Future Urban Typologies was exhibited at the Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) from 21-25 July 2017. The project is a component study of the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities (LKYCIC) The Future of Cities project, conducted from February 2015 to January 2017. The Study addresses the need for enhanced liveability of future urban environments and the need to continue to build an inclusive, equitable city in the context of Keppel-Labrador Bukit Chermin, a 64-hectare site on Singapore’s southern waterfront that has been earmarked for development. It explores possible future forms of architecture, urban design and urban planning that adopt innovative building and district typologies for high-density contexts. These new typologies are meant to provide good accessibility to amenities and services, ensure good environmental comfort, support future live-work arrangements, foster inclusivity in an increasingly diverse society, and ensure equitable provision of community facilities and services. They are also meant to strengthen resilience to impacts of climate change and potential shocks (e.g. strengthen physical infrastructure to be sufficiently robust and provide for necessary mitigation and adaptation measures in land use planning and development). Density and sustainability (in the broad sense of the word) in these innovative urban typologies are not seen as contradictory but rather as mutually dependent and synergistic.
Future Urban Typologies as a whole contributes to the broader knowledge about how urban typologies can improve their surrounding environments by mitigating negative effects of high density, capturing their environmental, social, architectural, economic and aesthetic benefits systematically.
The Research Team worked closely with a number of government agencies on the project. In conjunction with the exhibition, the results of Future Urban Typologies were presented by AAL’s Director Thomas Schroepfer as part of the The Future of Cities Conference at URA on 24 July 2017.