Punggol Masterplan: The Sustainable Waterfront Town in the Tropics

The Housing and Development Board of Singapore (HDB) invited international design firms to develop masterplanning concepts for the Punggol, a future waterfront community of over 300,000 people along the northern coast of Singapore. Urban Strategies Inc. was selected as masterplanner to guide an ambitious waterfront transformation. 

Leading a multi-disciplinary team which included Buro Happold for transportation, microclimate and sustainability along with Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg for landscape design, we devised a sustainable framework of mixed-use districts with a special emphasis on diversity, flexibility and quality of life. Innovations in urban design, tropical building typologies and conservation are integral to our plan, as is the close integration of nature and water with urban living — combined to create a tropical garden city. A cluster of special uses within the centre, brings together educational institutions, research and creative entrepreneurship, and a mix of retail formats, together with regional destinations to form a uniquely Singaporean vibrant heart to Punggol, carefully integrated with a transportation network. The masterplan responds to the challenges facing the 21st century city through a framework which fully integrates social, economic and environmental considerations to form a uniquely sustainable community. 

The masterplan is truly the result of a collective enterprise. Numerous work-shops tested design concepts together with key governing departments: such as the Housing and Development Board, the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the Land Transport Authority, and the National Parks Board. At the root of the masterplan is an inherently flexible framework which will respond to various delivery scenarios and development imperatives over the next 15 – 20 years. The Learning District, a key component of the master plan, has been successfully implemented as the Punggol Digital District.