Altered Estates – Singapore

By David Erdman

"Altered Estates brings together research for the East Coast of Singapore, an area slated for intensive development, a new coastal defense infrastructure and vulnerable to compound flood risk. Five teams went to Singapore and examined opportunities for redeveloping a site within the historic district of Katong that is low lying, is acutely prone to coastal and pluvial flooding and which acts as an informal embassy for the Thai, Filipino and Indonesian immigrants. Student/Faculty teams met with local stakeholders, community residents, city agencies and participated in Singapore International Water Week panels, exhibitions and workshops to understand various scales of the problems and challenges surrounding the site.

A missing aspect of the “Long Island” East Coast defense project is the impact on communities one or two blocks inland along the original shore line; where the site is situated. Each team had to understand the specifics of how the block-sized, 1970’s, existing building could be renovated and altered to make an economic case for keeping the building as well as to allow the community to remain in place.

Focusing on roofs, facades or the surrounding site “ground” they designed five different solutions and assessed the capacity of their design to determine its performance as a piece of aggregative infrastructure that could not only bolster water defense but also amplify water resources by capturing, storing, filtrating and reusing water in their project. The goal across all five teams was to understand how these improvements could enrich innovative urban opportunities to live with water. "