The evolving role of design in cultivating social/ cultural identity in public housing environments in the age of globalization.
When the Housing and Development Board (HDB) was set up in 1959, it faced the enormous task of housing hundreds of thousands of people who were being relocated from the overcrowded Central City urban areas, as well as, requirements arising from the needs of urban renewal and population growth. During the first decade of public housing, the majority of the housing estates were sited within a five-mile radius from the city centre, mainly infilling vacant pockets of land among existing developments. But as developments move further out of this radius, the plans are less affected by existing constraints. It also becomes less attractive to rely on the central city for essential facilities.
In the second decade of public housing, the emphasis is turned towards a greater degree of self-sufficiency and more comprehensive planning for the new estates, in the form of new towns. With the HDB’s emphasis on providing a total living environment and supporting community development within the housing estates, special planning and design features such as the principle of self-sufficiency within new towns, the concepts of neighbourhood and precinct planning, the provision of common spaces such as void decks, playgrounds and segmented corridors, have been introduced in order to encourage social interaction among residents who share the common facilities. Sociologist Chua Beng Huat conceptualized ‘corridors of activities’ to be the particular paths along which the routines of the residents are carried out, so that along each corridor, a high degree of social and physical familiarities can be achieved and maintained through everyday incidental face-to-face encounters. While the void deck of a block is intended by the HDB as a social space for all residents, the HDB has also formulated certain rules regarding the use of the space, so that cycling and ball games are prohibited. These measures are to make it safe for people walking through or gathering at seating areas. There have been conscious design considerations to enable social surveillance and through regulations, make these public spaces safe, secure and sociable spaces.
Another aspect of social security in public housing estates deals with the issue of home ownership. Home ownership is thought to be the best way to ensure that residents will look after their homes.[1] Besides, it also nurtures pride among homeowners and stability in society. During the developmental state, the modernization and diversification of Singapore’s economy often involved being open to foreign investments, global capital, while these multi-national companies employ many of these home-owning HDB residents. “Home ownership helps to speed up the population’s “active” transformation into a disciplined industrial work force.”[2] Public housing can thus be seen as an agent to gather and unite the people towards economic progress and “survival”. With economic progress and stability, Singaporeans are able to identify themselves with others, as fellow workers working together towards better living standards and environments. A national identity of diligence leading to progress is thus cultivated. Surely the success of our public housing programme is a reflection of the good economic progress that Singapore has experienced then.
HDB blocks up to about the 1980s were marked by a structural homogeneity and regularity of form, characteristic of the “modernist” style essentially undistinguishable from public housing in many other countries. Furthermore, each block of flats was internally standardized as well, with apartments of the same size and floor plan. In the HDB’s upgrading projects of the 1990s onwards, there has been a marked attempt to depart from this anonymous standardization. In 1991, the HDB’s “Design and Build” scheme began allowing private architectural and construction firms to bid for contracts to build apartment blocks, the goal being to achieve “a higher degree of architectural sophistication” and “more choice in the variety of housing”.[3] As Ley argues, “landscape is . . . inherently ideological,” and its form, organization and design “can be made to reinforce identities.”[4] This is particularly true in Singapore public housing, given its sheer socio-ecxonomic impact on the landscape and the population. In the 1990s, as Singapore prepared itself to compete as a “great cosmopolitan city” and a “vibrant economy”, the HDB’s influence on the urban landscape changed accordingly. The austere, modernist minimalism of the 1960s and 1970s gave way to the “riot of . . . ornamentation” and “variety of shapes and colours” which for Short are defining features of the postmodern city. For Short, such adornments are driven by “an attempt at differentiation between cities at a time of growing global competition.”[5]
During the 1999 National Day Rally speech entitled “First-World Economy, World-Class Home,” then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong explicitly links Singapore’s economic competitiveness with changes in the housing landscape. As Singapore in the 1990s and the new millennium is no longer competing within a regional arena and now seeks to be “one of the best economies in the world”, it must accordingly compete with cities like “Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Taipei” not only for foreign direct investment, but also to attract “talent . . . entrepreneurs, bankers, artists, writers, professionals” to make it their home. HDB’s concept plans for the public housing estates of the twenty-first century, with their greater degree of client feedback, great diversity of styles, and emphasis on lifestyle and amenities, are clearly part of a larger national project of creating an attractive living environment by global standards. This process of urban differentiation and postmodern style is not without its problems and criticisms. One such critic of the postmodern style is that the façade and renovation of these recently upgraded blocks have seen ornamentation and difference carried out with various styles of architectural traditions: English Tudor, art deco, Chinese kitsch, without an underlying base in national or communal history and traditional style.
The then-Prime Minister Goh in his 1999 National Day Rally speech also made a distinction between Singaporean “Cosmopolitans” and “Heartlanders”. “Cosmopolitans” are global in outlook, education and skills, and “indispensable in generating wealth for Singapore”, while “heartlanders” are local in outlook and operation, maintaining “our core values and our social stability”. The public housing estates have been designed for many of these “heartlanders” in mind, with a safe, stable and secure “total environment”[6] – an early HDB notion in the 1970s, and till more recently, conceptualizations such as the “focal points”, “lifestyle” amenities and “living environment” supplementing and surrounding the individual flats themselves.[7]
With the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans living in the public housing estates, the implication of designing housing spaces solely for the “heartlanders” can create an environment that is nevertheless safe and stable, but seemingly distant from another reality of fluidity and fussiness associated with the global environment. On the one hand, such housing environments can be seen as less than attractive by the local mobile “cosmopolitans”, who may not possess the financial credentials to live in private housing. At the same time, these living environments are also less likely to cultivate a breed of new Singaporeans, new “cosmopolitans”, capable of competing in the global climate.
There has also been an increasing number of cultural literature that speak against this safe, secure climate. The ideologically safe void decks have been fictionally depicted as the place of death. In poet Colin Cheong’s “Void Decks - A Poem in 20 Vignettes”, vignette 20 describes the aftermath of the funeral, where the void deck has become “an empty place” where “spirits gather that never left”.[8] The fallout from the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack in New York may also point to a re-thinking of the nature and place of the HDB heartland, where fifteen men were arrested under the Internal Security Act in December 2001 for their participation in terrorist cells linked to the Al-Qaeda, what was surprising is not merely that they had targeted “places frequented by Americans in Singapore”, but that the Singapore heartland, Yishun, was so closely implicated in the plan.[9] “All but one of the 15 arrested live in Housing Board flats.”[10] The leader of the terrorist cell, Ibrahim Maidin, is reported to have “joined the Malays in the block [in Woodlands estate] when they held kenduris, gatherings for celebrations or prayer offerings, at the void deck”.[11]
Against this climate of discourses about the new challenges facing our public housing living environments, the design of these spaces can play a new role in new forms and spatiality that effect cultural and social identity relevant to today’s context, in the field of “heartlander” versus “cosmopolitan” as well as another reality contrary to the ideology of a safe, stable and secure community living environment.
In the second decade of public housing, the emphasis is turned towards a greater degree of self-sufficiency and more comprehensive planning for the new estates, in the form of new towns. With the HDB’s emphasis on providing a total living environment and supporting community development within the housing estates, special planning and design features such as the principle of self-sufficiency within new towns, the concepts of neighbourhood and precinct planning, the provision of common spaces such as void decks, playgrounds and segmented corridors, have been introduced in order to encourage social interaction among residents who share the common facilities. Sociologist Chua Beng Huat conceptualized ‘corridors of activities’ to be the particular paths along which the routines of the residents are carried out, so that along each corridor, a high degree of social and physical familiarities can be achieved and maintained through everyday incidental face-to-face encounters. While the void deck of a block is intended by the HDB as a social space for all residents, the HDB has also formulated certain rules regarding the use of the space, so that cycling and ball games are prohibited. These measures are to make it safe for people walking through or gathering at seating areas. There have been conscious design considerations to enable social surveillance and through regulations, make these public spaces safe, secure and sociable spaces.
Another aspect of social security in public housing estates deals with the issue of home ownership. Home ownership is thought to be the best way to ensure that residents will look after their homes.[1] Besides, it also nurtures pride among homeowners and stability in society. During the developmental state, the modernization and diversification of Singapore’s economy often involved being open to foreign investments, global capital, while these multi-national companies employ many of these home-owning HDB residents. “Home ownership helps to speed up the population’s “active” transformation into a disciplined industrial work force.”[2] Public housing can thus be seen as an agent to gather and unite the people towards economic progress and “survival”. With economic progress and stability, Singaporeans are able to identify themselves with others, as fellow workers working together towards better living standards and environments. A national identity of diligence leading to progress is thus cultivated. Surely the success of our public housing programme is a reflection of the good economic progress that Singapore has experienced then.
HDB blocks up to about the 1980s were marked by a structural homogeneity and regularity of form, characteristic of the “modernist” style essentially undistinguishable from public housing in many other countries. Furthermore, each block of flats was internally standardized as well, with apartments of the same size and floor plan. In the HDB’s upgrading projects of the 1990s onwards, there has been a marked attempt to depart from this anonymous standardization. In 1991, the HDB’s “Design and Build” scheme began allowing private architectural and construction firms to bid for contracts to build apartment blocks, the goal being to achieve “a higher degree of architectural sophistication” and “more choice in the variety of housing”.[3] As Ley argues, “landscape is . . . inherently ideological,” and its form, organization and design “can be made to reinforce identities.”[4] This is particularly true in Singapore public housing, given its sheer socio-ecxonomic impact on the landscape and the population. In the 1990s, as Singapore prepared itself to compete as a “great cosmopolitan city” and a “vibrant economy”, the HDB’s influence on the urban landscape changed accordingly. The austere, modernist minimalism of the 1960s and 1970s gave way to the “riot of . . . ornamentation” and “variety of shapes and colours” which for Short are defining features of the postmodern city. For Short, such adornments are driven by “an attempt at differentiation between cities at a time of growing global competition.”[5]
During the 1999 National Day Rally speech entitled “First-World Economy, World-Class Home,” then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong explicitly links Singapore’s economic competitiveness with changes in the housing landscape. As Singapore in the 1990s and the new millennium is no longer competing within a regional arena and now seeks to be “one of the best economies in the world”, it must accordingly compete with cities like “Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Taipei” not only for foreign direct investment, but also to attract “talent . . . entrepreneurs, bankers, artists, writers, professionals” to make it their home. HDB’s concept plans for the public housing estates of the twenty-first century, with their greater degree of client feedback, great diversity of styles, and emphasis on lifestyle and amenities, are clearly part of a larger national project of creating an attractive living environment by global standards. This process of urban differentiation and postmodern style is not without its problems and criticisms. One such critic of the postmodern style is that the façade and renovation of these recently upgraded blocks have seen ornamentation and difference carried out with various styles of architectural traditions: English Tudor, art deco, Chinese kitsch, without an underlying base in national or communal history and traditional style.
The then-Prime Minister Goh in his 1999 National Day Rally speech also made a distinction between Singaporean “Cosmopolitans” and “Heartlanders”. “Cosmopolitans” are global in outlook, education and skills, and “indispensable in generating wealth for Singapore”, while “heartlanders” are local in outlook and operation, maintaining “our core values and our social stability”. The public housing estates have been designed for many of these “heartlanders” in mind, with a safe, stable and secure “total environment”[6] – an early HDB notion in the 1970s, and till more recently, conceptualizations such as the “focal points”, “lifestyle” amenities and “living environment” supplementing and surrounding the individual flats themselves.[7]
With the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans living in the public housing estates, the implication of designing housing spaces solely for the “heartlanders” can create an environment that is nevertheless safe and stable, but seemingly distant from another reality of fluidity and fussiness associated with the global environment. On the one hand, such housing environments can be seen as less than attractive by the local mobile “cosmopolitans”, who may not possess the financial credentials to live in private housing. At the same time, these living environments are also less likely to cultivate a breed of new Singaporeans, new “cosmopolitans”, capable of competing in the global climate.
There has also been an increasing number of cultural literature that speak against this safe, secure climate. The ideologically safe void decks have been fictionally depicted as the place of death. In poet Colin Cheong’s “Void Decks - A Poem in 20 Vignettes”, vignette 20 describes the aftermath of the funeral, where the void deck has become “an empty place” where “spirits gather that never left”.[8] The fallout from the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack in New York may also point to a re-thinking of the nature and place of the HDB heartland, where fifteen men were arrested under the Internal Security Act in December 2001 for their participation in terrorist cells linked to the Al-Qaeda, what was surprising is not merely that they had targeted “places frequented by Americans in Singapore”, but that the Singapore heartland, Yishun, was so closely implicated in the plan.[9] “All but one of the 15 arrested live in Housing Board flats.”[10] The leader of the terrorist cell, Ibrahim Maidin, is reported to have “joined the Malays in the block [in Woodlands estate] when they held kenduris, gatherings for celebrations or prayer offerings, at the void deck”.[11]
Against this climate of discourses about the new challenges facing our public housing living environments, the design of these spaces can play a new role in new forms and spatiality that effect cultural and social identity relevant to today’s context, in the field of “heartlander” versus “cosmopolitan” as well as another reality contrary to the ideology of a safe, stable and secure community living environment.
[1] For an account of other advantages in home ownership, see Glenn H. Beyer, Housing and Society (London: Macmillan, 1965), p. 257-60.
[2] Chua Beng Huat (1991), Not Depoliticized but Ideologically Successful: The Public Housing Programme in Singapore.
[3] Housing and Development Board, “Brief background on HDB”, [Online] Available at http://www.hdb.gov.sg/isoa034p.nsf/3c5a [Date accessed: 11 February 2000].
[4] Ley, D. (1993) “Co-operative Housing as a Moral Landscape: Re-Examining ‘The Postmodern City’”, Place/Culture/Representation, eds. James Duncan and David Ley. London and New York: Routledge, p.130.
[5] Short, J. R. (1996), The Urban Order: An Introduction to Cities, Culture and Power. Oxford: Blackwell.
[6] Yeh, S. H. K., ed. (1975) Public Housing in Singapore: A Multi-Disciplinary Study. Singapore: Singapore University Press.
[7] Loh, K. F. (2000) “More Condo Style – at HDB Prices”, The Sunday Times 1 October, p.12.
[8] Cheong, C. (1996) Void Decks and Other Empty Places. Singapore: EPB Publishers.
[9] Chua, L. H. (2002) “Yishun Target in Group’s Plans”, Straits Times 12 January, p. 1.
[10] Wong, K. (2002) “Eight Had Been to Afghanistan for Training”, Straits Times 12 January, p. H3.
[11] Wee, L.-A. and K. Wong (2002) “Manager’s ISD Arrest Shocks Residents”, Straits Times 13 January, p. 26
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