Design of the PPC

People’s Park Complex (PPC) was designed by the trio William Lim, Tay Kheng Soon and Koh Seow Chuan ( DP Architects), and ended up being one of Singapore’s most important modernist structures during its post-independent era. The building was designed as a “new nucleus within the whole fabric of the city core”, where commercial and residential functions found in the shophouses nearby were reinterpreted on a larger scale and in a consolidated manner. Knowing that the complex is an important node within the city, the developer gifted the Singaporean government a bridge from the complex to the shophouses across the road to promote continuity of man circulation from the building to the rest of the vicinity.

At a glimpse, the composition of the building is straightforward with its box-shaped podium for commercial programmes and a vertical tower for the residential spaces, circulation (staircase and lifts,) and utility. The clean geometry and brutalist finish of the building are very representative of its time during the late-modernist age of architecture.

Inside the podium, a gathering atrium named the City Room was designed to accommodate the much-needed gathering space in the area, referring to the early existence of the People’s Park. The tiered levels of the podium stores and the composition of corridors, staircases, shops, and colonnades, connected at the City Room, created this dynamic relationship between the spaces in all levels. While there was a design attempt to apply pyramidal skylights above the City Room to introduce daylight into the massive podium block, it wasn’t realised. The planning of the tower block is Corbusian in character, as the residential tower has a shared space between every 3-4 levels. Referred to as ‘streets in the air,’ these shared spaces support communal interaction between residents, just like Corbusier’s ‘Unité d’habitation’ typology for vertical housings.

The People’s Park Complex became a model project in Asia with its integrated development and showed how Western and Eastern architectural ideals were conjoined in the Asian-city context. Japanese architect, Fumihiko Maki, commended the project for being a realization of the Japanese Metabolist movement, while Rem Koolhaas described the project as a “condensed version of a Chinese downtown, a threedimensional market based on the cellular matric of Chinese shopping-a modern movement Chinatown.”

Project Name : People’s Park Complex

Address : 1 Park Road

Architects : Koh Seow Chuan, William Lim & Tay Kheng Soon

Developer/Owner : People’s Park Devt Pte Ltd

Completion Date : June 1973

Site Area : 10,358.7 sqm

Building Height : 102.7 m

Function : Commercial/Residential

GFA : 78,000.00 sqm

No of Storeys : 31

Source : Singapore 1:1 City: A Gallery of Architecture & Urban Design

People’s Park Complex Model (Skylight Design) in 1967

Source: National Archives of Singapore

People’s Park Complex (Skylight Design) Section

Source: DP Architects’ Archives

People’s Park Complex Final Design Model in 1968

Source: National Archives of Singapore

People’s Park Complex Final Design Section

Source: DP Architects’ Archives

Ground

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