Design Orchard was the first built project that I completed in my time at WOHA Architects. The building opened in 2019 after a very quick design and construction process of around two years. I’ve finally had a chance to put up this post about the building, after more than a year digesting (and resting up from) the experience!
The two and a half storey building is located along Orchard Road, Singapore’s world famous shopping street. It was conceived by the government as a local design hub, combining an incubation space for young designers with a design shop to sell their products. Located at a key junction along the vibrant Orchard precinct, planning guidelines also required a public space to anchor the development at the bustling civic node.
In our analysis of the programmatic requirements, we found that the retail space would take up the entire ground floor footprint, and that it was desirable to create a highly visible shopfront on ground level. This meant that the incubation spaces and public space would need to be above ground. We saw this as a unique opportunity to create a high profile, typologically unique, and very green rooftop public space for the city.
Our competition scheme for the project took the seemingly disparate programmatic elements and combined them in a mutually beneficial way: by proposing a a wedge-shaped building with a full ground floor of retail, and incubation spaces on levels 2 and 3, all tucked below an angled rooftop public space. By sloping and stepping up the roof, the space feels less like a private skygarden and more like a public hilltop park, intimately connected to the surrounding streetscape with direct lines of sight to and from.
Located prominently at the front of the building, a high visibility rooftop stage and amphitheatre acts as an event space for fashion shows, concerts and product launches to support the design activities within the building. During street closures, it can also become an elevated stage for street parties! The active amphitheatre is surrounded by swaths of lush greenery, providing shade and shelter.
The sloped nature of the rooftop evokes the feeling of a hilltop park. Above and overlooking the amphitheatre below, a lawn is surrounded by lush tropical landscaping, providing outdoor spill-out spaces for the ampitheatre and events in the level incubation space and cafe.
The stepped-back building form allows 100% of the site area to be given back to the city as a public street side amphitheatre & urban rooftop pocket park, the same as before the site was developed.
Trees are planted in oversized planter pots, made from off-the-shelf concrete sewer pipe flanges.
Water from the green roof drains via rain chains into lotus pond pots, storing rainwater for re-use in the building’s irrigation system.
Under the slope of the amphitheatre, a dramatic atrium is created within the retail space below, with views into the incubation spaces at level 2.
The second and third floors hosting incubation spaces are conceived as flexible open spaces for creative activities to take place, with natural light and views into the retail space and rooftop garden spaces, fostering synergies between the various programmatic elements of the building.
The third level contains a flexible indoor event space, which hosts a hip cafe with views of the rooftop park.
Using a minimal material palette of concrete, glass and landscape, we designed the building to act as a neutral backdrop, allowing the collaborative design activities within the building to shine.
The structure and final finishing of most of the solid surfaces in the building are made from raw off-form concrete. Strategically placed ‘porthole’ openings allow light, views, and ventilation through the solid concrete walls.
Circular forms are some of the strongest shapes in nature and allows us to create interesting experiences without affecting the integrity of the walls. Some of the ‘portholes’ are fitted with reflective mirrors, creating an dynamic interplays of light across the facade and providing the perfect frame for taking selfies!
Services and open-air circulation areas are clad with unfinished expanded galvanised steel mesh, providing shade while allowing natural ventilation.
Ceilings in service areas utilise the same metal mesh, casting dramatic shadows across the spaces.
Even the signage was custom designed for the project, following the language of the ‘porthole’ windows and concrete tie-rod holes.
This project was an incredible learning experience for me and it has been a joy to watch it get taken over by landscape and by the design community. Let me know in the comments below if you have any thoughts or questions!
Images by Jonathan Choe. Thoughts expressed in this post are my own and do not represent those of my employer.
