Reflections from the Biophilic Cities Singapore Summit

By JD Brown, Program Director for Biophilic Cities

November 2019

At the invitation of the National Parks Board of Singapore (NParks), partners in the Biophilic Cities Network convened in Singapore to share insights from efforts underway in cities around the world and to learn firsthand from the city’s exemplary biophilic landscape. Participants traveled from far and wide to attend. Notwithstanding this increasing geographic reach, the network continues to provide an exceptional opportunity to connect at the individual level and to strengthen the relationships that are the primary foundation for supporting the network’s collective social impact and shared ambition to plan and design flourishing, natureful cities.

Over the course of the summit, representatives from partner cities and organizations highlighted leading examples of biophilic planning and design. Wong Mun Summ, Co-Founding Director of WOHA, provided a keynote address highlighting the firm's work incorporating biophilic design into a broad cross section of Singapore buildings. The summit followed a two-day workshop, also facilitated by NParks, examining the form and role of the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity as a critical tool to understand the contributions of cities in responding to the global biodiversity crisis.

The timing of the summit was particularly apt for the Biophilic Cities Network, as the summit coincided with the final stages of a collective strategic planning process. Network partners are collectively engaged in developing the vision for how the network can build upon the efforts of global participants by transforming the lessons shared into meaningful impact on the ground. One forthcoming outcome is the creation of a new online platform for partners to highlight best practices and work underway in their cities.

Lessons from the Biophilic Landscape of Singapore

The Singapore landscape is illustrative of a collective planning effort that has spanned decades. During this time, the city has made a remarkable rise from its colonial roots on a foundation of investment in public education, public housing and industry.

A spectrum of nature is represented in the city: from the cultivated landscapes of the Gardens by the Bay and the towering buildings of the Central Business District to the truly wild and vast landscapes of the extensive (and growing) nature preserves. Though perhaps most impressive is the intermediate scale where nature is truly integrated intoeveryday life. Two projects that summit participants visited particularly illustrate this scale:Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH) and Kampung Admiralty.

KTPH has received international recognition for its incorporation of biophilic design into the hospital setting. The full impact of the hospital’s design is deeply felt when experienced firsthand. It embodies the promise of the restorative power of nature that are the deep roots of biophilic design; scaling the seminal work of those such as Roger Ulrich to the full hospital landscape. From its community counting of dragonfly, butterfly and bird species found on site to its active rooftop agriculture, it is easy to forget that it is a hospital. It is wonderful to feel this sense of connection to nature in a place where so many of life’s most challenging and significant events take place.

Kampung Admiralty was a second location that occupied this scale of the everyday. An astounding 80% Singapore’s residents live in public housing. Kampung Admiralty offers a case study in how nature can be a primary element of these residential buildings. It too provides residents with rooftop agriculture and gardens throughout. The multitiered levels of the building progressively treat stormwater that flows through the site. Within the three years since it opened to residents, the building has flourished. Our colleague Jana Soderlund has captured this in photos from her trips to the site over the course of these three years.

Can this be replicated?

My continuing line of inquiry over the course of the summit was: can we hope to replicate the projects found in Singapore in other cities? I found myself sketching out some of the basic ingredients of how to make this work for other cities. Naturally, there is no one size fits all vision for a biophilic city, which is indeed part of the magic of the network. What it means to be a biophilic city looks very different in Edmonton, Canada, for example, than it does in Singapore. But I find that there are mutual aspirations illustrated by Singapore that can be nurtured.

A. Connectivity

Moving through the Singapore landscape I had faith in its connectivity. As a pedestrian, I knew that when I reached a barrier in the form of a road or steep ravine, there would be some outlet for me to continue my journey. Access to nature requires more than proximity there must be a functioning connected landscape to provide access to all points in the city. Singapore has constructed numerous pedestrian bridges over roadways to facilitate human movement, but has also begun to construct opportunities for connectivity for non-humans as well, in the form of an ecological bridge (Eco-Link) across human created barriers. Likewise, Edmonton is also an international leader in building wildlife connectivity, having developed guidelines for the engineering and construction of wildlife passages and having facilitated the completion of 27 different wildlife passages across the city with more under development.

B. Shade and Shelter

Singapore is hot and humid for much of the year, but there are opportunities for protection from the elements within the shade of trees throughout the city. The value of the shade is fully understood by residents, as collectively pedestrians stand far back from street corners waiting for lights to change, under the protective shade provided by trees. Too many cities neglect the tremendous benefits of a vibrant tree canopy as a means to dramatically impact urban heat islands; benefits that are appreciated and available in Singapore. While a vibrant tree canopy may not be viable for all cities or compatible with seasonal and climatic variations, shade and shelter can come in many different forms. Another comparison from Edmonton is that city’s WinterStrategy to combat the isolation of residents during the coldest months of the year. This strategy is focused in part on creating barriers to cold winds that inhibit residents from going outside.

C. Wayfinding and Public Transportation

It is difficult to love what you cannot experience. An important piece of creating opportunities to access and experience nature is to provide the map and directions that guide you as to how to get there. Such opportunities for wayfinding were present throughout Singapore both in the form of signage and mapping resources.

The most accessible locations are the most utilized. Singapore combines several layers of public transportation, in the form of buses and rail, that create the opportunity to reach the starting point for your journey to local natural areas. I had a similar experience when visiting the Parc de Bercy in Paris, France this past summer. A large urban park, there is a particular nexus point where the park simply explodes with life at the close of the workday. After a moment of investigation, I watched as people spilled forth from the Metro station that feeds directly into the park. It was clear that this connection to public transit provided the difference.

E. Shared Benefits

One of the great challenges for cities is the equitable distribution of the benefits of natureful cities. Singapore is addressing this challenge in part through the creation of a broad park system that touches many parts of the city. It is also bringing nature into everyday landscapes like hospitals and public housing. Much of the land in Singapore is state-owned and held by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), which acts as custodian of the land . Certainly, this is not the prevailing model of land ownership that exists in the United States and elsewhere. But to what extent can we begin to transcend the exclusionary tendencies of ownership by few when there are needs by many? One small scale example might be the development ofcommunity land trusts that emulate the Singapore ownership of land, where collective ownership of underlying lands aims to create opportunities for affordable housing and collective decision-making about community spaces.

Conclusion

As hoped, the summit provided opportunities for learning and food for thought. It was a tremendous next step for the continued building of a network of partners that aims to contribute to the planning and design of cities that are rich in human relationships with nature and one another.

View the summit program and more images and hear insights from summit participants.