Urban Habitat - Single Site Scale Award of Excellence: 18 Robinson, Singapore
Stefaan Lambreghts
Associate Director
Grant Associates, Singapore
Teik Yean Chong
Senior Vice President - Projects
Tuan Sing Holdings Limited, Singapore
Interwoven Sky Terraces Tie a Tower to the City
The new 18 Robinson tower, with a landscape consisting of public realm and sky terraces, occupies a tight triangular site in Singapore’s Central Business District. At the end of a long perspective down Robinson Road, the architecture makes the most of its unique setting. As a starting point, the landscape complements the dramatic design. The tower’s vertical landscape rises from the elevated ground plane to the sky gardens wrapping around the central core, like wild spontaneous vegetation colonizing crevices in mountain cliffs. As time passes by, the vegetation will mature and fill out the voids created by the architectural volumes. The connected sky terraces have tree canopies flowing from one level to another. The final design result is a landscape that is beautiful in itself, and which derives meaning from its symbiotic relationship with the architecture and the surrounding urban fabric.
The public realm is gently sloped from the pedestrian crossings to the building entrances, creating one seamless and comfortable connection. The landscape details are kept simple and clean, as they aim to unify the sky terraces. The neutral hardscape hues and tones are integrated with the architectural palette. The natural green tones of the vegetation stand out against the dark hardscape greys, which disappear in the background. For all sky terraces, a seemingly random granite paving pattern was applied, based on the green-grey hues of the compulsory public realm stone. The new linear pattern of monotonous stones also takes inspiration from the geological stratification and the rock-like nature of the building. The result is a warm paving palette and lively pattern, but still very contemporary and in harmony with the overall architectural language.
