Next Project

Exposition – Envisioning a car-sharing community in Singapore

Part 1 Project 2014
Mengze Chen
National University of Singapore | Singapore
It is anticipated that car-sharing will emerge as a form of urban mobility in Singapore. The design celebrates a mixed-use, live-work community, integrating car-sharing as one of its anchor programs, engages spaces and the programs of the mass rapid transportation system (adjacent Paya Lebar MRT Station) the as a station and as a transportation node, explores the possibility of creating a new form of urban community in Singapore.

One of the driving forces of the structural and formal language of the design would be the rotating car-sharing wheel, a non-stagnant car retrieving system, which serves as an efficient parking facility. The presence of the cars is amplified in the space as the vast open space created within the structure provides a platform and atmosphere of Exposition for automobile, with the shared cars being exhibited in the form of Ferris wheel. The programs, retail, car sharing and residential, are arranged in a concentric circle. Tension steel cable stairs and truss escalators that radiates out from the commercial ring to the outer ring at multiple points, displaying the same dynamic feature of the Ferris wheel. The outermost ring, forming the frame for slot-in living units as infill.

The design offers great adaptability and flexibility in terms of the distributing public and private green spaces along the three-dimensional structural grid: the sky garden and open plaza provides ample outdoor event spaces; as the units being slotted in at different locations at various heights, various combinations of arrangement and clusters are formed, along with green spaces of different height, “terracing down” along the curvature of the frame in the form of vertical garden.

Through the filigree construction, the design aims to create a Time-based, Demand-based temporal construct, with a high level of porosity, which varies with time and demand of the users, blurring the boundary between the design and the surrounding context with bustling public spaces, exhibiting the life of a vibrant car-sharing community.

Mengze Chen

Tutor(s)

2014
• Page Hits: 3836         • Entry Date: 03 October 2014         • Last Update: 03 October 2014