Grant Associates and Gustafson Porter have won an international competition, organised by Singapore’s National Parks Board, to design Gardens by the Bay, part of the next phase of the city’s masterplan. The gardens will occupy 101 hectares of prime land by the water and will become part of Marina Bay.
Leading international landscape architects Gustafson Porter ( London) have jointly won a competition to design one of three garden areas on the waterfront in Singapore. The Competition drew more than 70 entries submitted by 170 firms from 24 countries worldwide.
At the final stage of the Competition, eight short-listed teams submitted a Master Plan design for the Gardens. The designs were judged by a Jury, comprising international and local senior members of the architecture and landscape architecture community, the CEOs of NParks, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and the Public Utilities Board (PUB).
The two design teams are:
1. Gustafson Porter, Ove Arup, Davis Langdon & Deah Singapore Pte Ltd
2. Grant Associates, Wilkinson Eyre Architects, Atelier One, Atelier Ten, Land Design Studios, Meinhardt Infrastructure Pte Ltd, Davis Langdon & Seah Singapore Pte Ltd
Neil Porter adds: “We are delighted to have been chosen as joint winners of this prestigious competition. The Gardens by the Bay project will create a garden in the very heart of Singapore – our aim is to create a scheme that will set new standards for gardens and parks in the future, a scheme that will become a major milestone in landscape and urban park design. Singapore’s character is defined by its lush tropical greenness, its hot and humid climate, its layers of vibrancy, texture and colour. It is a truly intricate, multi cultural, dense yet spatially permeable city. We wish to create a garden that is as spatially and atmospherically rich as the city that surrounds it.”
Gustafson Porter’s scheme will include the following key features:
* A water theme – capitalising on the view of the city skyline + reinforcing / creating the intimate relationship between the Bay and the Garden.
* Water gardens – Water permeates the aesthetic of the Gardens in many ways, from the scale of the Bay and impressive skyline views to its boating activities and the intimate relationship with its shorelines.
* Food Gardens – with rice paddies and pools of water chestnut and lotus descending down to the water’s edge where marginal and aquatic plants merge with the shoreline. Here, eating and planting will be themed and developed with attractions that explore the planting contexts of the tropical regions.
* Aquadetum – an applied research and edutainment centre that will tell the story of water in nature, and teach in a creative and interactive manner the symbiotic relationship between plants, animals and water in an aquatic ecosystem.
* Water Arena- the Boat House Piazza ramps to the water’s edge allowing access to the Bay for recreational water activities.
The first phase of the gardens is scheduled to open in 2011.
