Singapore Metropolitan Region
Erik G. L’Heureux, ed.
Chua Gong Yao
Koh Ai Ting Aileen
Yap Shan Ming
with essays by: Freek Colombijn
Lai Chee Kien
Chua Beng Huat
Tim Bunnell
François Decoster
This book was published on the occasion of the completion of ‘Singapore Metropolitan Region’ studio Singapore, September 2011 – May 2012
Published by Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture National University of Singapore
4 Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566.
T: +65.6516.3477
Email: akierik@nus.edu.sg
Website: www.smsstudio.org
© 2013 Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture
National University of Singapore
© 2013 Individual Contributors
Advisor and Editor
Erik G. L’Heureux, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
SMR Studio
Chua Gong Yao
Koh Ai Ting Aileen Yap Shan Ming
The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to trace and identify copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright materials. The author apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher.
The publisher does not warrant or assume any legal responsibility for the publication’s contents.
All opinions expressed in the book are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National University of Singapore.
PROLOGUE
Singapore Centricity – Erik G. L’Heureux
1-12
JOHOR + SINGAPORE + BATAM
Chicks and Chicken: Singapore’s Expansion to Riau – Freek Colombijn Axis Mappings
14-150
SINGAPORE METROPOLITAN REGION
Filtered Cosmopolitanism and Southeast Asia – Lai Chee Kien
The Peripheral Corridor
152-244
THE SAME-SAME MODEL
Exporting Urban Uniformity Worldwide – Chua Beng Huat & Tim Bunnell
Exporting Urban Uniformity
246-280
Density in Singapore – François Decoster
Investigating Density Formula
282-330
REGIONAL PROPOSITIONS
332-384
BIBLIOGRAPHY
386-398
ISBN 978–981–07–2633–1
1st Edition
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & CREDITS
399-402
In Southeast Asia, where urbanization proceeds at a quickening pace and with seeming inevitability, Singapore has become one of the most visible and successful models for the developing world. The changes that have taken place in Singapore over the last four decades represent the aspirations of other governments, policy makers, planners and architects looking to join the club of the “Developed”, “First World” and “Modern”. As outlined in From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000 by former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, 1 the dynamic changes that have transformed Singapore from the mythic collection of rural villages to a modern urban city, from poverty to wealth, and from kampong to modern city-state continue to inspire countless cities on their quest for development. 2 As retold continually in the popular press, academic journals and numerous policy papers, Singapore’s development story has required ambition, talent and foresight in a singular, politically controlled environment, the logic being that Singapore is too small for normative forms of multi-party governance.
Singapore is a small city by most standards, with a current population of 5.32 million people spread over 710 sq km. 3 It reaches beyond its diminutive size, however, claiming importance alongside its larger brethren: Tokyo, Shanghai, London or New York while serving as a seductive image that influences cities from Beijing to Dubai and from Moscow to Vietnam. Between the East and the West, between the democratic and the autocratic, between free market capitalism and state-controlled socialism, so Singapore’s image is crafted. In this city of samples, selected from the best practices of the world, where famous architects work with renowned multinational corporations, where international standards are imported along with branded goods and notable institutions educate the population, less developed cities hope that they, too, can “make it” through their own Singapore success story. Singapore’s small size may also be its best asset here,
never appearing too powerful or aggressive, allowing other cities to copy, appropriate and sample without the negative repercussions of following the “West”, becoming Americanized, or following old colonial powers for inspiration. To sample Singapore is politically advantageous, for Singapore causes few negative repercussions on the world stage; its own agendas are primarily business-oriented, and its military, though highly advanced, comes with little more than a “Singapore Sting”. 4
Simulations, facsimiles, clones and appropriations of the “Little Red Dot” — little Singapores — are sometimes taken as a whole package and other times as fragments and grafts. Each of those references exhibits parts of the Singapore model — a construct of state-managed capitalism, corruption-free governmental institutions, economic and capital liberty, strong social and cultural management, and highly planned and expedient urban form. In an age of the “samesame” city, where globalization merges urban centers in image, form and policy, Singapore is held up as the promise for cities in developing countries outside the normative western sphere of influence. 5 Singapore is a model without the messiness and — more importantly — without the arrogance and disruptive public of the West. It is a model found in a tiny country that shouldn’t matter but somehow does.
ship and the International Tech Park, both in India, all speak in physical terms of Singapore’s growing international influence — a nation-state now as architect, crafting cities afar in its own image. 6
An observer noted that at a ceremony to mark the start of construction on the first phase of the Tianjin EcoCity, “investors said the 10-year plan was intended to be ‘scalable and replicable’ so it could be used across China, India, and other developing nations”.7 The scalable and replicable — two of the self-professed “Three Abilities” noted on the Tianjin Eco-City website — are key terms here. Imagine a Singapore product line not of a small electronic component or a petrochemical good exported from Singapore, but the creation of an entire urban environment able to be expanded or compacted as needed, stamped across the landscape as miniature Singapores. The plans for the Tianjin Eco-City accommodate 350,000 across 30 sq km, at a population density higher by almost 4,100 people per sq km than Singapore itself. In addition to scalability and replicability, “Practical” (a stereotypical symbol of Singaporean know-how) rounds out the “Three Abilities” guiding the development. Joined with the “Three Harmonies” — described as harmony of “people with other people, people with economic activities, and people with the environment” — the success of Tianjin is narrowed down to 22 quantitative and 4 qualitative KPIs (an acronym for key performance indicators). 8 What is most noticeable here is that the list of quantitative criteria is more than five times longer than the qualitative one, the implication being that if the city is made in the correct proportions and enough checkboxes on the list are marked, then the city will be a success.
important than quantitative measures of efficiency and traffic planning. Today, these lessons seem lost in Singapore’s current exports, suffocated in an atmosphere of quantifiable tools and checklists.
Looking west, Dubai has modeled its development on becoming a “Singapore of the Middle East”, while New York City was awarded the Singapore Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize in 2012. 11 The implication follows that Singapore has now become the veritable expert in “honouring outstanding contributions towards creating livable and sustainable urban communities around the world”.12 Singapore has become the de facto symbol for the best of urban environments, and now stands in judgment of the rest.
Singapore is not only a symbol representing a process of change, but a symbol that any city starting from the “third world” can reach a “developed” state in the space of a single generation. Singapore has even begun to quietly export itself — to duplicate its developed self — to other nations. In a quiet new form of globalized trade, export and influence, Singapores small and large are sprouting in the countryside of China, replacing paddy (rice) fields in Vietnam, and reworking entire new townships in India.
Tianjin Eco-City and the Sino-Singapore Suzhou Industrial park in China; the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park in Bac Ninh, Hai Phong and Binh Duong, all in Vietnam; and the Pocharam-Singapore Town-
This recalls the words of Le Corbusier in his 1929 urban planning tome The City of To-Morrow and its Planning, in which he claims that “a city made for speed is made for success”. 9 Eliminating congestion by having expressways surrounding towers in the park was a singular quantitative logic that decimated much of Europe and American’s urban environments in the spirit of progress and modernization. Quantification, efficiency and practicality overran considerations of quality of life and social bonds. This was debunked 30 years later by Jane Jacobs’ influential work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. 10 For Jacobs, the qualitative life on and about the street was far more
The Singapore model is its own best export, a product of best practices where water management, industrial management, traffic control, taxation policy, real estate investment and public housing policies contribute to a view that Singapore is a center for urban research and an urban solution provider where “livability”, “sustainability” and “success” can be researched, taught and exported as a knowledge product.13 Tag lines, including “City in a Garden”, “Live Work and Play”, and “Your Singapore, Clean Green and Blue” all contribute to the city as a brand, a product not only to be consumed by visitors and inhabitants, but also a product to be replicated by other cities looking to Singapore. For Singapore, if the 19th century was the century of colonization and the 20th century was the century of self-determination, then the 21st century is turning out to be the century of the city, a city for export in a rapidly urbanizing Asia.
A series of centres and labs have sprouted in Singapore’s academic and governmental institutions, reaffirming Singapore’s focus not only on the success of its own urban project but also on urban research as a new knowledge frontier (and market) for Singaporean know-how. The Future Cities Lab at NUS, the Centre for Liveable Cities,14 the Centre for Sustainable Asian Cities, City Form Lab, and the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities all represent Singapore’s recent efforts at building up a resource base for urban solutions, problem solving, and technocratic knowledge concentration. 15 Pragmatism, data collection and scientific analysis appear to play the most important roles, with the assumption that if enough data could be mined from the urban environment then the holy grail of city making and city management would be found. The titles of recent seminars, lectures and research projects include “Seminar on Urban Traffic Knowledge Extraction”; “Detecting Pedestrian Destinations from Ubiquitous Digital Footprints”; “Revisioned Engineering for Cities of the Future”; “Benchmarks, Best Practices, and Framework for Sustainable Urban Development and Cities”; “Urban Transport Modeling in High Density Environments; Measuring Urban Expansion in East Asia”; “Walkability in Singapore”; and “Location Patterns of Street Commerce”, among many others. This is by no means an exhaustive list, as I have found only a handful of topics that prioritize the qualitative attributes of city thinking, city inhabitation and city meaning. 16
PhD holders abound in newly minted laboratories with spectacular names: “Create”, “Research”, “Innovation” and “Enterprise”, with bright signs glowing shades of red and white in the evening air, busy with the promise that cities and urban environments are no
longer historical or cultural productions alone but primarily sets of data, discernible, describable, optimizeable and, most importantly, able to be replicated and exported. The debate on the constituent elements of the cultural, social, historical or political components of the crafting of “better urban environments” is covered over by a context of pragmatic data-driven solutions and key performance indicators.
Outbursts from the recent tie-up with Yale University, the American bastion of liberal arts education, and the National University of Singapore provide only a brief respite from the emphasis on scientific exactitude and the creation of deployable knowledge. Yale’s “outsourcing” sparked a vigorous debate in the United States, but that dialogue was all but ignored in Singapore save for an article by Eric Weinberger in the local paper Today, a piece published originally in the U.S. magazine The Atlantic. 17 ETH Zurich, Duke, MIT, University of Chicago and NYU have all set up programs in Singapore with little contestation, quietly reaffirming Singapore as the research hub of Southeast Asia. 18 Clearly these institutions appreciate the research money generously granted by the Singapore government, discarding any difference of opinion on ideas of freedom, ethics, speech, human rights and culture identities that have so ensnarled the faculty at Yale.
I am struck by the lack of discussion on quality, on the humanistic inspirational and symbolic components of the city in these many city labs and centers. The debates and development of thinking on social justice, self-determination, creativity, poetry, freedom of expression and personal happiness all play a minor role, to Singapore’s detriment. A recent poll of 150,000 people around the globe found that Singapore topped the list of the most unhappy populations in the world, a shocking statistic given that all the quantitative measures of Singapore rank it as one of the most developed and prosperous countries in the world. Clearly quantity and quality are not proportional or necessarily relational. Context, cultural difference and regionalism remain small aberrations in the data sets and long checklists as cities grow under the inspiration of the Singapore success story.
Indeed, who needs such subjective preoccupations when Singapore’s own success is so seductive? Serious crime is almost non-existent, general education is of a high standard, jobs remain relatively plentiful, and economic opportunities abound. Singapore is accessible, its infrastructure is well-maintained, and healthcare is the envy of many nations in Southeast Asia. It seems that the best practices from all over the world may be found in Singapore, practices that are manifest in every facet of its existence.
Not surprisingly, Singapore is embraced by the corporate world. The majority of multinational corporations have headquarters in the country, from Microsoft, Apple, Proctor and Gamble, Unilever, Citibank, and Standard Chartered Bank, to Sands Casino, Universal Studios, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Bloomberg News.
The climate also makes it easy to do business in Singapore. The weather in this tropical outpost ranges constantly between 24 to 32 degrees Celsius (75 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit), with roughly 80 percent humidity. That ensures a perfectly consistent atmosphere for continual productivity; the ideal operational base without the troublesome climatic problems of hurricanes or cyclones, tornadoes or blizzards, tsunamis or earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or wild fires. Atmospheric disruptions to the work schedule are few and far between, if any. A temporary thunderstorm or monsoon wind gust is the highlight of a city working in an atmosphere of complete consistency where days become years without temperate markers or climatic events beyond control.
While the West once looked at Singapore with trepidation in the late 1990s, with fears running the gamut from one-party rule and limitations on liberty to deliberate censure of the press, those reservations are now few and far between. Today, the West sees Singapore as the center of a new world order — a form to be studied and cautiously celebrated. 19 In essence, those changes represent the aspirations of a growing urbanized world outside of the dominant “Western” model. Singapore represents a counterpoint to the democratic liberal models of urbanization. Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas notes that “the messy slow dirty game of
representative democracy and freedom of expression is not a necessary ingredient to economic success”. As former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew claimed, “You’re talking about Rwanda or Bangladesh, or Cambodia, or the Philippines. They’ve got democracy, according to Freedom House. But have you got a civilized life to lead? People want economic development first and foremost. The leaders may talk something else. You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as [they] like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools.” 20
Even Marina Bay Sands, 21 Singapore’s current symbol of economic success, combined with an image of a country relaxing its control, albeit through entertainment and gambling, has been exported to Chongqing, China, and remade larger and grander by Singapore’s own CapitaLand Limited. In China, the scheme has been expanded with six towers, the familiar sky bridge, and a massive shopping podium — Marina Bay Sands cloned and on steroids. In general, it appears amazingly blatant in its disregard for context and locality. Any attempt to conceal the exportation from Singapore seems irrelevant. In an age of expedient solutions, the architectural export is easier than invention based on context and locality. 22 Critical regionalism has long been abandoned in an age of simulation and cloning. As Koolhaas claims, Singapore is “a test bed of tabula rasa”; rarely has Singapore embraced locality for its future. 23 William Gibson alluded to such Singapore methodologies 20 years ago in far less flattering terms, asserting that Singapore was “cloning” itself in a “franchise operation” that would soon be our “techno-future”. 24 What was considered criticism in 1993 is reality today.
Taking these export ambitions to task, Singapore’s entry for the 12th Architectural Venice Biennale, in a statement of extreme exuberance — albeit with an undercurrent of internal criticism and devoid of stereotypical Asian modesty — proclaimed that Singapore is a model for the world. Debate on the distinction between “the model” and “a model” occurred between fellow curators and I; timidity won out. Only 1,000 imitation Singapores would be needed to house the world’s population. A Singapore the size of Texas would contain everyone, or a France doubled in size would do, our cheeky assertions suggest. We could all live in one giant Singapore if only we were bold
enough and had the right list of key performance indicators, so the narrative goes. The intention was to at once celebrate the highly influential and successful city-state but also to project its limits as a means to uncover critical questions of the direction and forms of urbanization.
Barring all the exuberance, after urbanization in Singapore has been so successfully implemented — where homes, medicine, jobs and schools have been provided — grumblings in the local coffee shops known as kopitiam, food stalls, and in the blogosphere pose the question: What next for Singapore proper? In the early 1990s, then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong elaborated on Singapore’s “Next Lap”, implying that a new phase of development had begun. But today, the next lap around the same track seems redundant. Segments of the population have started to call for a recalibration, a different course, through more public vocalization. What happens to Singapore after urbanization is complete? What happens when GDP per capita is one of the highest in the world? And what happens when Singapore is now the urban model judging the globe?
In 2011, the general elections in Singapore saw the prevailing People’s Action Party (PAP) gain success yet again — they have had a continuous majority for 46 years — but with the lowest percentage of the vote in Singapore’s history at 60 percent. Termed a “watershed election” by the Opposition, the important questions of where Singapore is heading, how, and led by whom, is up for debate. Two by-elections in Hougang (May 2012) and Punggol East (January 2013) saw continued gains for the Opposition in cementing the ground sentiment that the PAP is less powerful than it once was. But more important than the symbolic Opposition gains, larger questions for Singapore on its urban program are now up for debate.
Beyond available data, quantifiable measures and performance indicators, what are the foundational values for Singapore’s continued success? Why, despite the best efforts of politicians, civil servants and planners alike, do Singaporeans suffer from dreams of their next get-away vacation or — even worse — emigration and retirement to countries near and far?
In the current atmosphere of xenophobia, and with the tightening of immigration policies, I believe a more pertinent question is whether talent and workers in Singapore will continue to embrace the metropolitan and cosmopolitan aspirations that have made Singapore the success story that it is. Will Singapore chart its own course, becoming not only a collection of best practices and quantifiable measures but also a country and citizenry committed to its own qualitative vision and philosophical ideals that its population can believe in? Will Singapore, at this stage, create the foundations for “what ought to be”, not just what is materially comfortable, given that it has, by and large, reached material success?
bai’s Palm Islands. 26 This “breakthrough” simulation where the developer claims to offer a “better life” can be yours for only $7,000 USD. The better life may be bought and sold, but only when it is completed; the completion date for Coastarina is still unknown.
As an extension of Singapore’s global reach, Singapore exports itself to locations far away; geopolitics, market share and international reputation all seem to play important roles in these ambitions. Yet much closer to Singapore’s local geography, Johor Bahru in southern Malaysia and Indonesia’s Batam Island claim to be “Singapores” in the making; albeit not an export of Singapore proper where it directly remakes its neighbors, but rather Johor Bahru and Batam trying to copy — and import — the Singapore success story. Iskandar, also in Malaysia’s state of Johor, promotes a vision uncannily similar to Singapore, where Singapore’s own ring city concept plan has been transformed as a giant arc, a linear city for the sea fronting the Straits of Johor. It is as though Iskandar is “Singapore Unwrapped”, straightened and draped along the Straits. Iskandar’s Danga Bay hopes to be the Marina Bay for Johor Bahru, offering “dynamic services and [a] financial centre, with rows of restaurants, top-notch retail outlets and top draw events and activities offering the best in residential and commercial properties… as well as a shopping paradise”. 25
Batam, along Singapore’s southern sea periphery, hopes to remake itself into a tourist destination similar to Singapore. In a strange yet slightly outdated reference, Batam is remaking its port through land reclamation into an image of Dubai’s collection of man-made islands, The World. Named — or renamed, one might say — Coastarina, the official tagline claims a breakthrough concept inspired not by The World, but by Du-
Funtasy Island, recently claimed as the “largest eco theme park of the world” located “nearby Singapore” but that is part of the Indonesian Riau Archipelago, intends to have its own immigration portal — escaping the geopolitical necessities of nearby Batam. Designed by Singaporean architect Tan Kay Ngee, the proposals are simulations of Singapore’s own “premier” resort development at Sentosa Cove. Indeed, Funtasy Island is in Indonesia, but it is clearly targeting Singaporean money. An artistic impression of Funtasy Island at night, with the Singapore skyline in view, makes the reference entirely visible with Singapore’s iconic architecture — The Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore Flyer — both distinctly visible from 10 miles (16 km) away. Forget Indonesia, the image implies as Batam sits in the darkened sky, visible to the right side of the horizon; this is a playground for Singapore. From this Singapore-centric perspective, Batam is still in the dark: the censoring of Singapore’s less developed neighbors is obvious.
Singapore holds the dubious distinction of having one of the highest rates of genetic myopia (nearsightedness) in the world, with up to 80 percent of its populace rated as myopic. Studies of children in Singapore and Sydney, Australia documented an average of 3 hours of outdoor play per week for the children in Singapore and 14 hours of the same for children living in Sydney. Indeed, a mere 25 minutes per day for Singaporean children in a space of increasing interiority has inadvertently created — at least metaphorically — a crisis of vision. On a national level, Singapore’s own crisis of vision is not of myopia but of hyperopia – where images in the far distance are in clear view, but items near remain a blurry image. Singapore performs hyperopia, looking to be closer to New York or Shanghai than to its own geographic neighbors in Johor and Batam that are just a short drive or ferry ride away. Indeed, Singapore, despite is small size and emphasis on its global position, sits in the center of a much larger region of islands, peninsulas and archipelagos, and a small dose of myopia may be in order. Ten million people populate the immediate region. Linked by the sea and the three straits — the Johor Strait, the Malacca Strait, and the Singapore Strait — areas in nearby Malaysia and Indonesia share with Singapore a mutual history borne of interconnected geopolitics, spatial inhabitation and shared histories. In this immediate context, New York, Shanghai and London have little meaning.
On the 1971 issuance of the Singapore master plan (known as the 1971 Concept Plan, which was revised five times through 1991), both the state of Johor to the north and the Riau Archipelago to the south were not shown. Singapore became an island divorced from its neighbors not only politically and spatially but also, most importantly, in terms of aspiration. The implication is that Singapore has no hinterland; that its global networks are more important than its immediate neighbors north and south. Singapore’s surrounding context returned only in the 2001 version of the Concept Plan, with a reemergence of Johor’s coastline to the north, while Riau remained hidden in the vestiges of an empty sheet of paper. Indeed, set in the spirit of nation building, nationalism and the exertion of a fundamentally unique Singaporean identity, the smaller Johor State and Riau islands remain not only less relevant in these plan representations, but their presence sym-
bolizes a contamination of the construction of a newly independent state. Nationhood and nationalism depend on exclusionary practices. In this example, hyperopia serves the interests of a nation looking to establish itself by looking afar.
Yet, as far back as the 1800s, maps from the colonial British, Dutch, and Japanese illustrated a region in its entirety — a Singapore linked with Johor and Batam (the primary island of the Riau Archipelago) in a larger region of interconnectedness. That interconnectedness, administered by the conflicting colonial powers of the British, Dutch, Portuguese and, later, Japanese, centered the region on economic development rather than on political brinkmanship or internal reorganization. Only within the last decade, with an expanding demographic in Singapore, has there been a greater degree of political cooperation and mutually shared interests. The region is finally reconnecting itself. In the case of Singapore and Malaysia, the linkage will take physical form: the 25 January 2008 announcement of an underground mass transit subway spanning from Singapore’s central business district to Woodlands in the north and further linking to Johor Bahru’s Rapid Transit System proper will link Singapore to the larger region by modern mass transit. And in February 2013, Singapore and Malaysia announced their mutual intention to link Singapore and Kuala Lumpur with a highspeed rail network. In the words of Prime Minster Lee Hsien Loong, the proposed rail link will bond the two cities into “One virtual urban community”. 27
pore economy. Batam provides needed space for oilrig manufacturing, entertainment and downstream labor — the rough and manual labor jobs that seem less beneficial for the Singaporean population on its own shores. Batam has been labeled an “alternative pleasure periphery” where Singaporeans, predominately men, go to enjoy golfing, relaxation and sex workers, utilizing and exploiting the periphery as an alternative to Singapore’s straight-laced social norms.
On Bulan Island, located to the southwest of Batam, sits an enormous pig farm that exports pigs to Singapore. A thousand pigs sail to Singapore every night for slaughter. Aerial photography shows clusters of pig sheds linked with retention ponds dotting the island, which has become known as “Pig Island”. The irony of such a place situated in Indonesia has so far been lost in translation.
Gas and water pipelines connect the three countries, supplying Singapore with freshwater despite its best attempts at being hydrologically independent through New Water technology that supports 30% of its consumption needs. Gas lines cut cross the Straits, as do electrical, communication and water lines, all of them connecting the three nations in a hidden rhizomatic network.
of land, while Singapore’s land was limited. Industries and occupations deemed less productive to Singapore were strategically dispersed to Singapore’s periphery. What would be considered the ring corridors surrounding most metropolitan regions of the West became, in Singapore’s case, an act of traversing national boundaries. The title of “SIJORI Growth Triangle” for the region reflected the avoidance of Singapore centricity, partly by creating a label out of the first two letters of each state — Si-ngapore, Jo-hor, Ri-au.
In the intense political landscape of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, the economic success of the latter state could not be seen as independent of its neighbors. Indeed, it is Singapore’s regional development that has provided it with its many streams of sustenance, all of which have led to its impressive growth.
Despite Singapore’s preferred linkages to larger cities in the seemingly more important global network, Singapore’s survival remains critically interdependent on the local region. Air rights over the state of Johor enable Changi Airport to operate while shipping rights through the Malacca Straits ensure Singapore port’s livelihood. Both provide the vast amount of raw resources needed for the nation to survive. Fresh water and natural gas come from and through the territories of Johor and Batam, the very arteries to the Singapore heart. A hundred thousand Malaysians working in Singapore move across the Causeway daily and pass through one of the busiest checkpoints in the world, primarily working in industries supporting the Singa-
Ethnically, a diverse composition of Chinese, Bumiputera, Javanese, Malays, Indians and others share more commonalities based on their shared trades, aspirations and histories than their political and geographical boundaries suggest. If there is one cultural commonality that binds these ethnic communities together, it is the shared love of local food. This common love of local food has created apolitical spheres in which the regional population can debate, challenge and celebrate each spoonful in the dreams of their next meal.
After a tumultuous history of separation, suspicion and antagonism in the 1960s, an early attempt at regionalism began in 1989. The SIJORI Growth Triangle was announced in a collective statement of shared aspirations that asserted that growth for all three states was interdependent. Signed by then Deputy Prime Minister Goh, who later became Singapore’s second prime minister, the triangle was expanded in 1994 to include all of Malaysia and Indonesia proper. Good intentions aside, the subtext was that Johor and Batam had plenty
Today, as in 1989, Singapore remains the center by all measures. More economically robust from a global perspective, relying on its much larger global network, Singapore has become a model to emulate. Johor and Batam gaze across the sea at Singapore’s towers of glass and concrete, hoping that they, too, can produce “success”. Mutated little Singapores are found in the local press of Johor and Batam, as they aspire to what they see as achievement. To avoid or repress this Singapore centricity is to avoid the very realities of the SIJORI Growth Triangle, for the Sijori region is, after all, SI-jori with an emphasis on Singapore.
Singapore is networked far beyond its diminutive region, linking the city-state globally. In the minds of many in Singapore, this thinking comes at the expense of regional relationships. Connections to China, Vietnam and now Myanmar, with its increasingly open economy, often take precedence over the regional, where success stories in the local press refer to international locations afar rather than ones just over the Causeway or across the Straits. Indeed, the region is regarded with suspicion rather than promise, another way to obscure the tremendous necessity that the region provides for Singapore’s own livelihood. Singapore’s Woodlands Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) Checkpoint, built in 1998, manifests these deep suspicions through 10 observation towers
peering over the Straits and the adjacent coastline of Singapore. The symbolism clearly refers to a garrison state mentality in which incoming workers, tourists and visitors are regarded with suspicion. In 2008, Malaysia countered with its newly revamped checkpoint across the Straits. Designed as a series of large flat and curving roofs, and set off-axis from the Johor Straits, the symbolism and design intention are entirely different. The intent of the Sultan Iskandar CIQ Complex is not to repel visitors but to attract them as a means of tapping the burgeoning Singapore economy. The architectural form is open, embracing movement and the flow of people into and out of Malaysia, rather than reaffirming previous distrust.
Indeed, Singapore is in need of its neighbors to facilitate its very survival. If one thinks of Singapore as a city rather than a state alone, where the problems of nationalism are scrubbed away in such a way that the interconnectedness and shared histories of the region are pushed forth, then indeed the Singapore Metropolitan Region more aptly describes that amazingly complex territory.
Applying metropolitan frameworks to the region puts the emphasis not only on the urban configurations of Johor Bahru, Batam and Singapore proper but also on the ‘polis’ in the etymology of ‘metropolis’. 28 The emphasis is then on the people of the region. It is their shared aspirations for livelihood, happiness and freedoms, small and large, which are often so overlooked in an expanse so marked by economic disparities, political and religious differences, and cultural divergence. And it is precisely at this time in Singapore’s history, when population growth has unsettled the citizen population and xenophobia has become evident, that a look to metropolitanism and cosmopolitanism as a vision for an interconnected region is a necessary antidote to such negative ideologies.
As illustrated in the following pages, the Singapore Metropolitan Region traverses boundaries, indicating shared territories of the sea, interconnected transportation, trade and ethnic relationships. It shows the duplication and triplication of urban and architectural models from one locale to another, the shared aspirations of the people and their governments to be modern, relevant and economically robust.
Clearly the title Singapore Metropolitan Region prioritizes Singapore, for the city-state is the center of this region, both historically and geographically. It has the largest population and gross domestic product (GDP), and the greatest military strength. Its cultural, economic and political influence cannot be underestimated. Its regional influence is tremendous. And yet, it is a product of its location, leveraging on Batam and Johor as its de facto hinterland.
Now, after almost 50 years of hyperopia, Singapore is looking north once again. It is seriously considering co-investing in Iskandar, not to create the low-cost industrial production facilities of the 1990s, but with modernized medical facilities, retirement communities, and educational and entertainment zones. Singapore’s government-linked investment corporation Temasek Holdings, in a joint venture with Khazanah Nasional of Malaysia, announced in July 2011 the commencement of two developmental projects, the first focusing on “Urban Wellness” and the second a “Resort Wellness” development including serviced apartments, a corporate training centre and commercial, retail, residential and wellness-related facilities. Though in its infancy, Singapore is beginning to embrace its neighbors, not just for exploitative industrial outsourcing, but for expanding the living options for its population. This could be viewed as an outsourcing of populations, though I see it as a step forward for a region that views itself with less suspicion and more shared aspirations. Indeed, Singapore’s success is ever more dependent on the success of its geographic neighbors not as a manufacturing center, but as a territory of shared aspirations and combined metropolitanism.
To understand the region of Johor and Batam is to understand Singapore; likewise, to understand Singapore is also to understand Johor and Batam. Each reflects the others, each a mirror sitting across the Straits. This book highlights the shared histories, cultures, geographies and aspirations through simple yet direct graphical notations. The intent is to collect and examine the spectrum of influences on the region, not as three independent states or nations, but as a collective territory of thought and action.
The intent of this body of work is not to produce a conclusive pronouncement or totalizing history but to document the plurality and complexity of the area so
that a cogent picture may be formed with a regional perspective. Short introductions are intersected with data and diagrams as intellectual counterpoints, capturing alternative narratives less easily explained through visual devices alone. The first chapter on the historical interrelationships between Singapore, Johor and Batam maps a historical axis of the shared commonalities between the three states; the second chapter elucidates the complexities of the Singapore Metropolitan Region as one territory. The chapter on “Samesame” models represents the homogenizing influences of urban and landform strategies emerging as symbols of economic success throughout the world, Singapore being only one facet of this global trend. The fourth chapter on “Dencity” depicts various density models as a series of options, opening up available possibilities as counter-narratives to Singapore’s own singular urban model. The final chapter illustrates specific design propositions that consider Johor, Batam, and Singapore yet interlinked to the many geopolitical and demographic forces that affect the larger region. Within these pages, a cultural, economic, and geographic polis comes into focus, a cosmopolitan landscape that is the Singapore Metropolitan Region.
1 Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000 (Singapore: Times Editions, 2000).
2 Kampong is Malay for “hamlet” or “village”.
3 A white paper by the Singapore government projected that the population could reach 6.9 million by 2030. See Population White Paper: A Sustainable Population for a Dynamic Singapore, January 2013. Accessed January 30, 2013, http://202.157.171.46/ whitepaper/downloads/population-white-paper.pdf.
4 Jim Sleeper, “Blame the Latest Israel-Arab War on... Singapore?”, The Huffington Post, November 17, 2012. Accessed January 28, 2013, http://www. huffingtonpost.com/jim-sleeper/blame-the-latestisraelar_b_2147509.html.
5 In Singapore, word-doubling indicates determination and enthusiasm. Common instances are when taxi drivers emphatically proclaim “Can! Can!” or “Confirm confirm” in their determination to take one to one’s destination on time.
6 Vibhor Mohan, “Singapore Model for Metro Profit”, The Times of India, May 1, 2009. Accessed January 28, 2013, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes. com/2009-05-01/chandigarh/28174508_1_singaporemodel-rites-metro-project.
7 Jonathan Watts, “China Teams Up with Singapore to Build Huge Eco City”, The Guardian, June 4, 2009. Accessed January 28, 2013, http://www.guardian. co.uk/world/2009/jun/04/china-singapore-tianjin-ecocity.
8 KPI is an acronym often used in Singapore for “Key Performance Indicators”.
9 Le Corbusier, The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1929), 179.
10 Tianjin has 11,666 people per sq km while Singapore has 7,493 people per sq km.
11 Caroline Anning, “Dubai vs Singapore – The StepUp”, Executive Magazine, October 3, 2010. Accessed January 28, 2013, http://www.executive-magazine. com/special-report/Dubai-vs-Singapore-TheStepUp/668.
12 “Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize”, Urban Redevelopment Authority. Accessed January 28, 2013, http:// www.leekuanyewworldcityprize.com.sg.
13 For example Chinese, Vietnamese and Asian students and diplomats visit Singapore to study Singapore policy and government through various venues: the independent think tank Singapore Institute of International Affairs, The Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University, and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. As Kishore Mahbubani states in the Dean’s Welcome on the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy website, “Finally, the world has come to recognize that Singapore provides one of the best public policy laboratories in the world. Many independent international surveys confirm that several of Singapore’s public policies are among the best-performing in the world.” See “Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy”, National University of Singapore. Accessed December 28, 2012, http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/Dean_Welcome.aspx.
14 The Centre for Liveable Cities was established by the Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources in June 2008.
15 In full disclosure, even I have created SMS — Singapore Metropolitan Studio – to showcase urban and city research done at the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore.
16 “Historic Structure and Dynamics of the Building Stock of Singapore”, Future Cities Laboratory; “Urban Sociology”, Future Cities Laboratory; and “The Built Environment and Quality of Life of Older Persons” are the names of several seminars and research labs working on qualitative components of the city.
17 Eric Weinberger, “Why is Yale Outsourcing a Campus to Singapore”, TODAY. Accessed December 28, 2012, http://www.todayonline.com/World/ EDC111109-0000004/Why-is-Yale-outsourcing-acampus-to-Singapore.
18 NYU’s case is surprising given that their Tisch School of the Arts is packing up and returning to New York as quietly as it arrived, ending its on-the-ground experiment by 2014, as noted in Patrick Frater, “Tisch Asia Headed for Closure”, Film Business Asia, November 9, 2012. Accessed January 28, 2013, http:// www.filmbiz.asia/news/tisch-asia-headed-for-closure.
19 “Latin Americans Most Positive in the World, Singaporeans are the Least Positive Worldwide”, Gallup Inc., December 19, 2012. Accessed at http://www. gallup.com/poll/159254/latin-americans-positiveworld.aspx#1.
20 Han Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez and Sumiko Tan, Lee Kuan Yew, The Man and His Ideas (Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings, 1997).
21 Marina Bay Sands is an integrated resort located at Marina Bay. It was designed by Moshe Safdie Architects.
22 “Moshe Safdie’s Chongqing Complex Looks Just Like Moshe Safdie’s Singapore Complex”, Architizer, December 8, 2011. Accessed January 31, 2013, http:// www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/35395/moshesafdies-chongqing-complex-looks-just-like-moshesafdies-singapore-complex/.
23 Rem Koolhaas, “Singapore Songlines”. In Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large: Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rem Koolhaas, and Bruce Mau, edited by Jennifer Sigler, 1035. New York: Monacelli Press, 1998.
24 William Gibson, “Disneyland with the Death Penalty”, Wired Magazine, Issue 1.04, Sep/Oct 1993.
25 “Development Elements”, Danga Bay. Accessed on January 4, 2012, http://www.dangabay.com/.
26 “Living in Batam – Coasterina Residence”, Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. Accessed January 4, 2012, http://www.bpbatam.go.id/eng/livingInBatam/ residence.jsp.
27 Rachel Chang, “Singapore-Malaysia Prime Ministers’ Annual Retreat; Rail link to make S’pore, KL ‘one virtual urban community’”, The Straits Times, 20th February 2013.
28 “Metropolis” is from the Greek “mētr”, meaning “mother”, and “polis”, meaning “Public” and “State”.
The city-state Singapore has spilled over into its two neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia. Singapore discovered in the Indonesian Riau Archipelago, resources that are rarely found near the centre of mega-cities — cheap land and cheap labour. To what extent Singapore’s presence offers reciprocal benefits to Riau is the question. For example, Singapore has not only moved the production of poultry for all Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets of the region to Riau, but also prostitution. This article will explore the consequences of Singapore’s expansion for Riau.
Since the British founded Singapore in 1819 the city has been a transportation hub and communication centre. After Singapore gained independence in 1965, export-led industrialization and a high-technology service industry have diversified the economy. The ever-expanding economy and growing population of the limited island territory have demanded innovative measures. Land reclamation taken up since the 1960s and the construction of high-rise housing and skyscraper offices could reduce the pressure on land for only a limited amount of time.
Mega-urban development in the city-state took a decisive turn with the concept of the Singapore-Johor-Riau (SIJORI) Growth Triangle. Then Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong launched this concept in 1989 at a time when the industrial development within the boundaries of the city-state reached its saturation point and when costs of land and labour were rising sharply. The basic idea was that the three regions pool their human and natural resources in order to attract new investors. Each corner of the triangle would put in its respective comparative advantage — Singapore its capital, technical skills, and management; the Malaysian state of Johor its land and semi-skilled labour; and the Indonesian province of Riau also its land and cheap labour. In reality, SIJORI does not represent a tripartite partnership but an arrangement by which
Singapore’s mega-urban growth can freely spillover into the territories of its neighbours (Macleod and McGee 1996: 425). Singapore was, and is, clearly in control — it took the initiative and provided the capital and management.
Fatal Attraction?
The encroachment of Singapore’s mega-urban region into Riau started on Batam, the island just south of Singapore. A series of bridges connects Batam to six other islands, which lie in a string to the south of Batam. Every half-hour, a speedboat leaves Singapore for the thirty-minute ride to Batam, which has evolved as an industrial centre and a tourist resort. The rise in the number of tourists in Batam is impressive — from none in 1983, via 60,000 in 1985, to 606,000 in 1991, 78 per cent of whom Singaporeans and 10 per cent Malaysians. In 1999, 1.14 million foreigners arrived at Batam airport, thus surpassing Sukarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta.
The island of Bintan is a freshwater reservoir for Singapore; an undersea pipe brings the water to the city. Bintan has also been developed as a tourist resort with 20 hotels, ten golf courses, and ten condominiums. Industrial estates can also be found on Bintan.
The other islands have more specialised functions. The island of Bulan is a centre of agricultural production. It was expected to have about 400,000 pigs by 2000, enough to provide 50 per cent of Singapore’s demand for pork. A crocodile farm of 55,000 reptiles provides leather and meat. Chicken production serves all the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets of the region. Bulan will, surely, also become the world’s largest supplier of orchids. Karimun is used for oil storage and shipyards, two pre-eminently space-consuming activities. Singkep will be developed into a centre for ship-breaking yards. Over a hundred permits for sand quarries have been issued, spread over several islands, large and small, and more quarries operate illegally (Grundy-Warr and Perry 1996; Macleod and McGee 1996; Nur 2000).
The Indonesian government has lured foreign investors to the Batam Economic Zone with inducements such as duty-free import of capital equipment and duty free export of export-oriented production. Another attraction is that the Indonesian government has nullified environmental impact laws for the island. As such, Singapore is able to use Batam as a repository for the by-products of polluting industries, which are no longer allowed in the citystate itself, and a dump for dredged soil of dubious quality. Indonesia also accepts the kind of entertainment that Singapore prefers not to have under its own roof — 5,000 prostitutes work in Batam, of which hundreds are underage girls, smuggled to Riau against their will. The average tourist stay on Batam is 1.3 days, a typical weekend away from Singapore complete with sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll (Lindquist 2002).
The Indonesian government thrust all these changes down the local people’s throats. Batam was placed under the custodianship of the Batam Industrial Development Authority (BIDA), which remained outside the power of regular local legislative bodies, and had gained control of land through presidential decree. The Head of BIDA was the then Minister of Technology, B.J. Habibie, the most trusted favourite of former President Suharto. In most cases the Indonesian counterpart of Singaporean investors was the Salim Group, which again had very close connections with the Suharto presidency. The connection between the Salim Group and the highest Indonesian authorities helped them to acquire land — villagers were often pressed to move out from their homes with very little compensation. For instance, on Bintan six villages consisting of 2,200 families were relocated to make way for freshwater reservoirs (Anwar 1994: 27–28, 31; Macleod and McGee 1996: 429).
tion of 100 rupiah per square metre for their land, paid by the Salim Group, would after all be increased to 10,000 rupiah per square metre. In 1991 the landowners concerned had grudgingly accepted the compensation after pressure exerted by the state; it was now revealed that the Singaporean investors had offered a far higher price and there were questions about who had pocketed the price difference. After the loss of the political protection offered by the former President, the Salim Group had come into dire financial straits and was less willing than ever to pay extra money. Following a week in which tourist visits declined by 85 per cent, the demonstrators were chased away from the resort. Environmental Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) that express their worries about the sand quarries first and foremost point to the Indonesian authorities that give out too many concessions or do not stop illegal quarries. Singapore’s influential role yet remains in the background.
Since Suharto resigned, the people have felt free to rake over old coals. In January 2000, demonstrators cut off the energy supply to an industrial estate on Bintan. Police reinforcements were immediately flown in from Batam and one occupant of the powerhouse was shot dead. Soon after 40 companies contemplated leaving Bintan. Other demonstrators occupied a tourist resort on Bintan, demanding that the 1991 compensa-
Anwar, Dewi Fortuna, ‘Sijori: ASEAN’s southern growth triangle; problems and prospects’, Indonesian quarterly, volume 22, issue 1 (1994), pp.22–33.
Grundy-Warr, Carl, and Martin Perry, ‘Growth triangles, international economic integration and the Singapore-Indonesian border zone’, in: Dennis Rumley et al. (eds.), Global geopolitical change and the AsiaPacific; a regional perspective, Aldershot: Avebury (1996), pp.185–211.
Lindquist, Johan, The anxieties of mobility: Development, migration, and tourism in the Indonesian borderlands, Stockholm: Stockholm University, Department of Anthropology (2002).
Macleod, Scott, and T.G. McGee, ‘The SingaporeJohore-Riau growth triangle: an emerging extended metropolitan region’, in: Fu-chen, Lo, and Yue-man Yeung (eds.), Emerging world cities in Pacific Asia, Tokyo et al.: United Nations University Press (1996), pp.417–464.
Nur, Yoslan, ‘L’île de Batam à l’ombre de Singapour; Investissement singapourien et dépendeance de Batam’, Archipel 59 (2000), pp.145–170.
Sultan Mahmud Shah I Last Sultan for Melaka, Founder for Johore Lama
1. Melaka (1488-1511)
2. Bertam, Pulau Pinang (1511-1512)
3. Batu Hampar, Selangor (1511-1512)
4. Sungai Muar, Johor (1511-1512)
5. Ulu Jempoh, Pahang (1511-1512)
6. Pekan Tua, Kota Tinggi, Johor (1512)
7. Pulau Bentan / Bintan Island (1513-1518)
8. Pagoh, Johor (1518-1520)
7. Pulau Bentan / Bintan Island (1520-1526)
9. Kampar, Sumatra (1526-1528)
Sayong Pinang Kuala Sayong
Rantau Panjang
Kota Kara
Kampung Makam
Pasir Raja
Kota Seberang
Batu Sawar
Gonggong (Tanah Putih)
Panchor Kampung Air Putih
Bt. Seluyut Johor Lama
Tanjung Batu
Kota Batu
Batu Buruk
Kg. Kong Kong
Sungei Johore
Johore in the history
10th Century: Wurawari (‘clear water’)
15th Century: Ujung Tanah (‘land’s end’)
16th Century: Ganggayu (‘jewel’)
1511-1877 | Shifting of Ruling Places in Kota Tinggi District (Johore Lama)
1. Pulau Penyengat (1513 - 1526, 1722 - 1819)
2. Tanjong Pinang (1945 - 1957)
3. Pekanbaru (1957)
4. Balakang Padang (1965)
5. Tanjong Pinang (Till Present)
PAHANG
Johor Pahang Perak , attack Portuguese in Melaka.
Johor-Riau-Lingga Empire16th-18th Century
Portuguese + Johore against Acheh’s attack 1582
1641
Johor Dutch defeated Portuguese in Melaka.
Jambi War 1670
Minangkabau Prince, Raja Kechil, from Siak, took over the throne in Johor1699
Raja Kechil was dethroned, usurped by Bugis’ puppet, Raja Sulaiman1722 Sir Stamford Raffles arrived in Singapore, discovered a small Malay settlement at the mouth of the Singapore River which was headed by a Temenggung (governor) of Johor 1819
Johor's centre of administration was initially based on the mainland of Johor. It then shifted to Bintan Island, and then to Lingga. When the Sultanate split up on 17 March 1824 after the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 the centre of administration was in Singapore. It then shifted to Tanjung Puteri, known today as Johor Bahru. 1824
1866
50 hectare land that produced gambir and pepper
Owned by head planters
Kangchu
A socio-economic system of organization and administration by Chinese agricultural settlers in Johor. The settlers organized themselves into informal associations ‘Kongsi’. In Chinese, ‘Kangchu’ literally means ‘lord of the river’. It was the title given to the Chinese headmen of these river settlements. The ‘Kangchu’ leaders are also called ‘Kapitan’, and their different roles are illustrated:
Chinese from Singapore sought work opportunities as planters in Johor.
Kangkar that existed till 1887
Kangkar that existed till 1893
Other Kangkar that existed till 1904
Kangkar with no proofing source
Kangkar that is used in the modern maps
Johor Government
Letter of River Capitalist Planters
Kongsi (‘Company’)
Letter of River
Planters
Johor Steam Ferry Boat Company began operation in 1875
Causeway opened in 1924
Taukeh
Gambir Pepper
Infastructure Plan of Johor Bahru-Plentong-Pasir Gudang draft structure planning, redrawn from Mukim Plentong and Pasir Gudang Structure Plan, (1983)
Future highway Highway Railway New public transit system Major road
Sub-centre
Goverment reserve
Minor sub-centre
Water catchment area
Neighbourhood centre
Hospital
Bus terminal
Port
Agriculture
Recreation Green belt/forest reserve
Committed housing area Village
Commercial Industry Area suitable for development if services and utilities are provided
Special reserve
Johor Bahru city centre
Nusajaya city centre
District centre
Existing urban footprint
Immediate potential development areas
Future urban footprint
Catalyst employment area
Catalyst neighborhood area
Managed SME industrial park
Green area
Local centre
Multimodel Terminal
Village neighborhood
Aquaculture zone
Agriculture
Special management area
Core conversation area
Airport & seaport
Urban growth boundary
Overall Development Plan Map of Iskandar Malaysia for 2025, redrawn from Regional Land Use Framework, (2007-2025)
Singapore
Historical Maps & Concept Plans
High-density
Commercial areas
Medium-density
Industrial areas
Low-density
Wholesale & Business
Civic centre
Main shopping areas
Residential areas
Rural centres & Settlements
Shopping & Business centres
Industry
Agricultural areas
Green belt & public open areas
Universities & major educational institutions
Dock area
Airfield
Other uses
City centre
Housing
Industry & Business
Concept Plan of Singapore - The Otto Koenigsberger Plan (Ring City) redrawn from UNDP (1963)
Water catchments
Transportation by rail
Transportation by sea
Catchment areas
Airfield Expressway
Proposed rapid mass transit system
Proposed new city centres
Proposed high-density urbanised area, New cities
Proposed industrial area, New cities
Singapore city area, (T.M.A)
Regional parkland & green belt agriculture
Low-density residential
High-density residential
Industry, Harbours
Commercial centres
Catchment areas
Open spaces
Coastal recreational areas
Rural areas
Institutional uses
Expressways
Airports
Mass Rapid Transit
New city centres
High-density urbanised area
Industrial area
Green belt, Agriculture
Military land
Airfield
Singapore city area
Rural centres & settlements
Major roads
Rail
Residential
Rural centres & Settlements
Shopping & Business Centres
Industry
Agricultural areas
Universities & major educational institutes
Dock areas
Airfields
Comprehensive development areas
Other areas
Green belt & Open spaces
Water catchment areas
Boundary of town map area
Boundaries of new towns & additional town map areas
Commercial
Residential
Utilities or telecommunications
Open spaces
Institutional
Cemeteries
Warehousing
Industry
Quarrying or Mining
Transportation
Reservoirs or water catchments
Agriculture
Vacant land or under construction
Special uses
Residential
Rural centres & Settlements
Shopping & Business centres
Industry
Agricultural Green belt & Open spaces
Water catchment
Tertiary & major educational
Dock or port
Airports or Airfields
Comprehensive development
Other areas
Boundary of town map
Boundaries of new towns & additional town map
Urban centres
Urban District
High-density residential area
Industries
Main public transportation routes
Expressways
High-intensity development
Green open spaces
Central area
Regional centre
Sub-regional centre
Expressways
Mass Rapid Transit
Residential
Commercial Industry
Business park
Institution
Central area
Open space/ Recreation
Special use
Port/ Airport
Infrastructure
Expressways
Mass Rapid Transit
Residential
Institution
Commercial Industry/ Business Agriculture
Open space/ Recreation
Infrastructure
Special use
Reserve site
Possible future reclamation
Road
Rail
Batam
Historical Maps & Concept Plans
SINGAPORE METROPOLITAN REGION
The Peripheral Corridor
Human movement across the land and liquid areas known as Southeast Asia had been occurring for several millennia since the last Ice Age. They took into account the terrain and landscape features suitable for human habitation and made use of land bridges that have since been submerged by sea water. Austronesian cosmopolitanism was effected via development of sailing craft, chiefly outrigger canoes, that witnessed southward migration towards the Philippines and Borneo from the Asian continent and subsequently eastwards towards Polynesia. The age of classical empires and commerce strengthened religious and political affiliations alongside the establishment of resource networks and trade patterns prior to the advent of the western imperial age. The galactic polities that were created and the strong rulers within them created centres with concentric realms of governance, but not borders that restricted travel between such polities. The rise and fall, and sometimes continuity or obliteration of these centripetal polities and their operational proto-urban centres, are the historical narratives mapped over the regional landscape. This short essay attempts to map the changing nature of cosmopolitanism peculiar to the region, over a long durée.
From 1511 and with the capture of Malacca by Portugal, the region witnessed the realignment of importance played by coastal conurbations and their development to support colonial rule and economics. For example, Singapore’s role was raised in place of Johor Lama in the erstwhile Johor-Riau Empire and attracted migration from elsewhere, chiefly from China and India. The plural society that J.S. Furnivall propounded segregated ethnic groups into respective enclaves as well as smaller sub-enclaves to form the artificial landscape in support of the intense form of capitalism where local folks only met in the markets and production areas, but not socially or culturally. Outside the towns, the jungles were tamed to yield plantations and mining landscapes.
Spatially, the different colonies began their gradual demarcations of their domains with borders. For example, the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 delineated the border which eventually became the international boundary between Singapore and Indonesia. After the post-World War II period and decolonization, states with marked borders developed along prior colonial histories. The colonial era in Southeast Asia thus created primate cities (c.f. Terry McGee) that assumed importance and size over other neighbouring cities, be they capital cities or important economic sites. Alongside such primacy to particular cities was a graduation of areas around them into smaller towns and villages, of lesser or secondary importance, and connected by colonial infrastructure of roads, rail and water channels. This is the constellational spatial network that Southeast Asia had “inherited.”
The intense post-war national period experienced by different countries that ended around the 1970s, was followed by post-national pursuits to reconnect them economically with global financial flows. This next developmental phase further structured internal landscapes within respective countries, but which precipitated mega-urban regions around primate cities while local infrastructure was further recalibrated them. By 2002, McGee “upgraded” the primate city model to that of nodes of global cities and secondary cities with apron conurbations of mega-urban regions, and to capture the changing operational dynamics of regions in the world.
The national border that hindered and limited the myriad forms of cosmopolitanism from ancient times was also exposed in many ways since they were created post-1945. In the 1990s, the formation of the Growth Triangles by respective governments of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia was meant to enhance economic co-operation between Singapore, Johore and Riau, with more of such triangles developed in the next two decades and between different governments. Prior to this, the relaxing of restrictions to multi-national companies to set up branches, bases and factories in Southeast Asian countries overlapped earlier social and trade links despite of the very borders. Come
2015, the ASEAN Economic Community will pave the way for the free flow of professional labour across the countries including architects and doctors, and will encourage further permeability at the customs. By that time, the filtered form of cosmopolitanism will have replaced the rigid control over movement within the region and internationally, during the national period. The position of Singapore as the global node for the larger mega-urban region will not only be reinforced, but also tested.
Barelang
Galang| 80sq km
SEGAMAT
MERSING
JOHOR BAHRU DISTRICT IN 2009
= Johor Bahru District + Kulai District
JOHOR BAHRU DISTRICT IN 2010
ISKANDAR MASTERPLAN
= Johor Bahru District +
Kulaijaya District +
Part of Pontian District
PENANG
Agong: Mizan Zainal Abidin
Prime Minister: Najib Tun Razak
Johor Sultan: Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar
Menteri Besar: Y.A.B. Dato’ Haji Abdul Ghani bin Othman
Johor Executive Council
Johor State Government Secretary Office
Johor State Departments And Agencies
Johor Bahru City Council (MBJB)
Datuk Bandar (Mayor): Tuan Haji Burhan bin Amin
Land Office of Johor
Department of Town and Country Planning State Johor (Johor JPBD)
Johor & Malaysia’s administrative structure
Yang Di-Pertuan Agong
Executive Legislature
Parliament SenateAuditor-general House of Representative
Sultan Yang Dipertuan Negeri (Rulers of State)
Menteri Besar (State Chief Minister)
Prime Minister Cabinet Ministries
Min. of Housing and Local Government
Conference of Rulers
Judiciary
Supreme Court
High Court in Peninsular Malaysia
High Court in Sabah and Sarawak
Executive Council (Exco)
Exco Committees
State action council
State security committee
State Secretary’s Office
Branches of Federal Agencies State Agencies
Local Authorities Land and District Office
Branches of State Agencies
Branches of Federal Agencies
Penghulu’s Office
Town & Country Planning Department
State development committee
Commissions
Election commission
Judicial and Legal Services Commission
Police Force commission
Public Service Commission
Education Service Commision
Local Government Division
Other Departments
Local Government Division (state level)
Town & Country Planning Department (state level)
District Action Committee
Mukim Development and Security Committee
Kampung Development and Village Headman
Security Committee
District Security Committee
District Development Committee
Kulaijaya
Johor Bahru
West Malaysia The State of Johor Divistion of Districts in 2009
Johor Bahru District 2009
District into Mukim-mukim (Subdistricts)
Kulaijaya becomes an independent district in 2010
Johor Bahru District 2010
2-hour drive*
83 km ring road from Singapore to JB boundary traverses Nusajaya 15-minute drive*
*
Johor - Singapore Causeway | 1920m
Malaysia - Singapore Second Link | 1056m
Batam - Tonton Island | 642m
Tonton Island - Nipah Island | 420m
Nipah Island - Setoko Island | 270m
Seteko Island - Rempang Island | 365m
Rempand Island - Galang Island | 385m
Galang Island - Galang Bahru Island | 180m
Kukup
Stulang Laut
Tanjung Belungkor
Desaru
Harbourfront Centre
Marina South Pier
Changi
Tanah Merah
Sebana Cove
Tanjung Pengelih Pengerang
Sungai Rengit
Nongsa Pura
Sekupang
Batu Ampar
Batam Centre
Bandar Bentan Telani Waterfront City
Telaga Punggur
Tanjung Uban Tanjung Pinang
Current figure - 3.28 million
Current figure - 3.31 million
Postulated figure - 5.5 million
Current figure - 1.03 million
Current figure - 0.17 million
Current figure - 5.18 million
Postulated figure - 6.5 million
Total current figure for SMR ≈ 14 million
Current figure - 1.04 million
Postulated figure - 1.7 million
Figures of current population & postulated population in 20 years
7.3% growth
14.1% growth
7% growth
US$
49,780 US$
Total Imports in 2010 = 330,189 million USD
12345678910
Total Exports in 2010 = 373,659 million USD 12345678910
Total Imports in 2010 = 7,688 million USD
12345678910
Total Exports in 2010 = 373,659 million USD
12345678910
Smuggled goods include: Logging Products Sand Mining Agricultural products eg: banned products, foreign rice Duty free goods
Wildlife Prostitutes Traditional trade between bonded and non-bonded islands
intervillagetraditionaltrading(legal)
TAP 2 IMPORTED SOURCE (million gallon per day)
Linggiu Scheme 1990 water agreement
Johor River
Tebrau River Skudai River
Johor River Scheme 1962 water agreement 250 mgd (1,140,000 m3)
Tebrau and Skudai River Scheme 1961 water agreement (expired) 4 mgd (18,184m3)
Gunung Pulai Scheme 1927 water agreement (expired) 12 mgd (5,455m3)
Consumption:
Import treated water from Linggiu Dam Imported Water from Johor 150 mgd (681,914 million m3)
TAP 3: NEWATER (Capacity: 122 mg)
NEWater Plant A 17 mg (77,283 m3)
NEWater Plant B 5 mg (22,730 m3)
NEWater Plant C 32 mg (145,474 m3)
NEWater Plant D 18 mg (81,829 m3)
NEWater Plant E 50 mg (227,304 m3)
TAP 4: DESALINATED WATER (Capacity: 30 mgd)
Tuas SingSpring Desalination Plant 30
(136,382 m3)
mg = imperial million gallons
mgd = imperial million gallons per day
Main Water Source in Batam
RESERVOIRS
total capacity: 22,993mg (101,290,000m3)
A. Sei Harapan 792mg (3,600,000m3)
B. Sei Ladi 2,088mg (9,490,000m3)
C. Sei Baloi 59mg (270,000m3)
D. Muka Kuning 2,699mg (12,270,000m3)
E. Duriankang 17,197mg (78,180,000m3)
F. Sei Nongsa 158mg (720,000m3)
mg = imperial million gallons mgd = imperial million gallons per day
Main Water Source in Johor Bahru
TAP 1: RIVERS
1. Sungai Pulai
2. Sungai Skudai
3. Sungai Tebrau
4. Sungair Johore
5. Sungai Layang-layang
TAP 2: RESERVOIRS
6. Takungan Air Sultan Iskandar
7. Gunung Pulai Besar
TAP 3: Singapore Treated Water
Segamat Jackfruit, Starfruit, Mango, Orange, Durian, Palm Oil
Muar Fruits, Palm Oil, Poultry Farm, Pig Farm
Parit Jawa Oyster, Fish, Dragon Fruit, Pineapple, Paddy
Batu Pahat Pineapple, Banana, Palm Oil, Durian, Poultry Farm, Pig Farm
Simpang Renggam Pineapple
Pekan Nenas Pineapple, Durian, Poultry Farm, Egg
Pulai Vegetable
Pontian Pineapple, Coconut, Padi, Palm Oil, Kuini Fruit, Mushroom, Banana, Tapioca and Sugar Cane Cattle Farm, Poultry Farm
Pulau Kukup Fish Products
Tanjung Piai Coffee, Mixed Fruits, Palm Oil, Honey, Fish
Serkat Coffee, Corn, Palm Oil, Banana
Watermelon, orange, roselle tea, starfruit Rompin
Fruits, Vegetables, Palm Oil Endau
Watermelon, orange, roselle tea, starfruit Mersing
Dragon Fruit, Organic Vegetable, Organic Rice, Pineapple, Tea, Spinach, Cabbage, Long Beans, Sweet Potato, Cassava and Maize Kluang Cattle Farm
Cattle, Duck Farm Layang-layang
Watermelon, Orange, Roselle Tea, Starfruit, Mushroom, Fish Kota Tinggi
Starfruit, Jackfruit, Soursop, Honey, Orange, Durian Desaru
Egg, Pig Farm, Poultry Farm Skudai
Bird Nest, Fish, Palm Oil, Buah Jarak, Fruit (Durian, Rambutan, Mango) Pengerang
United States Beef
Chicken Duck
Fish Fruit
Pork Rice
Vegetable
Brazil
Beef
Chicken
Fruit Sugar
France
Chicken Duck Fish Fruit Pork
Vegetable Milk
Netherlands
Chicken Pork
Vegetable
Fruit
India Fish Fruit Rice
Sugar
Vegetable
China
Cooking Oil
Fish
Fruits
Pork Rice Sugar
Vegetable
Vietnam Fish Fruit Rice
Sugar
Vegetable
Australia
Beef
Fish
Fruit
Mutton
Pork
Rice
Sugar
Vegetable
Milk
New Zealand
Beef
Egg
Fish
Fruits
Mutton
Vegetable
Thailand
Fish Fruit
Rice Sugar
Vegetable
Pulau Bulan
Pork
Crocodile
Malaysia
Chicken
Cooking Oil
Duck Egg Fish
Fruit Sugar
Vegetable
Thailand Sugar Rice (illegal trading)
Vietnam Rice (illegal trading)
Sumatra Flour, Cooking Oil, Egg, Vegetable, Chilli, Potato, Onion
Riau Islands Fish, Prawn, Crab and other marine products
Jakarta Rice
Java Cooking Oil, Flour, Egg, Vegetable
≈ 0.22 tons / 200 kg per
- Live Pigs | ≈ 365,000 pigs
Pulau Bulan, Indonesia
- Frozen pork | ≈ 127,273 pigs / 28,000 tons
Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Sweden & USA
- Chilled pork | ≈ 109,091 pigs / 24,000 tons
Major Exporter Australia & Others
1000 pigs daily
Power supply
Power supply
Distri park
Telecommunication nodes
Transmitting/ relay station
Telecommunication
integrated towers
Telecommunication nodes
Type of Material Location
A. Gold Jementah
B. Kaolin Ayer Hitam
C. Bauxite (aluminium) Medan
D. Gold Mersing
E. Tin Kota Tinggi
F. Iron Ore Kota Tinggi
G. Illegal Sand Mining Sungai Johor
H. Silica Sand Pengerang
I. Bauxite Teluk Ramunia (world’s largest bauxite mine)
J. Sand Mining Singapore Strait, Malacca Strait
K. Granite Pulau Babi, Pulau Kundur, Pulau Karimunbesar, Pulau Bintan
L. Tin Pulau Karimunbesar, Pulau Kundur
M. Sand Pulau Bintan, Pulau Batam
Get pass to other cities: 4.3 million/ 15.5 million
Day-tripper: 9.6 million/ 15.5 million
Singapore Tourist: 14.1million /15.5 million
X 2.7 times/ year
Total: 15.5 million (include Singaporean visitors via Causeway and Tuas Link)
Gross Total: 1.4 million
Day-tripper: 2.6 million / 11.64 million
Indonesian Tourist: 2.3 million / 11.64 million
Malaysian Tourist: 1.04 million / 11.64 million (via airport)
Gross Total: 11.64 million (exclude Malaysian visitors via Causeway and Tuas Link) 9.51 million
Johor drug users detected: 2243 annually 0.68%
60.7 % use heroin/morphine (most commonly abused intravenous drug) 1,362 drugs users annually using IV drug usage
Singapore’s public housing program is by now widely known, if not always recognized as ‘successful’. Criticisms tend to focus on the ‘uniformity’ of its high-rise built form, estate planning and amenities provided. However, apart from the ease of masterplanning by repetition, the various uniformities have an important consequence; they visually reduce social differences that arise from social and income inequalities that inhere in any large housing estates, including the newtowns. The general image of a public housing estate in Singapore is that every resident is equally served and has ready access to the public goods and amenities available without discrimination. This serves well the government’s claim that Singapore is a ‘middle class’ society. After more than forty-years of such comprehensive planning and construction of large housing estates, Singaporean architects and urban planners, in both government service and private sector, have garnered enough confidence in the logic, principles and practice to ‘package’ them into marketable knowledge to be sold to developing countries around the world. Singapore architects and planners have been rather successful in getting urban planning and consultancy work for the construction of sizeable comprehensive estates of housing, industries and commercial buildings. That the logic, principles and practices have been transferred from Singapore to locations in Vietnam, Middle East and some Indian cities, such as Mumbai, is all too clear for anyone familiar with Singapore’s physical landscape. Any Singaporean who steps into Souchou Industrial Park in Shanghai will instantly recognize it as ‘like a HDB new town’. The epitomy of this duplication of Singapore is the wholesale copying of its landscape, including the statue of Stamford Raffles, with his head replaced by that of Beethoven, the great composer, in the small private ‘city’ of Citra Raya, outside Surabaya, Indonesia.
Such re-assemblage of elements of Singaporean planning experience in foreign locations harbors an important political irony. The public housing program in Singapore is one of the ‘socialist’ elements of the early years of the People’s Action Party, when it was a social democratic party. Under the socialist values, it was willing to nationalize land through a very draconian land acquisition policy where undeveloped land parcels were compulsorily acquired by the state with hugely under-valued compensation to the landlords, in order to provide public housing for the entire nation. This socially redistributive policy is completely lost in the current transfer of the Singapore ‘model’ to the other parts of the developing world; what is social housing for the masses in Singapore have become gated communities of the relatively wealthy in China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mumbai. Models can travel and reassembled across geographic space but the political and social dimensions that initially motivated the model are strictly local and not transferable for historical reason.
Dr. Tim Bunnell Associate Professor Department of Geography National University of SingaporeReferences to Singapore abound in the developmental aspirations of local and regional governments across the Indonesian archipelago. The government of East Java province (which includes Surabaya and the Citra Raya private ‘city’ development noted by Chua Beng Huat above), for example, aims to ‘match Singapore’ (setara Singapura) in terms of investor-friendliness. In the case of Tarakan, an island municipality off the east coast of East Kalimantan, Singapore’s allure arises from being an island city that has undergone a transformation ‘from third world to first’. Initiatives ranging from heavy public investment in electric power generation, education and health care, to strict hygiene regulations and policies on waste disposal, and to provision of ‘world class services’ in general have been justified in relation to Singapore’s perceived success, leading President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to dub Tarakan Indonesia’s ‘little Singapore’. Meanwhile, much closer to Singapore itself, a new provincial government administration centre for the recently-formed province of Island Riau (Kepulauan Riau), located outside the small city of Tanjung Pinang on Bintan island is vaunted by its proponents as, among other things, ‘the Singapore of Tanjung Pinang’ (Moser, 2012).
Singapore has long been of interest to Indonesian national planning and policy elites in Jakarta. The proliferation of Singapore-as-model among regional governments over the past decade or so must be understood in the context of processes of decentralization and regional autonomy that followed the end of President Suharto’s authoritarian – and highly centralized – regime in 1998. Part of the conventional rationale for such decentralization reforms emanating from organizations such as the World Bank is that they enable local policy and planning innovation. In practice, what was has transpired is that local government leaders search for policy models and best practices elsewhere in Indonesia and internationally. Leaving aside Singapore’s undoubted urban planning ‘successes’ and expertise,
part of its appeal to local governments in Indonesia arises from a simple matter of proximity and accessibility. Officials from scores of local governments in Indonesia have visited Singapore as part of official studi banding (comparative study tours) – visits which are commonly dismissed as publicly-funded vacations or shopping trips.
How do the Indonesian parts of Singapore Metropolitan Region relate to Singapore-as-model? For some Indonesian policy tourists, Batam has served as a gateway to Singapore, with domestic flights to Batam’s Hang Nadim airport, followed by a ferry ride to HarbourFront in Singapore, costing less than a direct international fight into Singapore’s Changi Airport. In addition, however, Singapore administrative innovations and standards have been imported into neighbouring Indonesian territories. Invocation of Singapore as a model for Island Riau’s new administrative centre on Bintan island has been noted already. In the case of Batam island, a rather different example concerns the uptake of Singapore’s social security identity card system. Significantly, Batam’s Singapore-inspired system has, in turn, been adopted by other local governments in Indonesia, including the city of Balikpapan in East Kalimantan. Despite the geopolitical uniqueness of the city-state, Singapore – in some cases via Batam –continues to feature prominently in Indonesian policy discourse and practice well beyond SMR.
Reference
Moser, S. (2012) ‘Circulating visions of “High Islam”: The adoption of fantasy Middle Eastern architecture in constructing Malaysian national identity’, Urban Studies 49(13): 2913-2936.
1920s
Florida started the to be exported model of waterfront real estate which is to be translated and duplicated worldwide
Incisions ProtrusionsInland water body
New islands for Connection
Artificial Interventions
1920s
California
1940s
New York
1950s
Gold Coast | Sunshine Coast Sydney
San Francisco
+ FORM driven ( satellite images approach )
1990s Dubai | Abu Dhabi Bahrain
South East Asian Countries eg: Batam | Singapore | Philippines
2000s
Bintan’s Treasure Island
Danga Johore
“Instead of concentration – simultaneous presence – in Generic City individual “moments” are spaced apart to create a trance of almost unnoticeable experiences. There are three elements: road, buildings and nature; they coexist in flexible relationships, seemingly without reason, in spectacular organizational diversity. The towers no longer stand together; they are spaced so that they don’t interact. Density in isolation is the ideal. The serenity of the Generic City is achieved by the evacuation of the public realm. The urban plane now only accommodates necessary movement, fundamentally the car; highways are a superior version of boulevards and plazas, taking more and more space... Instead of network and organism, the new infrastructure creates enclave and impasse... The apparently solid substance of the Generic City is misleading. 51% of its volume consists of atrium.”
“The death of urbanism - our refuge in the parasitic security of architecture - creates an immanent disaster: more and more substance is grafted on starving roots.”
Rem Koolhaas, “The Generic City” and “Whatever Happened to Urbanism”, 1994 / in SMLXL, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam 1995.
In 1994, “The Generic City” was pretty much how Singapore looked like to an outsider’s eyes: everything happening inside, nothing noticeable outside. It has changed a lot since. Great efforts have been made by the authorities to develop public space (Esplanade and Theatre by the Bay) or by shopping mall promoters to activate street life in the city centre by turning atrium shops onto the street (Ion, Orchard Central, Iluma). URA and real estate developers have worked hard to fill in some strategic holes that made walking around the centre under the sun a boring and painful experience. Concrete drains have been restored into biodiversity corridors (Bishan Ang Mo Kio Park).
New Towns have become friendly (Punggol Waterway Park). The active blue and green city is everywhere and not only can you see it, you can experience it, feel it. Singapore is well on its way to become the most liveable, enjoyable, sustainable, compact, green and safe city ever.
Somehow though, neither are recently opened and world widely mediatised Gardens by the Bay nor is the 191 metres perched / 146 metres cantilevered Skypark
and Infinity Pool green or experiential enough to camouflage the selfish fatness of latest high-rise developments hiding behind Ray Ban façades in Marina South CBD extension. Compared with their slim elder sisters that shaped the iconic Downtown Core skyline at the mouth of Singapore River, the new monuments to hyper-real-estate coldly state Singapore’s essential issue with density: is it possible to further develop the island and comply with contemporary real estate’s merciless standards of optimisation without compromising the essential qualities that make Singapore an attractive and original city? In other words, beyond quantities, is Singapore still able to invent and implement new urban and architectural solutions for an interesting, qualitative, non-generic density?
Quantitatively, Singapore’s density has raised from roughly 3,000 inhab./sq.km in the early 1960’s to more than 7,400 currently. Massive land reclamation has allowed to enlarge the 580 sq.km. island to its present 715 sq.km size and provide space for demographic, economic and industrial development whilst maintaining acceptable densities and preserving the island’s vital open spaces and water resources.
Dense urbanism, with the early Complexes of the 1970’s (Golden Mile, People’s Park, China Town Complex...) or 1980’s (City Hall...), successive generations of new towns (from Queenstown to Tampines and Punggol) and the condo corridors (River Valley, East Coast...) has allowed to rationalise land use, build housing for all and massively develop liveable residential environments under far much better standards than in most eastern or western cities, making Singapore a globally acknowledged and praised model for qualitative development and efficient urban policies.
Since the past ten years, the infill of remaining land opportunities and redevelopment of underused spaces has progressively enhanced cohesiveness within Singapore’s urban texture. As a result, we discover that we can walk from one place to another without being completely bored by spatial emptiness.
Most recently this redevelopment and densification process has led to heroic attempts at organising hyper density under all architecturally possible, socially acceptable and marketable forms, from The Pinnacle at Duxton (completed in 2009, a creative reinterpreta-
tion of Hong Kong’s involutive superblocks) to The Interlace (expected 2015, a super clever stack of concrete containers bridging a tropical valley, a milestone amongst the rare collection of high-rise residential developments that do not resemble a tower).
So far, Singapore has managed its own density upon itself, on its own territory. Continuity of urban growth has been preserved and so has the green and blue heart on which relies the island’s ecological survival. So far, Singapore has achieved one of the world’s highest urban density without compromising the qualities of the Tropical Garden City. Without it even really showing.
What’s next? When close to every usable square inch of the island has been used and exhausted for building. When technical and cost factors exclude more reclamation as adequate solution for further urban development. When every feasible architectural solution has been exploited to the maximum. When beyond our architect’s fascination, fantasies or nostalgia for hyperdense urban solutions we are faced with the fact that the new paradigm of a compact city soon turns into a simplistic optimisation process: making the maximum with the minimum. Or Reduce to the Max, as they said in the Smart adds, when it still was a project for an alternative individual mobility, before it became yet another even if smaller pre-post-carbon car.
Most likely, Singapore’s urban future depends on it’s expansion (not as a country, nation or state, but as a city) on neighbouring lands across the water, like Bintan Island (Indonesia) where holiday housing tract resorts recently developed around golf courses on Singapore-owned land may soon become commuter suburbs serving Marina Bay new CBD and might later provide space for the next new towns or subcentres.
This raises the issue of density far above a question of quantity and calculation. If Singapore once was a remote spot on the edge of a colonial empire, it now has reached a point where it has to organise its own metropolitan system. Singapore needs a hinterland, an extended field of connexions on which variable densities, polarities and open spaces could be envisioned and organised at the scale of a macro-region.
In that perspective, density in Singapore becomes one of many terms in a broader equation. An equation in which density meets with mobility, connectivity, urban intensity, multiple choice and openness on a much wider scale. An equation in which the diversity of urban situations, populations and cultures will merge into a fully integrated and hybrid urban substance.
Density in Singapore will become meaningful again when it acquires the essential quality of being able to escape from it. When it will become a choice amongst a wider range of possibilities and cease to be the exclusive option imposed on everyone for rational optimisation reasons. When it will be conceived as part of a comprehensive system that will open diversified possibilities for people, businesses, real estate markets, multiple choices for new lifestyles in a metropolitan Singapore.
Becoming metropolitan is Singapore’s next challenge: from the Tropical City to the Tropical Metropolis. A challenge that reopens a vast field for research on density with diversified solutions - not only hyper-density - and most of all research on specific qualities of the metropolitan space that density and variation on density will make possible once integrated into a vaster network of opportunities and situations.
Tuan Hj Mohammed Hairuddin Abd Hamid
* Weighted Density Index is inversely proportionate with the percentage of total open space.
Weighted density index illustration
FAR 1.50
3-storey Detached House
Total Floor Area: 1,492,800 m2
Total Building Footprint: 828,000 m2 (83%)
Total Open Space: 172,000 m2 (17%)
Weighted Density Ratio = 1,492,800 m2 × 83% 1,000,000 m2 = 1.24
FAR 1.50
Courtyard Block
Total Floor Area: 1,437,696 m2
Total Building Footprint: 359,424 m2 (36%)
Total Open Space: 640,576 m2 (64%)
Weighted Density Ratio = 1,437,696 m2 × 36% 1,000,000 m2 = 0.52
FAR 1.50
Slab Block
Total Floor Area: 1,512,000 m2
Total Building Footprint: 107,520 m2 (11%)
Total Open Space: 892,480 m2 (89%)
Weighted Density Ratio = 1,512,000 m2 × 11% 1,000,000 m2 = 0.17
* The greater the Weighted Density Index, the more “cramp” (less open space) a place will be perceived.
Presumption:
50 sqm Internal Space
50 sqm Open Space
Open Space per Shophouse: 3,000 sqm
Number of Shophouses: 208
Total Footprint of Building: 312,000 sqm (31%)
Total Open Space: 688,000 sqm (69%)
Total Floor Area: 624,000 sqm (62%)
Population: 12,480
FAR: 0.62
City Ratio: 1.31
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 55%
Open Space per Rowhouse: 4,300 sqm
Number of Rowhouses: 152
Total Footprint of Building: 291,840 sqm (29%)
Total Open Space: 708,160 sqm (71%)
Total Floor Area: 656,640 sqm (66%)
Population: 13,072
FAR: 0.66
City Ratio: 1.36
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 54%
Presumption:
50 sqm Internal Space
50 sqm Open Space
Open Space per House: 1,200 sqm
Number of Shophouses: 529
Total Footprint of Building: 365,010 sqm (37%)
Total Open Space: 634,990 sqm (63%)
Total Floor Area: 658,076 sqm (72%)
Population: 12,696
FAR: 0.66
City Ratio: 1.29
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 50%
Open Space per Block: 2,200 sqm
Number of Blocks: 348
Total Footprint of Building: 191,400 sqm (19%)
Total Open Space: 808,600 sqm (81%)
Total Floor Area: 765,600 sqm (77%)
Population: 15,312
FAR: 0.77
City Ratio: 1.57
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 53%
Presumption:
50 sqm Internal Space
50 sqm Open Space
Open Space per Block: 27,000 sqm
Number of Blocks: 32
Total Footprint of Building: 61,440 sqm (6%)
Total Open Space: 938,560 sqm (94%)
Total Floor Area: 864,000 sqm (86%)
Population: 17,280
FAR: 0.86
City Ratio: 1.57
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 54%
Open Space per Block: 39 sqm
Number of Blocks: 25
Total Footprint of Building: 32,500 sqm (3%)
Total Open Space: 967,500 sqm (97%)
Total Floor Area: 975,000 sqm (98%)
Population: 19,500
FAR: 0.98
City Ratio: 1.80
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 50%
Presumption:
50 sqm Internal Space
50 sqm Open Space
Open Space per Block: 20,300 sqm
Number of Blocks: 25
Total Footprint of Building: 230,750 sqm (23%)
Total Open Space: 769,250 sqm (77%)
Total Floor Area: 507,500 sqm (57%)
Population: 10,150
FAR: 0.51
City Ratio: 1.28
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 76%
Open Space per Block: 13,800 sqm
Number of Blocks: 49
Total Footprint of Building: 169,344 sqm (17%)
Total Open Space: 830,656 sqm (83%)
Total Floor Area: 677,376 sqm (68%)
Population: 13,524
FAR: 0.68
City Ratio: 1.51
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 61%
Shophouse FAR 0.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.12
Total Footprint of Building: 247,500 sqm (25%)
Total Open Space: 752,500 sqm (75%)
Total Floor Area: 495,000 sqm (50%)
Population: 9,900
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 76%
Rowhouse FAR 0.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.11
Total Footprint of Building: 224,640 sqm (22%)
Total Open Space: 775,360 sqm (76%)
Total Floor Area: 505,440 sqm (51%)
Population: 10,109
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 77%
Detached House
FAR 0.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.14
Total Footprint of Building: 276,000 sqm (28%)
Total Open Space: 724,000 sqm (72%)
Total Floor Area: 497,600 sqm (50%)
Population: 9,952
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 73%
Low-rise Slab Block FAR 0.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.06
Total Footprint of Building: 123,750 sqm (12%)
Total Open Space: 876,250 sqm (88%)
Total Floor Area: 495,000 sqm (50%)
Population: 9,900
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 89%
Slab Block
FAR 0.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.02
Total Footprint of Building: 38,400 sqm (4%)
Total Open Space: 961,600 sqm (96%)
Total Floor Area: 540,000 sqm (54%)
Population: 10,800
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 89%
Point Block FAR 0.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.01
Total Footprint of Building: 15,600 sqm (2%)
Total Open Space: 984,400 sqm (98%)
Total Floor Area: 468,000 sqm (47%)
Population: 9,360
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 105%
Low-rise Courtyard Block FAR 0.5
Total Footprint of Building: 230,750 sqm (23%)
Total Open Space: 769,250 sqm (77%)
Total Floor Area: 507,500 sqm (51%)
Population: 10,150
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 76%
Shophouse FAR 1.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.48
Total Footprint of Building: 486,000 sqm (49%)
Total Open Space: 514,000 sqm (51%)
Total Floor Area: 972,000 sqm (97%)
Population: 19,440
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 26%
Rowhouse FAR 1.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.48
Total Footprint of Building: 460,800 sqm (46%)
Total Open Space: 539,200 sqm (54%)
Total Floor Area: 1,036,800 sqm (104%)
Population: 20,736
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 26%
Detached House FAR 1.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.55
Total Footprint of Building: 552,000 sqm (55%)
Total Open Space: 448,000 sqm (45%)
Total Floor Area: 995,200 sqm (100%)
Population: 19,904
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 23%
Low-rise Slab Block FAR 1.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.25
Total Footprint of Building: 247,500 sqm (25%)
Total Open Space: 752,500 sqm (75%)
Total Floor Area: 990,000 sqm (99%)
Population: 19800
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 38%
Slab Block FAR 1.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.67
Total Footprint of Building: 69,120 sqm (69%)
Total Open Space: 930,880 sqm (93%)
Total Floor Area: 972,000 sqm (97%)
Population: 19,440
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 48%
Point Block FAR 1.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.03
Total Footprint of Building: 32,500 sqm (3%)
Total Open Space: 967,500 sqm (97%)
Total Floor Area: 975,000 sqm (98%)
Population: 19,500
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 50%
Shophouse FAR 1.5
Weighted Density Index: 1.15
Total Footprint of Building: 756,000 sqm (76%)
Total Open Space: 244,000 sqm (24%)
Total Floor Area: 1,512,000 sqm (151%)
Population: 30,240
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 8%
Rowhouse FAR 1.5
Weighted Density Index: 1.07
Total Footprint of Building: 691,200 sqm (69%)
Total Open Space: 308,800 sqm (31%)
Total Floor Area: 1,555,200 sqm (156%)
Population: 31,104
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 10%
Low-rise Slab Block FAR 1.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.58
Total Footprint of Building: 379,500 sqm (38%)
Total Open Space: 620,500 sqm (62%)
Total Floor Area: 1,518,000 sqm (152%)
Population: 30,360
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 20%
Detached House FAR 1.5
Weighted Density Index: 1.24
Total Footprint of Building: 828,000 sqm (83%)
Total Open Space: 172,000 sqm (17%)
Total Floor Area: 1,492,800 sqm (150%)
Population: 29,856
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 6%
Slab Block FAR 1.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.17
Total Footprint of Building: 107,520 sqm (11%)
Total Open Space: 892,480 sqm (89%)
Total Floor Area: 1,512,000 sqm (151%)
Population: 30,240
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 30%
Point Block FAR 1.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.07
Total Footprint of Building: 46,800 sqm (5%)
Total Open Space: 953,200 sqm (95%)
Total Floor Area: 1,404,000 sqm (140%)
Population: 28,080
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 34%
Slab Block FAR 2.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.32
Total Footprint of Building: 153,600 sqm (15%)
Total Open Space: 846,400 sqm (85%)
Total Floor Area: 2,160,000 sqm (216%)
Population: 43,200
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 20%
Point Block FAR 2.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.15
Total Footprint of Building: 72,800 sqm (7%)
Total Open Space: 927,200 sqm (93%)
Total Floor Area: 2,184,000 sqm (218%)
Population: 43,680
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 21%
Courtyard Block FAR 2.0
Weighted Density Index: 1.0
Total Footprint of Building: 497,664 sqm (50%)
Total Open Space: 502,336 sqm (50%)
Total Floor Area: 1,990,656 sqm (200%)
Population: 39,813
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 13%
Slab Block FAR 2.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.47
Total Footprint of Building: 184,320 sqm (18%)
Total Open Space: 815,680 sqm (82%)
Total Floor Area: 2,592,000 sqm (259%)
Population: 51,840
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 16%
Point Block FAR 2.5
Weighted Density Index: 0.20
Total Footprint of Building: 83.200 sqm (8%)
Total Open Space: 916,800 sqm (82%)
Total Floor Area: 2,496,000 sqm (250%)
Population: 49,920
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 18%
Slab Block FAR 3.03
Weighted Density Index: 0.67
Total Footprint of Building: 215,040 sqm (22%)
Total Open Space: 784,960 sqm (78%)
Total Floor Area: 3,024,000 sqm (302%)
Population: 60,480
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 13%
Point Block FAR 3.0
Weighted Density Index: 0.35
Total Footprint of Building: 105,300 sqm (11%)
Total Open Space: 894,700 sqm (89%)
Total Floor Area: 3,159,000 sqm (316%)
Population: 63,180
Percentage of Open Space per capita: 14%
Complex Building System: Aluminium
Semi-complex Building System:
Simple Building System:
Rooted in the legacy of Peter and Alison Smithson’s Golden Lane and Contants’ New Babylon, an urban prototype of low-rise mid-density development is proposed as a counter-vision, and acts as resistance to high-rise high-density development models currently being deployed throughout Southeast Asia and particularly in Singapore.e
Sited in the Iskandar development of Johor Bahru, Malaysia, this thesis constructs a co-operative ownership development model – a Perbandaran Sawit – at once replacing and preserving vast depleted oil palm plantations as sites for inhabitation. A series of housing units, interwoven into the existing nine-metre, triangulated grid between palm oil trees, sets the basis for the project’s geometry. Lifted above the land at heights varying between 1.5 metres and 5 meters, the units treat land as sanctity available to all. Land is rendered as the basis for community rather than individual or developer consumption – a model intrinsically rooted in the traditional kampong organisational model.
Constructed of palm oil timber, the housing units are easily expandable in an additive manner, ensuring the ability of locals to form their own architecture. Land is preserved for small-scale agricultural use that is specific to the community, and transportation is purposefully pedestrian, where cars and bus transportations are kept at a two hundred-metre maximum walking distance. This ensures adequate spatial proximity between housing units and human proportionality based on community, not transportation alone.
In Johor Bahru, where land is plentiful, a model of site-specific development is critically lacking; visions of “modernity” and “progress” are imported from across the causeway (Singapore), with dreams of tower-living in objects gated from one another, concrete condominium speculations, and business sheathed in glass crystals. All are transplanted without regard to
Johor Bahru’s unique and specific history, geography, or tropical climate.
As an extension of Golden Lane and New Babylon, this low-rise mid-density vision is localised to the tropical climate and unique topographical availability of the site. It constructs an alternative model founded on community rather than consumption.
The fabric island is an extension of the city, delicately draped across the waters. Land and water amalgamated into one, inhabitants from across the straits continuously gravitate towards this city – an escape from their own packed, fast-paced, oppressive and overbearingly dictatorial land.
Through a strategic masterplan designed to preserve the land for its own people, this thesis displaces tourist accommodation offshore onto a floating island fabric, thus enabling the calibrated control of resource expenditure and growth. An alternative location for pleasure sited on Singapore’s periphery, it is every foreigner’s fantasy. Yet it simultaneously allows for the creation of productive communities that can grow and evolve, all with the vision of Batam’s survival.
The fabric island is amphibious. It treads on the fine line between reverie and reality, building dreams yet grounded in its existence.
This thesis is a study of Singapore’s manifestation as a garrison state in the Straits, following a unique history of creating an autonomous city-state from its neighbours. By embracing Singapore’s independent history of transformation through engineering and “practical” problem solving, the logical consequence of sea level rise, storm surge and environmental change are taken both as crisis and opportunity.
These consequences are played out in the design proposition as both absurd and real; a pinnacle of infrastructural might, made manifest in a storm surge barrier of realisable proportion is imagined. An underground third link providing footings for the barrier above, connects Malaysia’s eastern coast to Singapore’s northern settlements, while a mangrove Bi-National Park mitigates threats, both real and perceived.
Through protecting many of Singapore’s most valuable assets — Changi International Airport, Sembawang Shipyard, and New Towns of Punggol, the infrastructural proposal at once ensures Singapore’s own survivability by damming herself within, yet ironically opening herself to Malaysia — her often contentious neighbour to the North. A series of operable flood protection barriers are arrayed across the waterscape, intertwining infrastructure, engineering, water, shipping and nature.
In an uncanny but entirely logical design, infrastructure, ambition and engineering prowess merge with the natural hydroscape and landscape to solve Singapore’s future threats in an architecture that is seemingly contradictory, yet entirely necessary for Singapore’s future.
Track 2 – Highest surge level of 0.64 - 1.6m
Basis in simulating a possible Tropical Cyclone
Radius of Maximum Winds – 50 km
Wind speed – 55 knot
Pressure drop – 2200 Pa
*Numerical model investigation obtained from Delf University of Technology: Coastal & Marnine Enginnering Management
Surge: 0.64 - 1.6m (exclusive of existing tidal level)
Simulation result: 2 of the worst-track scenarios & 16 other extreme paths
A Garrison State in the straits
Manifestation of Garrison State | Tropical Cyclones
While Singapore romanticizes her relationship with nature, she secretly tries to subdue it.
On the verge of crisis, Singapore is more than well-prepared. A state-of-the-art defence system.
Title of Materials References & Illustration of Credits
Essay: Chicks and Chicken: Singapore’s Expansion to Riau Essay by Freek Colombijn. This paper was first published in IIAS Newsletter | #31 10 July 2003. Reprinted with author’s permission, November 2012.
Historical relationship of city centres Author’s own
Johor -Historical Maps & Concept Plans- Map Catalog-
Title of Materials References & Illustration of Credits
Tracking Sultan Mahmud Shah I Shifting regions of influence
15-16
17-18
Singapore Historical Maps & Concept Plans -Map Catalog-
Title of Materials
Cartographic Map of The World, by Johannes Ruysch, (1507)
Cartographic Map of India and Southeast Asia, by Laurent Fries, (1522)
Cartographic Map of India Tercera Nova Tabula, by Giacomo Gastaldi, (1548)
Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. “Johannes Ruysch: Universalior Cogniti Orbis Tabula Ex Recentibus Confecta Obsevationibus.” Accessed November 05, 2011. <http://www.raremaps.com/gallery/archivedetail/33286/Universalior_Cogniti_Orbis_Tabula_Ex_ Recentibus_Confecta_Obsevationibus/Ruysch.html>.
Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. “Laurent Fries: Tabu Moder Indiae.” Accessed November 04, 2011. <http://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/30508>.
Cosmography. “First detailed map of Southeast Asia based on empirical data.” Accessed November 04, 2011. <http://www.cosmography.com/catpages/gastaldi_sea.htm>.
50
51
Ab. Razak, Kamarudin bin, Zaleha Tasrib, and Noriyati Hassan. Kesultanan Johor sehingga 1699 dalam Ilustrasi Johor Bahru: Johore Heritage Foundation, 2005. 21
1511-1877 | Shifting of Ruling Places in Kota Tinggi District (Johor Lama) Ab. Razak, Kamarudin bin, Zaleha Tasrib, and Noriyati Hassan. Kesultanan Johor sehingga 1699 dalam Ilustrasi Johor Bahru: Johore Heritage Foundation, 2005. 22
1513 - Present Shifting Capital City of Riau Province Author’s own.
Shifting of ruling capitals in 16th-18th century for Johor-Riau Empire
Perret, Daniel. Sejarah Johor-Riau-Lingga sehingga 1914: Sebuah Esei Bibliografi. Kuala Lumpur: Kementerian Kebudayaan, Kesenian dan Pelancongan Malaysia, 1998.
Makepeace, Walter, Gilbert E. Brooke, Roland St. J. Braddell, and C.M. Turnbull. One Hundred Years of Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991.
23
Cartographic Map of Indiae orientalis insvlarvmqve adiacientivm typvs, by Ortelius & Abraham, (1572)
National Library of Australia. “Ortelius, Abraham, 1527-1598 / Indiae orientalis insvlarvmqve adiacientivm typvs.” Accessed November 08, 2011. <http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-t937-s1-v>. 1572. MAP T 937. Part 1.
Cartographic Chart of Malacca, by Barent Langenes, (1598) Alexandre Antique Prints, Maps & Books. “Database Type: Maps / Item ID Number: 6969.” Accessed November 05, 2011. <http://www.alexandremaps.com/map_detail.php?MapID=6969>.
Cartographic Chart of Straits of Melaka, by De Erédia, (1604)
Section in Cartographic Chart of Southeast Asia, by Wubei zhi, (1621)
Accession Number: 131584; “1604 Map of Straits of Melaka,” National Archives of Singapore.
Suarez, Thomas. Early mapping of Southeast Asia. Singapore : Periplus Editions (H.K.) Ltd., 1999. p49.
52
53
Reconstructed Map of Singapore River “From Belly of the Carp”, by Roger Vaughan Jenkins -1996, (1819)
1844-1917 ‘Kangchu’ SystemAgricultural activities in Johor
Town Plan of Istana Johor Bahru, (1902)
Media Number - Image Number: 19980005028 - 0065. Negative Number: NA 18/05. Accession Number: 60089; “Map of Singapore River,” National Archives of Singapore.
Wong, Caroline May Leng. Sistem Kangcu di Johor 1844-1917. Edited by Norazit Selat. Kuala Lumpur : Persatuan Muzium Malaysia, 1992. 25-26
of Malaysia, Johor Bahru Branch.
(1911). Report by R.P. Davison Plams prepared by Messers. Palmer & Turner and by The Town Planning Department, Johore. 31
Town Plan of Johore, (1915) Courtesy of National Archives of Malaysia, Johor Bahru Branch.
Town Plan of Johore, redrawn from (1917) Courtesy of National Archives of Malaysia, Johor Bahru Branch.
Town Plan of Johore Bahru Town Board Area, (1929) Courtesy of National Archives of Malaysia, Johor Bahru Branch.
Topographic Map of Johore, (1934) Courtesy of National Archives of Malaysia, Johor Bahru Branch. 35-36
Town Plan of Johore Bahru, (1944) Courtesy of National Archives of Malaysia, Johor Bahru Branch. 37-38
Town Plan of Johore Locality, (1952) Courtesy of National Archives of Malaysia, Johor Bahru Branch. 39-40
Infastructure Plan of Johor BahruPlentong-Pasir Gudang draft structure planning, redrawn from Mukim Plentong and Pasir Gudang Structure Plan, (1983)
Overall Development Plan Map of Iskandar Malaysia for 2025, redrawn from Regional Land Use Framework (2007-2025)
Courtesy of National Archives of Malaysia, Johor Bahru Branch.
41-42
Hydrographic Chart of The Straits of Singapore, by André Pereira dos Reis, (1650)
Hydrographic Chart of Routes, by The Dutch East India Company (VOC), (1675)
Hydrographic Chart of Carte Reduite des Detroits de Malaca, Singapour, et du Gouverneur, by N.Bellin & Jacques Nicolas, (1755)
Hydrographic Chart of The Straits of Singapore with those of Durion. Sabon and Mandol, by Robert Sayer and John Bennett, (1778)
Reconstructed Map of Singapore River, redrawn from Singapore University Press - 2002, (1819)
Hydrographic Chart of Plan Of Singapore Harbour redrawn from Captain D. Rofs, (1819)
Dutch Hydrographic Chart of Durian, Malacca and Singapore Straits stretching from Bangka to Malacca, by Captain Thomas Forrest, (1820)
National Library of Australia. “Bellin, Jacques Nicolas, 1703-1772. Carte reduite des Detroits de Malaca, Sincapour, et du Gouverneur [cartographic material] : dressee au depost des cartes et plans de la marine pour la service des vaisseaux du Roy par ordre de M. de Machault, garde des sceaux de France Ministre et Secretaire d’Etat aiant le Departement de la Marine.” Accessed November 05, 2011. <http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm259>. 1755. MAP RM 259.
National Library of Australia. “Robert Sayer and John Bennett (Firm) / The Oriental pilot, or, A select collection of charts and plans ... for the navigation of the country trade in the seas beyond the Cape of Good Hope ... [cartographic material].” Accessed November 04, 2011. <http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-ra52-s48-sd-cd>. 1778. MAP Ra 52. Part 48.
Dobbs, Stephen. The Singapore River : A Social History, 1819-2002. Singapore : Singapore University Press, 2003.
PhotoCD Number : 20080000141
Image Number : AccNo3806 Source: James Horsburgh, Hydrographer, East India Company; “Plan Of Singapore Harbour By Captain D. Rofs.],” National Archives of Singapore
PhotoCD Number : 20080000462
Image Number : AccNoHC000029; “Nieuw Kaart Van De Straat Sinkapoer : This main chart covers Singapore, part of southern Johore, Pulau Pisang, Pulau Kokop, Pedra Branca, part of Pulau Batam, part of Pulau Bintang, Straits of Singapore and others,” National Archives of Singapore.
Town Plan of Singapore Island, by Capt. James Franklin, B.N.I., (1822) Singapore Architectural Perspectives. “Singapore - Evolution of a Planned City 1822 Town Plan, Singapore.” Accessed November 08, 2013. <http://sgarchperspectives.blogspot.sg/2011/07/singapore-evolution-of-planned-city.html>.
Survey Map of Singapore, by Unknown Author, (1823)
Cartographic Chart of The Straits of Malacca, by James Horsburgh, (1823)
PhotoCD Number : 20080000141.
Image Number : AccNo3892.; “Singapore 1822-3 : Part of Singapore town and Pulau Ayer Brani showing physical landscape, rivers, hills, villages, unexplored forest, swamps, sandy point, anchorage, an area set aside by Raffles for the formation of a Botanic Garden, and others.” National Archives of Singapore.
Courtesy of Mr Koh Seow Chuan.
59-60
61-62
63
64
65-66
67
68
Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA). “Integrated Land Use Blueprint for Iskandar Malaysia.” Accessed June 30, 2013. p5. (Fig. 2.1: Regional Land Use Framework 2025) <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/pdf/blueprint/land-blueprint.pdf>.
43-44
Proposed Town Plan of The British Settlement of Singapore, by Capt. James Franklin, B.N.I. & Lieutenant Philip Jackson, (1828)
Flickr. “Jackson Plan.” Accessed November 08, 2011. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/acroamatic/382473217/in/photostream/>.
69-70
71
Analytical diagram of urban development – Johor Bahru Authors’s own. 45-46
Proposed Town of Singapore, by Lieutenant Philip Jackson, (1828) PhotoCD Number : 20080000020. Image Number : AccNo2158.; “Proposed Plan of the Town of Singapore : This proposed plan of Singapore Town prepared by Lieutanent Jackson in line was not actually executed,” National Archives of Singapore.
Hydrographic Chart of The Oldest German Map Of Singapore, by Heinrich Carl Wilhelm Berghaus, (1835)
Hydrographic Chart of Singapore Harbours and Roads with the Adjacent Channels, by Capt. Daniel Ross & John Turnbull Thomson, (1842)
Hydrographic Chart of Malacca Strait Singapore Strait and the Southernmost Promontory of Asia, by James Horsburgh, (1844)
Hydrographic Chart of The Straits of Singapore, by Samuel Congalton & John Turnbull Thomson, (1846)
Survey Map of Plan of Singapore Town and Adjoining Districts, by John Turnbull Thomson, (1846)
Survey Map of Singapore, by Unknown Author, (1862)
Survey Map of Island of Singapore, by Sir Harry ST. George ORD, (1873)
Hydrographic Chart of Singapore Road, China Sea, by Great Britain. Hydrographic Department, (1909)
Hydrographic Chart of China Sea Singapore Strait, by The Hydrographic Department of Japan, (1923)
Topographic Map of Singapore Island, by Ordnance Survey of Great Britain (War Office), (1941)
Cartographic Map of Asahi Graph (Singapore), by The Asahi Shimbun Company, (1942)
Survey Map of Singapore Town, by Fairey Surveys Limited, (1950)
Preliminary Island Plan of Singapore, redrawn from Colony of Singapore, (1952)
Master Plan of Singapore, redrawn from Annual Report of the Planning Department, (1958)
Concept Plan of Singapore - The Otto Koenigsberger Plan (Ring City) redrawn from UNDP (1963)
Concept Plan of Singapore - New City (A Radial Expansion), redrawn from Master Plan First Review (MND), (1965)
Concept Plan of Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (1971)
Summary of Master Plan - Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (1953-1972)
Orginal source: Antique of the Orient Pte Ltd. Justus Perthes. PhotoCD Number : 20050000681 Image Number : 003_M2006-00321-NAS; “The Oldest German Map Of Singapore,” National Archives of Singapore.
Singapore Architectural Perspectives. “Singapore - Evolution of a Planned City 1842 Survey Map.” Accessed November 11, 2011. <http://sgarchperspectives.blogspot.sg/2011/07/singapore-evolution-of-planned-city.html>.
Geographicus Rare Antique Maps - New York Gallery. “1844 Horsburgh Nautical Chart or Map of Singapore and Malaya.” Accessed November 05, 2011. <http://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/Malaya-horsburgh-1844>.
Picasaweb. “Horsburgh Lighthouse: 160th anniversary.” Accessed November 20, 2011. <https://picasaweb.google.com/vanedin/HorsburghLighthouse160thAnniversary?authuser=0&authkey=Gv 1sRgCL_Sp8vTmd3OMA&feat=directlink#5663683088998850866>.
PhotoCD Number : 20080000141.
Image Number : AccNo3809a; “Plan of Singapore Town and Adjoining Districts from Actual Survey by John Turnbull Thomson, Government Surveyor, Singapore,” National Archives of Singapore.
PhotoCD Number : 20080000020.
Image Number : AccNo2167_1; “Singapore,” National Archives of Singapore.
PhotoCD Number : 20080000020.
Image Number : AccNo2170_1; “Map of the Island of Singapore and its Dependencies,” National Archives of Singapore.
National Library of Australia. “Singapore Road, China Sea.” Accessed November 10, 2011. <http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-vn4404703-v>.
Geographicus Rare Antique Maps - New York Gallery. “1923 Japanese Hydrographic Nautical Chart of Singapore Island and Strait.” Accessed November 15, 2011. <http://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/Singapore-hydyographicdept-1923>.
National Library of Australia. “Great Britain. Ordnance Survey : Singapore Island.” Accessed November 15, 2011.
<http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-vn1900708-e-cd>.
Tan, Tik Loong Stanley, Tay Huiwen Michelle, Donald Koh. Battle for Singapore : Fall of The Impregnable Fortress. Edited by Pitt Kuan Wah, Leong Wee Kee. Singapore : National Archives of Singapore, 2011. p198-199.
PhotoCD Number : 20080000020. Image Number : AccNo2174; “Map Of Singapore Town,” National Archives of Singapore.
Wong, Tai-Chee, and Yap Lian-ho Adriel. Four Decades of Transformation : Land Use in Singapore, 1960-2000 Singapore : Eastern Universities Press, 2004. p176 (Figure 1.2: Preliminary Island Plan 1952). Originally Colony of Singapore (1952).
Wong Tai-Chee & Yap Lian-ho Adriel. Four Decades of Transformation : Land Use in Singapore, 19602000. Singapore : Eastern Universities Press, 2004. p177 (Figure 1.3: The 1958 Master Plan of Singapore). Originally from Annual Report of the Planning Department for 1960 and 1961 (Singapore: State of Singapore, 1963).
Dale, Ole Johan. Urban Planning in Singapore : The Transformation of a City Shah Alam: Oxford University Press, 1999. p124 (Map 4.2 : Ring City Singapore). Originally from C. Abrams, O.Koenigsberger, and S. Kobe, Growth and Urban Renewal in Singapore (Singapore: UN Programme of Technical Assistance, 1963).
Goh, France Lynne Goh, Ang-Low Kia Hiang et al.. 10 Years that Shaped a Nation : An Exhibition Catalogue, Jian Guo Shi Nian : Zhan Lan Tu Ji. Edited by Lim Siam Kim, Pitt Kuan Wah, Teo Kai Lin. Singapore : National Archives of Singapore, 2008. p99 (“Radial Expansion Plan (New Cities)”, “MRT system”). Originally from Master Plan Review (Ministry of National Development, 1965)
Urban Redevelopment Authority. “1971 Concept Plan.” In Home, Work, Play, by Sumiko Tan. Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority, 1999. p38.
Ministry of National Development. “Summary of Master Plan (1953-1972)” In Masterplan First Review: 1965, Report of Survey Singapore : Planning Departement, Ministry of National Development, 1965.
73-74
Summary of Master Plan - Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (1975)
Predominant Land Use of Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (1978)
Ministry of National Development. “Concept Plan”. In Masterplan: Third Review, 1975 Singapore : Planning Department, Ministry of National Development, 1975.
Waller, Edmund. Landscape planning in Singapore. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2001. p71 (Fig 3.8 : Development of 1971 Concept Plan).
105-106
107-108
75-76
Summary of Revised Master Plan - Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (1980)
Ministry of National Development. “Summary of Revised Master Plan (1980).” In Masterplan : Fourth Review: 1980, Report of Survey. Singapore Planning Department, Ministry of National Development, 1980.
109-110
77-78
Revised Concept Plan of Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (1985)
Ministry of National Development. Report of survey : Revised Master Plan (1985). Singapore Ministry of National Development, 1985. (Map 9 : Revised Concept Plan).
111-112
79-80
81
82
83
84
85-86
Concept Plan of Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (1988)
Concept Plan of Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (1991)
Concept Plan of Singapore, redrawn from Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (2001)
Master Plan of Singapore, by Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, (2008)
Concept Plan of Singapore - Urban Centres (2030), redrawn from Ministry of National Development, (2013)
Concept Plan of Singapore - Profile of Possible Land Allocation in Singapore Beyond 2030, redrawn from Ministry of National Development, (2013)
City & the state : Singapore’s built environment revisited / editors, Ooi Giok Ling, Kenson Kwok. “Urban Redevelopment Authority (1988).” Singapore : Oxford University Press [for] Institute of Policy Studies, 1997. p26. Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Singapore. (1988)
Urban Redevelopment Authority. “1991 Concept Plan.” In Home, Work, Play, by Sumiko Tan. Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority, 1999. p39.
Urban Redevelopment Authority. “The Concept Plan 2001”. In The Concept Plan 2001 Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority, 2001. p50-51.
Courtesy of Urban Redevelopment Authority. Singapore. Urban Redevelopment Authority. Singapore. “Master Plan 2008.” Accessed Novembers 23, 2011. <http://www.ura.gov.sg/mp08/map.jsf?goToRegion=SIN>.
Ministry of National Development. Singapore. “Concept Plan of Singapore - Profile of Possible Land Allocation in Singapore Beyond 2030.” Accessed June 04, 2013. <http://www.mnd.gov.sg/landuseplan/jobs_create_good_jobs_for_singaporeans.htm>.
Ministry of National Development. Singapore. “Concept Plan of Singapore - Profile of Possible Land Allocation in Singapore Beyond 2030.” Accessed June 04, 2013. <http://www.mnd.gov.sg/landuseplan/>.
113-114
115-116
117-118
119-120
121-122
87-88
89-90
91-92
93-94
95-96
97-98
99-100
101-102
103-104
Trans-island connectivity
Batam Batam Island Info. “Getting Around Batam.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.batam-island-info.com/traveling-to-batam.html>.
BIFZA. “Map.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://gis.bpbatam.go.id/>.
Johor My Malaysia Books. “SINGAPORE TO MALAYSIA - Air and Road.” Accessed October 14, 2011. <http://www.mymalaysiabooks.com/singapore/Singapore%20to%20Malaysia.htm>.
Singapore Wikipedia. “Transport.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia%E2%80%93Singapore_relations>.
Batam Kumar, Sree, Sharon Siddique. Batam: whose hinterland? Singapore : Select Pub., 2013.
Inter-island connectivity through Mass Rapid Transit system
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. p16-4. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore Transit Link Pte Ltd. “Transitlink MRT - System Map.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://www.transitlink.com.sg/images/eguide/mrt_sys_map.htm>.
179-180
Johor Department of Statistics Malaysia. “Income and Expenditure.” Accessed November 12, 2011. <http://www.statistics.gov.my/portal/download_Stats_Malaysia/files/MMS/2010/BI/07_Income_and_ Expenditure.pdf>.
Singapore Department of Satistics Singapore. “Key Annual Indicators - Monthly Wages.” Accessed October 16, 2011 <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos11/statsT-labour.pdf>.
Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 25, 2011. (Pendapatan Regional).
<http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>.
Major commodities in Singapore Department of Satistics Singapore. “Key Annual Indicators - Major Commodities.” Accessed October 16, 2011. p165-168.
<http://www.singstat.gov.sg/pubn/reference/yos11/yos2011.pdf>. p165-168.
195-196
181-182
Major commodities in Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 25, 2011. (Table 7.10 - Value and Volume of Import Batam City by Important and Commodity, 2009; Table 7.5 - Value and Volume of Export Batam City by Important Commodity, 2009).
<http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>.
Illegal trading route The Online Citizen. “WP Content.” Accessed October 18, 2011. <http://theonlinecitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/sand.jpg>.
197-198
Jetty & ferry routes
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore Singapore Cruise Centre Pte Ltd. “Schedules.” Accessed Octorber 14, 2011. <http://www.singaporecruise.com.sg/index.php/getting-to-singapore/ferry/schedules>.
Batam Batam Island Info. “Traveling to Batam.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://www.batam-island-info.com/traveling-to-batam.html>.
183-184
Major ports De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet, and Marc Giratd. An Atlas of Perpetual Territoral Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008.
Batam Indones Free Zone Authority. “Seaport Info.” Accessed November 19, 2011. <http://www.bpbatam.go.id/eng/strategicBusiness/seaportInfo.jsp>.
Lembaga Pelabuhan Johor. Laman Web Rasmi. Accessed November 19, 2011. <http://www.lpj.gov.my>.
Highways, expressways & major roads
Flight routes
Johor Bahru Senai Airport. “Travellers Info.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://www.senaiairport.com/travellers.asp?menuid=100025&rootid=100013&splid=100001&parent id=100025>.
Batam Webport. “Batam Airport [L] (BTH), Indonesia”. Accessed October 15, 2011 <http://batam-bth-airport.webport.com/airport.php>.
Figures of current population & postulated population in 20 years
Johor Bahru Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore Singstat. “Time Series on Population (Mid-Year Estimates).” Accessed October 15, 2011 <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/people/hist/popn.html>.
Batam Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “Facts & Statistics - BP Batam.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://www.bpbatam.go.id/eng/batamGuide/batam_figures.jsp>.
185-186
Johor Google Maps. “Johor.” Accessed October 18, 2011. <http://maps.google.com.sg/maps?q=johor&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47008514,d. bmk&biw=1438&bih=729&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=N&tab=wl>.
Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet, and Marc Giratd. An Atlas of Perpetual Territoral Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008. p55.
199-200
201-202
Ethnic composition
Johor Go 2 Travel Malaysia. “Johor The Southern Gateway.” Accessed October 15, 2011 <http://go2travelmalaysia.com/tour_malaysia/jhr.htm>.
Singapore Wikipedia. “Demographics of Singapore- Ethnic composition (%) of resident population.” Accessed October 15, 2011 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore>.
Batam Suryadinata, Leo, Evi Nurvidya Arifin, and Aris Ananta. Indonesia’s Population : Ethnicity and Religion in A Changing Political Landscape. Singapore : Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003.
187-188
Batam Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “Transportation.” Accessed October 19, 2011. <http://gis.bpbatam.go.id>.
203-204
GDP per capita | GDP growth
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore “Time Series on Per Capita GDP at Current Market Prices.” Accessed October 15, 2011 <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/economy/hist/gdp.html>.
Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 25, 2011. (Pendapatan Regional). <http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>.
189-190
Road length & road density
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore Singapore Land Transport Authority. “Singapore Land Transport Statistics as at end 2010.” Accessed October 20, 2011. <http://www.ltaacademy.gov.sg/doc/J11May-p64SingaporeStatistics.pdf>.
Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 25, 2011. (Table 8.1.1 – length of roads).
< http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>.
205-206
191-192
Vehicle ownership
Johor 2012 International Conference on Traffic and Transportation Engineering. “Private Vehicle Ownership and Transportation Planning in Malaysia.” Accessed March 5, 2012. <http://www.ipcsit.com/vol26/13-ICTTE2012-T020.pdf>.
Singapore Singapore Land Transport Authority. “Singapore Land Transport: Statistics In Brief 2011.” Accessed October 20, 2011. <http://www.lta.gov.sg/content/dam/lta/Corporate/doc/Stats%20in%20Brief%202011.pdf>
Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 25, 2011. (Table 8.1.6 –Number of Vehicles Compulsory tested by Kind Vehicle). <http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>.
207-208
Water consumption
Johor SAJ Holdings Sdn Bhd. “About Water.” Accessed October 21, 2011. <http://www.saj.com.my/V2/Default.php>.
Singapore Wikipedia. “Water supply and sanitation in Singapore.” Accessed October 21, 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Singapore>.
209-210
Batam Batam Indonesai Free Zone Authority. “Fresh Water Supply - BP Batam.” Accessed October21, 2011. <http://www.bpbatam.go.id/eng/batamGuide/water_supply.jsp>.
Singapore water sources De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet, and Marc Giratd. An Atlas of Perpetual Territoral Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008.
Johor & Batam water sources
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Batam Batam Indonesai Free Zone Authority. “Fresh Water Supply - BP Batam.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://www.bpbatam.go.id/eng/batamGuide/water_supply.jsp>.
Johor food sources Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia. Malaysia: Akaun Pembekalan dan Penggunaan Komoditi Pertanian Terpilih 2005-2009. Putrajaya: Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia, 2011.
Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia. Malaysia : Indikator Terpilih Pertanian, Tanaman dan Ternakan 2006-2011 Putrajaya: Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia, 2011.
Singapore food sources Tan-Low, Lai Kim. “Food Securities: Strategies and Challenges For Singapore.” EBookBrowse, April 9, 2011. Accessed October 12, 2011.
<http://ebookbrowse.com/ava-geography-teachers-association-annual-seminar-final-pdf-d206413786>.
211-212
213-214
Telecommunication nodes 227-228
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet, and Marc Giratd. An Atlas of Perpetual Territoral Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008. p53.
Batam Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “Telecommunication Network.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://www.bpbatam.go.id/eng/batamGuide/tele_communication.jsp>.
215-216
Industrial coverage
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet, and Marc Giratd. An Atlas of Perpetual Territoral Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008. p45.
Batam Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “Industrial.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://gis.bpbatam.go.id/>.
229-230
Johor Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Malaysia-Agricultural Census 2005.” <http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/ess/documents/world_census_of_agriculture/countries_for_ website/MALAYSIA_2005_.pdf>.
Singapore De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet, and Marc Giratd. An Atlas of Perpetual Territoral Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008.
Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 25, 2011. (Table 5.2.4 - Production of Fishery by Type (ton), 1996-2009). <http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>.
Pig farming at Pulau Bulan in supply for Singapore AVA. “Supply of Pigs from Pulau Bulan, Indonesia.” Agri-Food & Vetenerary, June 16, 2011. Accessed October 12, 2011.
<http://www.ava.gov.sg/NewsEvents/PressReleases/2001/Supply+of+Pigs+From+Pulau+Ubin+Indones ia.htm>.
Tan-Low, Lai Kim. “Food Securities: Strategies and Challenges For Singapore.” EBookBrowse, April 9, 2011. Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://ebookbrowse.com/ava-geography-teachers-association-annual-seminar-final-pdf-d206413786>.
217-218
219
Mineral resources
Johor Grubb, Patric Louis Cedric. Geology and Bauxite Deposits of the Pengerang Area, Southeast Johore. Ipoh: Geological Survey Headquarters, 1968.
Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 28, 2011. (Table 7.10 - Value and Volume of Import Batam City by Important, 2009). <http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>.
231-232
Electrical supply
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Singapore De Koninck, Rodolphe, Julie Drolet, and Marc Giratd. An Atlas of Perpetual Territoral Transformation. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2008. p47.
Batam Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “Energy.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://www.bpbatam.go.id/eng/batamGuide/energy.jsp>.
Electrical demand & Electricity consumption
Johor Department of Statistics Malaysia. “Electrical Consumption.” Accessed October 16, 2011. <http://www.statistics.gov.my/>.
Singapore Index Mundi. “ Historical Data Graphs per Year: Singapore Electricity - Consumption (Billion kWh).” Accessed October 17, 2011. <http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=sn&v=81>.
Batam Sinergy Group of Companies: Batam Center. “Electricity.” Accessed October 17, 2011. <http://www.batam-center.web.id/geninfo_facilities.html>.
Index Mundi. “ Indonesia - Electric Power Consumption.” Accessed October 17, 2011. <http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indonesia/electric-power-consumption>.
221-222
Agricultural land
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Batam Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “Agricultural.” Accessed October 13, 2011. <http://gis.bpbatam.go.id/>.
233-234
223-224
Conserved forestry
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>.
Batam Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “Agricultural.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://gis.bpbatam.go.id/>.
235-236
225-226
Recreational green
Johor Iskandar Malaysia. “Comprehensive Development Plan.” Accessed October 12, 2011. <http://www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/comprehensive-development-plan-cdp>
Batam Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority. “Agricultural.” Accessed October 15, 2011. <http://gis.bpbatam.go.id/>.
Tourism - International travellers in 2010
Johor Tourism Johor. “Travellers.” Accessed October 16, 2011. <http://www.tourismjohor.com/content.cfm>
Singapore Singapore Tourism Board. “Annual Tourism Statistics.” Accessed October 17, 2011. <https://app.stb.gov.sg/asp/tou/tou03.asp>
Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 25, 2011. (Tranportation and Communication - 7. Tourist). <http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>
Impending issues in Batam 2015 Author’s own (Koh Ai Ting).
Sex tourism Drug usage
Johor Department of Statistics Malaysia. “Drug Usage.” Accessed October 18, 2011. <http://www.statistics.gov.my/>.
Singapore Ministry of Health. “HIV Statistics - Update on The HIV/AIDS Situation in Singapore 2010.” Ministry of Health Singapore June 6, 2012. Accessed August 8, 2011. <http://www.moh.gov.sg/content/moh_web/home/statistics/infectiousDiseasesStatistics/HIV_Stats.html>.
Batam Situmorang, Augustina, and Sri Sunarti Purwaningsih. “Local Government Responses to HIV and AIDS in the Border Areas: a Case Study of Batam.” Journal of Indonesian Social Sciences and Humanities Vol. 3, (2010): 171–187. Accessed November 18, 2011. <http://www.kitlv-journals.nl/index.php/jissh/article/viewFile/URN%3ANBN%3ANL%3AUI% 3A10-1-100906/8488>.
237-238
239-240
241-242
243
Johor Department of Statistics Malaysia. “Crime Rate.” Accessed October 17, 2011. <http://www.statistics.gov.my/>.
Singapore Department of Statistics Singapore. “Key Annual Indicators - Social indicators.” Accessed October 18, 2011. <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.html>.
Batam Pemerintah Kota Batam. “Batam dalam Angka Tahun 2010.” Accessed November 25, 2011. (Table 4.3.1 Number of Crimes, 2009). <http://skpd.batamkota.go.id/bapeda/2011/01/04/batam-dalam-angka-tahun-2010/>.
Same-same Model | United States, Florida Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “United States, Florida.” Accessed June 24, 2012.
Same-same Model | United States, New York Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “United States, New York.” Accessed June 28, 2012.
Same-same Model | Australia Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “Australia.” Accessed June 27, 2012.
Same-same Model | United Arab Emirates, Dubai Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “United Arab Emirates, Dubai.” Accessed June 24, 2012.
Same-same Model | United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi.” Accessed June 24, 2012.
Same-same Model | Bahrain Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “Bahrain.” Accessed June 26, 2012.
Same-same Model DNA United States, Florida Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “United States, Florida.” Accessed June 26, 2012.
Same-same Model | New York Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “United States, New York.” Accessed June 29, 2012.
Same-same Model DNA Australia Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “Australia.” Accessed June 29, 2012.
Same-same Model | United Arab Enirates, Dubai & Bahrain Courtesy of Google Earth. Edited by Author. Google Earth. “United Arab Enirates, Dubai & Bahrain.” Accessed June 29, 2012.
Waterfront development - Danga Bay Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Redrawn from: Malaysia Waterfront. “Danga Bay Master Plan.” Accessed October 27, 2011. <http://malaysiawaterfront. blogspot.sg/2008/10/danga-bay.html>.
Waterfront development - Sentosa Cove | Singapore Redrawn from: Sentosa Cove - The World’s Most Desirable Address. “Sentosa Cove Master Plan.” Accessed October 24, 2011. <http://www.mysentosacove.com/index.html>.
Integrated Resort developmentResorts World Sentosa Singapore
Waterfront developmentCoastarina Batam
Integrated Resort developmentTreasure Island Bintan
Redrawn from: Designbuild network. “Sentosa: New Life for the Island of Death - Plan view of the Resort World Sentosa project.” Accessed October 23, 2011. <http://www.designbuild-network.com/features/feature106309/feature106309-7.html>.
Redrawn from: Knowledge. “COASTARINA dan ocarina batam.” Accessed October 27, 2011. <http://keep-trying-9.blogspot.sg/2011/12/ocarina-batam.html>.
Redrawn from: Associated Group Konsult SDN BHD. “Resorts and Integrated Commercial Development (Treasure Bay Bintan, Indonesia).” Accessed October 24, 2011. <http://www.agksb.com/project/list-of-current-and-completed-projects---resorts-and-intregrated-commercial-development>.
Title of Materials References & Illustration of Credits
Essay: Density in Singapore Francois Decoster. [This paper is a first publication]
However, part of the illustration has been previously published in l’AUC, “Grand Paris Stimulé, de la métropole héritée aux situations parisiennes contemporaines”, l’AUC, Paris 2009.
275-276
Title of Materials References & Illustration of Credits
The Oil Palm Town
Author’s own (Yap Shan Ming).
277-278
279-280
265
Island Fabric
Author’s own (Koh Ai Ting).
333-348
349-364
266
267
268
269
270
271-272
273-274
THE Garrison State or Singapore’s Conundrum
Author’s own (Chua Gong Yao).
The creation, planning and execution of the Singapore Metropolitan Region started in 2008 on an overseas study tour to Dubai. Following Singapore Trasncripts (2010) and Singapore Probes (2011), Singapore Metropolitan Region (2012) is the third volume of research about Singapore and the larger region in which it sits. Each book is assembled by thesis students under the concept and design direction by Assistant Professor, Erik G. L’Heureux. For more information, concept proposals, or contributions, please write to: akierik@ nus.edu.sg or go to www.smsstudios.com. Singapore Metropolitian Studio (www.smsstudio.org) is an online extension of the research as an digital vehicle to curate these the larger issues facing Singapore and the spaces and geographies about this larger territory.
We would like to thanks the following institutions for assistance and coursey of incorporating maps to incubate the completion of this work:
National University of Singapore (NUS); Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture (NUS); Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Singapore; National Library Board Singapore (NLB); The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA); National Archives of Singapore (NAS); National Archives of Malaysia (NAM); National Archives of Australia (NAA); Google Earth, Google Inc; Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam; Koh Seow Chuan; Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc.
Appreciation is extended to the Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment at the National University of Singapore. Thanks goes to Head of the Department, Dr. Wong Yunn Chii. We would also like to thanks the following individuals for support, inspiration, and shared dialogue: Dr. Johannes Widodo (NUS), Chng Yak Hock (NAS), Clarence Foo Chun Fung, Epiphanie Lie, Chia Xian Fang Patricia.
Special thanks to: Freek Colombijn, Lai Chee Kien, Chua Beng Huat, Tim Bunnel, and François Decoster.
Book Concept & Editor: Erik G. L’Heureux
Design Editing & Coordination: Chua Gong Yao
Printed & Bounded by E-Press Printing Services
Blk 3023 Ubi Road 3, #02-15 UbiPlex 1, Singapore 408663.
Printed in Times New Roman 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 & 18pt on Cover, 330gsm Rough Advocate Extreme White; Content, 100gsm Woodfree Paper (Sabah). Perfect Binding with Thread-sewn; Blind Emboss on Cover & Spine. (408pp + 4pp)
Times New Roman is a serif font created by Victor Lardent of Monotype. The font was commissioned by the British newspaper The Times in 1931. Times New Roman is the font family used by Monotype.
Freek Colombijn is co-supervisor of the PhD theses of Inge Melchior (on: nationalism and the politics of memory in Estland) and Anonymous (on Burma). The main topic of his current research is the nexus between urban social inequality, environmental awareness and consumptive behaviour in Indonesia. He writes about the social consequences of decolonisation in Indonesia (1930-1960) and the human-made environmental changes in Sumatra (1600-1870). He was awarded the Professor Teeuw Award 2007, in appreciation of his cooperation with young Indonesian scholars in urban studies
Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture at the School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore, Dr Lai is at home in Southeast Asia, and relishes the histories of its art, architecture, settlements, urbanism, and landscapes. He muses on their ineluctable effects on contemporary life, and traverses its times and spaces whenever he can.
Professor Chua Beng Huat, a Singaporean, obtained his PhD from York University, Toronto, Canada. He has held visiting professorships at universities in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, Australia and the US. During his recent Distinguished Visiting Scholar Fellowship at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he delivered the Inaugural Lecture of the Carolina Asia Center. Professor Chua is a Provost Professor and the Head of the Department of Sociology at National University of Singapore (NUS). He is concurrently the Cluster Leader of the Cultural Studies in Asia program at Asia Research Institute (ARI).
Dr. Tim Bunnell is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore. He is a principal investigator on a comparative ethnographic research project on urban aspirations in Asia and in mid-2009 he began a joint appointment with the Asia Research Institute (ARI). His role in ARI’s Asian Urbanisms research cluster, has revolved around efforts to position Asia as a ‘frontier’ of urban theory.
l’AUC Architects and Urbanists (François Decoster, Caroline Poulin and Djamel Klouche) advocate an approach to typological urbanism that they refer to as ‘urbanism of substance’. They have worked on several urban regeneration projects particularly in the context of industrial or social housing.
Erik G. L’Heureux, AIA, LEED AP BD+C is an architect and educator. He is an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore where he researches tropical envelops, comparative densities, and hydrological urbanism. A former boat builder, he practiced architecture in New York City while teaching at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union. He studied as a Fitzgibbon Scholar at Washington University in St Louis where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture in 1996 and was honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006. Erik received a Master of Architecture from Princeton University as a recipient of the Susan K. Underwood Design Award. In 2011 and in 2012, Erik co-organized an international overseas program between Washington University in St Louis, the National University of Singapore, and Tongji University researching the cities of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore.
Erik is a registered architect in the USA, American Institute of Architect Member, NCARB certified, and a LEED accredited professional. He has won several awards including a 2012 AIA New York City Design Merit Award, a 2011 President Design Award from Singapore, two AIA New York State Design Awards, a 2013 Merit Futurarc Green Leadership Architecture Award among many others. He was a curator and designer for the Singapore Pavilion at the Architecture Venice Biennale in 2010. His design work has been published internationally and he lectures widely.
Gunning one down with a neverending stream of words is Gong Yao’s secret weapon to making one obey his demands. Ever since he was a boy he has always loved drawing on any empty surfaces. As such, he often received mild scolding from his parents who had to clean his scribbles on the walls afterwards. Some would say him meeting architecture a few years later is a mere incident in life, but it seems much fated so. Being born in a traditional conservative family, he is always taught to respect and appreciate his own roots. This inevitably helps to shape his perspectives and unique architectural sensibility.
Aileen has an inquisitive mind and enjoys probing the reason for existence of many things in life. She has a penchant for people-watching, where she enjoys observing human beings and their daily antics. With a natural inclination towards beautiful things, she adores music and fashion, appreciates quality and details, has a strange affinity to water and strongly believes in spaces which can touch the human soul. She also believes that seeing alone is insufficient — one must constantly feel, listen and breathe their environment.
Born in the city of Johor Bahru, she spent her childhood in a shophouse along Jalan Trus, where the narrow spaces, mingling of different people, hustle-bustle of daily life and history of the city continually provide positive inspiration for her. Interested in art and music, she believes that architecture should be about the creation of living art pieces which are functional, but at the same time inspire everyday life. Fascinated by Simyrn Gill’s works, she tries to address both ideas and reality in design processes and is captivated by creation through delicate craftsmanship.
