with people.

The complex proves that social housing should be integrated into a community rather than just developed when land is available.

By placing the elderly centre-stage, Kampung Admiralty re-establishes dignity for this commonly marginalised sector.

It adopts a novel approach to creating stronger communities, particularly in the context of rapid urbanization and densification.

The concept manifests in a contemporary kampung (traditionally, a Malay/Indonesian village) and has proven to be a much-loved destination.

The ground-level plaza is designed as an “urban living room,” enabling the local community to gather in many different ways.

Co-locating the childcare centre with the active ageing hub, fronting the green community plaza, creates opportunities for children and adults to exercise, play and garden together.

The proximity to healthcare, social, commercial, and other amenities supports inter-generational bonding and promotes active ageing in place.

Architect, WOHA’s design is a community hub and an integrated public housing project.

It is an important precedent that showcases the greater civic role and reaches of architecture in society, developed as a prototype to support ageing in place.

An amazing amount of greenery is embedded on and within its many levels.

In fact, 110% of its footprint has been covered in vegetation.

Over 100% landscape replacement was achieved through ground-level planting, greenroofs, and vertical green walls.

The eco-pond promotes biodiversity and provides a natural cooling effect for the adjacent urban surroundings.

The bioretention basin located at the medical centre provides a calm and therapeutic environment for patients while also functioning as a system to harvest, cleanse and recycle rainwater.

Kampung Admiralty has become a biodiversity hotspot, transforming the ecological value of the neighbourhood.

The diverse planting palette, including shrubs and trees providing fruit and nectar, attracts a wide range of species.

 Water features increase this diversity by providing alternative habitats and a water source.

A biodiversity audit conducted in July-September 2018 found 50 species, including 19 bird and 22 insect species.

Social Housing, when done well, addresses social, economic, and environmental issues and can be world-leading. Let’s demand with the future delivery of social housing, that we enhance our communities and heed the lessons of the past by integrating and not isolating social housing. 

• Mark Thomson is the director of Eco-Effective Solutions. He has developed a national reputation in Australia for championing Sustainable Design and Development as a practising Architect, Commercial Interior Designer and Environmental Consultant. He is a judge of the World Architecture Festival (WAF) and a director of Responsible Wood (Australia’s largest forest certification scheme) and Micah Projects (one of Australia’s largest not-for-profit organisations focused on homelessness and domestic violence).

Considered to be a ‘world first’ innovation, rather than demolish and rebuild the 50 Bridge Street, Sydney skyscraper, the project kept the existing core structure.

The expanded 1970s office tower has been extensively recycled and transformed to create the new state-of-the-art Quay Quarter Tower. A new façade, new building services, doubled tower floor plate size and new podium presents a striking design to the spectacular harbourside city. 

Reflecting on the WAF judging criteria, it is appropriate this project excelled in the strong competition field. WAF program director Paul Finch praised the skyscraper as an “example of adaptive re-use” with “an excellent carbon story”.

Cantilevered modules on the façade appear stacked and wrap around the tower’s five sections, resulting in up to 30% less direct sunlight entering the Quay Quarter Tower.

Builder Multiplex demolished and reconstructed one side of the tower, while simultaneously retaining and refurbishing the other side. Clever adaptive reuse kept 68% of the building’s core resulting in significant environmental and operational efficiencies. 

“By dividing the building in to five separate volumes and placing an atrium and terrace at the base of each one, the columns become smaller, more intimate social environments, making it easier for employees to connect and interact with one another,” Kim Herforth Nielsen, creative director at 3XN Architects said. 

The new tower repurposes the former AMP Centre at 50 Bridge Street, originally designed by Peddle Thorp and Walker and built in 1976.

Quay Quarter Tower began with an inspiring brief.

AMP Capital’s vision from the outset was to retain the original building and adapt it for contemporary Sydney. This was just one of 60 sustainability targets.

QQT had high ambitions from the outset requiring environmentally responsible architecture to be verified by a 6-star Green Star sustainability rating, 5.5 Star NABERS energy rating and WELL Gold certified health and well-being rating. 

Two-thirds of the beams, columns, floor slabs, and almost the entire core built in the 1970s was retained. These central aspects of a radical sustainability concept saved nearly 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide compared to complete demolition and conventional new construction tons.

Despite the deep office plates, three-to-four-storey atria created into the plan ensuring views are accessible from deep within, “democratizing harbour vistas”. This also creates what the architects call “vertical villages,” with visual connectivity between floors designed to foster interaction, exchange and engagement.

Executive Architects BVN worked on this extraordinary project for almost a decade. Engineers at Arup said 65% of the original building’s existing floorplates and structure was kept, including 98% of the original structural walls and core. This was estimated to save about 12,000 tonnes of embodied carbon. 

Viewed from the outside, there are no obvious remnants of the building’s 1970s predecessor. Inside, too, the tower’s two parts have been seamlessly ‘blended’, says Kim Nielsen at 3XN Architects.

“When you’re in there, you don’t think about where the old structure is and where the new one is,” Nielsen said. “That was crucial.”  

Quay Quarter shows a high-rise architecture can address responsibility for the environment and future generations. Contributing positively to the Sydney skyscape, QQT proves that sustainable and adaptable developments can be delivered commercially offering proof that world standard best practice architecture is not elusive in Australia. My spirits were lifted after experiencing and exploring this extraordinary development. 

• With extracts from ArchDaily and Architecture Au
• Mark Thomson is the founder of Eco Effective Solutions, a research, education, and design practice; he strives to deliver healthy and regenerative work environments.

The World Architecture Festival is the largest live awards event for architects and designers with Mark appointed as a leading judge for the Best Use of Certified Timber Prize supported by PEFC International.

The Best Use of Certified Timber Prize is the only timber category on the WAF programme and in December 2022 was awarded to the Spanish Paseo Mallorca 15 Apartments.

A beautiful project where timber is used innovatively to improve the liveability and sustainability of medium density units.

In 2021, the New Zealand based Scion Innovation Hub was recognised for its unique diagonal grid (diagrid) system manufactured by USA-based TimerLab. Diagrids are an efficient way to provide strength and stiffness and require less material than traditional structures.

• Find out more about Scion Innovation Hub: A Timber Diagrid Structure that Redefines Sustainability in Building Design

Mark, who was also judge of the 2018 and 2019 awards – won by the Australian-based International House, Sydney and Pingelly Recreation & Cultural Centre – is an experienced hand when it comes to design competitions having gained multiple awards for architecture over the years including the Courier Mail People’s Choice award.

In 2005 Mark co-founded the Centre for Sub Tropical Design – a collaboration between the Brisbane City Council and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) – promoting design that is appropriate for the subtropical climate and lifestyle of Southeast Queensland. As a past QUT Adjunct Professor, he has lectured and tutored many young designers, believing competitions are an important form of recognition, or ‘Industry’ certification.

There a growing awareness of the importance of connecting buildings with the natural world, and how the use of biophilic design and using natural elements like wood and indoor plants can bring the benefits of nature indoors.

Mark, who in 2017 became the first architect to be appointed as board member of a PEFC Scheme (Responsible Wood), is a strong supporter of third-party certification – stressing the importance looking beyond marketing fluff and instead understanding the product specifications.

And finally, Mark emphasises that timber is the ultimate building material. Where recycled steel is a high embodied carbon product, reusing a piece of timber makes a lot more sense!

• Find out more about Forest Certification: Understanding the Differences Between PEFC and FSC for Sustainable Forest Management

And with planning for the 2032 Olympics underway in earnest – billed as the first carbon positive Olympic Games – timber is the natural fit!

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Read more from Mark Thomson on the Wood Central website.

• Mark Thomson is the founder of Eco Effective Solutions, a research, education, and design practice; he strives to deliver healthy and regenerative work environments.