Best ideas for redesigning public spaces unveiled as part of URA exhibition

Minister of State for National Development Desmond Lee presented prizes to the masterminds behind the winning ideas, which included a giant football goal post which can be turned into a swing at the open lawn in Marina Bay, as well as a royal garden with colonnaded walkways in the middle of Kampong Glam.

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Here is the news released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA):

Swinging good ideas for vibrant public spaces

A community maze or a playful giant swing at an open lawn in Marina Bay; a sinuous elevated green deck at the Singapore River Promenade; a royal garden with colonnaded walkways in the middle of Kampong Glam; and a garden walk with a forested steel canopy for the Woodlands Civic Plaza.

These are some of the eleven winning design ideas that were unveiled at the launch of the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA)'s "PubliCity: Your Ideas for Public Spaces" exhibition and presentation ceremony today.

Minister of State for National Development Desmond Lee presented prizes to the eleven winners during the launch of the exhibition which opened today at the URA Centre Atrium.

He also commended twelve teams from local pre-university institutions who contributed interesting plans that featured public spaces as part of their project for URA's annual Challenge for the Ur ban & Built Environment (CUBE) student workshop and competition.

Creative designs for public spaces

PubliCity is an initiative under the Draft Master Plan 2013 to involve the community in celebrating and enlivening public spaces through good design and programming. The "PubliCity: Your Ideas for Public Spaces" competition was launched on 22 November 2013. It threw an open invitation to the public to come up with creative visions of public spaces in the city, namely The Lawn @ Marina Bay; spaces along the Singapore River Promenade; the open space at Sultan Gate in Kampong Glam; and the Woodlands Civic Plaza.

The ideas competition attracted 160 submissions. Of these, the open space at Sultan Gate in Kampong Glam received the most number of entries. Other than entries from practitioners such as architects and urban designers, the mostly local submissions came from students and members of the public who are passionate about urban spaces. The ideas gathered will serve as an inspiration and catalyst for the development of these public spaces.

"Vibrant and inviting public spaces can enhance urb an life by sparking social engagement and building a stronger sense of community. The ideas competition gave us insight into what the public want to see in public spaces. Projects for vibrant public spaces need not always be permanent. We are keen to develop some of these ideas into pop-up projects as fun and temporary ways to activate public spaces," said Ng Lang, Chief Executive Officer of URA.

Youth ideas for public spaces

As an extension of URA's effort to raise awareness of good public spaces and make them more enjoyable for the community, the theme of public spaces took centre stage in URA's annual Challenge for the Urban & Built Environment (CUBE) workshop and competition.

Into its fifth edition, CUBE aims to create awareness of the built environment, and the dynamics of land use and urban planning among junior college and polytechnic students. With the Kampong Bugis district as their design canvas, the students from seven junior colleges and five polytechnics gave ideas on how to integrate public spaces into the waterfront by reducing road provision and encouraging a more pedestrian-friendly environment.

"PubliCity: Your Ideas for Public Spaces" & CUBE exhibitions

The "PubliCity: Your Ideas for Public Spaces" exhibition will feature the eleven winning ideas and all submissions received for the competition. The concurrent CUBE exhibition will showcase the final presentations by the teams from local pre-university institutions that took part in the four-day workshop.

Both exhibitions will be held at the URA Centre Atrium, 45 Maxwell Road Singapore 069118 from 17 April to 20 June 2014 (Mondays to Fridays, 8.30am to 7pm / Saturdays: 8.30am to 5pm / Closed on Sundays and Public Holidays). Admission is free.

Here is the speech by Mr Desmond Lee Ti-Seng, Minister of State, Ministry of National Development:

Ms Ellen Lee Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC

Ms Faizah Jamal Nominated Member of Parliament

Mr Ng Lang Chief Executive Officer, URA

Distinguished guests

Friends, students, ladies and gentlemen

Good afternoon. Thank you for having me here at the exhibition launch and presentation ceremony for 'PubliCity: Your Ideas for Public Spaces' and the Challenge for the Urban and Built Environment (CUBE) competitions. I am pleased to join you in this celebration of great ideas for public spaces, and I am very excited by all the high quality and refreshing proposals that have poured in as a result.

The Public and the City

Last November, URA announced the launch of PubliCity as part of the Draft Master Plan 2013. PubliCity stands for "Public Spaces in the City". It is an initiative to raise awareness of the importance of good public spaces, and more importantly, to involve the community in enlivening public spaces through good design and programming.

In Singapore, we live in a fast-paced society where public spaces can sometimes be taken for granted. We may have passed by the same stretch of road, park, pedestrian walkway, overhead bridge or MRT station many times, and never really have the opportunity to stop and pause to appreciate the amount of design, effort, and planning that goes into public spaces.

But, every liveable city needs well-designed public spaces. These spaces provide accessible, inclusive and common areas where the community can come together as friends or neighbours. It's where people can relax and interact, get to know each other and build relationships and communities. Well-designed public spaces enhance our quality of life, anchor us to places that are familiar, and promote a common sense of ownership and responsibility, and of belonging and home.

To achieve these objectives, public spaces need to be carefully planned and evenly distributed across Singapore. Through the PubliCity initiative, we hope to create delightful new public spaces as well as rejuvenate existing ones, to raise our quality of living.

Putting the public in public spaces

Making Singapore's city area people-friendly is an important part of URA's plans. Take for instance the recently concluded i Light Marina Bay. With its fun light art installations and diverse fringe programmes, the i Light festival saw some 685,000 visitors coming to the Bay, whether on foot or from the water. Grandparents, toddlers, students, photographers, both amateur and professional, everybody enjoyed themselves. I saw many Facebook pages of my friends, and photos of the characteristic lights amidst the cityscape appeared on their Facebook pages. Many of them taken as "selfies".

Besides programming, good seating at our public spaces is extremely important, whether it is for grandparents with little children, or for anxious boyfriend waiting for his girlfriend for lunch. I am sure many of you would have noticed the quirky benches installed around the city. These were actually made using the wooden planks from the old National Stadium as part of URA's bench design competition last year. I think some of them are here, and PM had a "selfie" of him seated on a bench. At Marina Bay, URA has installed some well-designed deck chairs along the promenade. Whenever I go there, I never had a chance to sit as they are always occupied.

We remain on the lookout for opportunities to promote walkable and active streets within the city. URA's experimentation to make Club Street, which is a short distance away, and Haji Lane car-free during certain periods of the week has been very successful, and I am glad that it has encouraged more local communities to initiate similar proposals to reclaim the streets for communal activity.

The call for ideas

As users of public spaces, you are in the best position to share with URA what you want to see in the various spaces in Singapore, how you want to use them and ways to possibly refresh them. 'PubliCity: Your Ideas for Public Spaces' competition was hence launched in November last year as part of this ground-up initiative.

Many of you contributed suggestions on how to design and use public spaces at four sites - namely, The Lawn @ Marina Bay; spaces along the Singapore River Promenade; the open space at Sultan Gate in Kampong Glam; and the Woodlands Civic Plaza. A total of 160 submissions were received when the competition closed in mid February this year. The response is very encouraging and the proposals were well thought through and of very high quality.

In fact, the ideas generated were so good that URA has decided to award eleven winners. These ideas will serve as inspiration and catalysts for public spaces projects. One proposal was for a giant swing to be installed at The Lawn @ Marina Bay; another proposed a gorgeous garden fit for Malay royalty in the middle of Kampong Glam. URA's planners will study these ideas in greater detail. Where possible, we will see if some of the ideas can be implemented, be it temporary and fun pop-up projects, or longer term installations or programmes in consultation with the community and local stakeholders.

I would also like to this opportunity to thank members of the jury panel who have been very generous in giving your time and expertise in assessing the submissions for this competition.

Youth challenge

Apart from the PubliCity initiative, the URA has also taken efforts to engage youths in designing our city. Our youth are the future leaders, planners and architects of Singapore. Therefore, URA organises the annual Challenge for the Urban & Built Environment workshop, or CUBE, to help our youths understand the importance of urban planning. Junior college and polytechnic students get to play planners for several days under the tutelage of real planners. And it is a real joy to speak to our planners who are creative, energetic and full of creative juices on paper and in real life.

To complement the PubliCity initiative, the last CUBE workshop centred on public spaces as well. Youths were given the challenge of planning for a car-free and pedestrian-friendly precinct in the Kampong Bugis district. They were asked specifically to focus on the provision of public spaces and to provide for alternative methods of transportation.

12 schools participated in CUBE and the competition yielded some very interesting ideas. This year's CUBE also received unprecedented support from the industry, which is extremely heartening. For the first time, we had practising architects from various architecture firms join us as facilitators of the workshop, together with our student facilitators. The participants were given more opportunities to learn and thus had a more enriching experience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to note that URA will roll out more initiatives under PubliCity in the coming months. This, to me, is an important effort to build an inclusive and endearing home for Singaporeans. I encourage members of the public, as well as industry leaders and professionals, to work with the URA to proliferate our urban landscape with more vibrant public spaces which we call our own.

Last but not least, my heartfelt congratulations to all the winners of the PubliCity and CUBE competition. In fact, anybody who participated deserves a good pat on the back and a big round of applause. Thank you and I hope you will enjoy the exhibition.