Tan: As demographics and lifestyles continue to morph, the design of housing units will require a rethink
Tan Tiong Cheng, president of Knight Frank Asia Pacific and adviser to Knight Frank Singapore since April, has spent more than 35 years with the firm. Since his youth, the veteran property consultant has been fascinated with the transformation of cities, especially Singapore’s.
“Most city states have a skyline linked to the CBD,” he says. “In Singapore, the heart of the city is Raffles Place. Located right at the mouth of the Singapore River, it has been vital to Singapore’s fortunes as a trading port since the 1850s. It was where commodities such as rice, rubber and pepper were delivered.”
The transformation of Singapore’s CBD was slow to take off, as the government had introduced the Rent Control Act in 1947. This was done to protect tenants from rising rents and eviction post-World War II, he recounts. At that time, economic growth was slow, the unemployment rate was high and wages were low. “Inflation was also a problem,” he adds.
It was only after the Rent Control Act was lifted in 1969 that the first wave of transformation took place in the CBD.
The first three government sales of sites took place in Shenton Way in 1967 to 1969, which led to the development of the former Robina House (now One Shenton by City Developments Ltd); Shenton House which is a strata-titled commercial development; and the former UIC Building, which has since been redeveloped into the new UIC Building and V on Shenton.
Many new developments — from Raffles Place to Robinson Road and Cecil Street — also sprung up in the CBD in the late 1960s to early 1970s. The second wave of transformation took place in the Golden Shoe area in the latter half of the 1970s.
Blossoming of Raffles Place, CBD
In Raffles Place, the first high-rise tower by an internationally acclaimed architect was OCBC Centre on Chulia Street. It overlooks the shophouses on Circular Road and Boat Quay. The 52-storey tower was designed by I M Pei, who has just turned 100, and, when it was completed in 1976, it was considered the tallest building in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
Other skyscrapers that joined OCBC Centre in the Raffles Place district in the 1980s were Six Battery Road (completed in 1984) and One Raffles Place (the former OUB Centre, which was completed in 1988). At 60 storeys, the former OUB Centre — designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange — was considered the world’s tallest building outside the US. In the 1990s, it was joined by two other towers as Singapore’s tallest: UOB Plaza (completed in 1992), also designed by Tange; and Republic Plaza (1998) designed by established Singapore architectural firm, RSP Archi tects Planners & Engineers.
“The beauty, of course, is that you can see the old low-rise conservation shophouses in Boat Quay sitting alongside the new high-rise office towers such as UOB Plaza and Six Battery Road from across the Singapore River,” says Tan.
Focus shifted to the reclaimed land in Marina Bay in the late 1990s to early 2000s. It started with Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay, which opened in 2002 and was designed by Singapore-based DP Architects and UK-based Michael Wilford & Partners. The first white site in Marina Bay was awarded in 2003 to a consortium comprising Cheung Kong Property Holdings, Hongkong Land and Keppel Land. It has since been developed into the $4 billion Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC), with three office towers and two residential towers connected underground by the Marina Bay Link Mall. MBFC was designed by New York-based Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates.
The other development that has made the Singapore skyline famous is Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort by Las Vegas Sands, designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie. Adding to the allure of Marina Bay is the billion-dollar Gardens by the Bay and the Singapore Flyer.
“When it came to the expanded CBD at Marina Bay and Marina South, the challenge has always been how to integrate the old and the new,” says Tan. “Marina Bay and Marina South bring to life the work-liveplay concept.”
Focus shifted to the reclaimed land of Marina Bay in the early 2000s
Big change in public housing
The other real estate sector that has undergone a dramatic transformation is public housing. The first wave of public housing was in the early 1960s. In the CBD, the most iconic HDB development is Pinnacle@Duxton, Singapore’s first 50-storey public housing project.
On the city fringe of Queenstown, there is a new generation of HDB high-rise flats in Dawson Estate, featuring SkyVille and SkyTerrace units, as part of the government’s renewal of old housing estates. Today, even the pig farms in rural Punggol have been replaced by HDB flats, which boast park and water views as the area is transformed into a waterfront town of the 21st century called Punggol 21 Plus. “With the infrastructure in place, it has become a desirable place to live in,” says Tan.
The transformation of the private housing sector has been less dramatic. “Private residential projects are certainly of better quality and finishing today, with a wider range of facilities,” says Tan, who is on the panel of judges of the inaugural EdgeProp Singapore Excellence Awards 2017. “Developers are trying to match their offerings to changing lifestyles and homebuyer expectations. It has also raised standards of landscaping and sustainability.”
Restricted by high land cost
One of the constraints for developers is the high land cost and the requirements of the development guidelines. For a typical high-end condo, the land cost component makes up 70% to 75% of total development cost. For the mid-tier and upgraders’ segment, land cost still accounts for 60% to 65% of total development cost, says Tan.
However, Singapore’s status as a global city has attracted foreign buyers in the mid- to high-end condominium segments. This has spurred developers to raise the quality and standards of their offerings. “The projects submitted for the EdgeProp Awards are a testament to that,” adds Tan. “Many world-renowned architects have also changed Singapore’s housing standards and won international accolades, for instance OMA/Ole Scheeren’s design of The Interlace, Zaha Hadid’s design for d’Leedon, Sky Habitat by Moshe Safdie, Reflections and Corals at Keppel Bay by Daniel Libeskind as well as Belle Vue and The Crest by Toyo Ito.”
As demographics and lifestyles continue to morph, the design of housing units will “require a rethink”, reckons Tan. “At the end of the day, it’s about meeting buyers’ demand and expectations. And we have to think about how these will shape private housing in the future.”
This article, written by Cecilia Chow, appeared in EdgeProp Pullout, Issue 801 (Oct 16, 2017)