Investigating the relationship between form, function, typology

One North, Singapore, Zaha Hadid

Maki’s theory of megaform as ‘a man-made feature of the landscape like the great hill on which the Italian towns were built’ can be reinterpreted through questioning the necessity of it being a singular structure. Can a group of buildings set close to one another in a dense urban masterplan qualify as a megaform? The characteristics that define the traditional notion of megaform includes the idea of it to add to the densification of the urban fabric, while also being a continuation of the surrounding topography. The masterplan of the One North Project in Singapore, designed by Zaha Hadid, derives its guiding lines from the pre-existing urban grid of the central city, portraying some of the traits of a megaform The one common root of ‘Large’ in our cities today, is the enormous reserves of capital that exist in the modern economy < > enable ,to gain control over, and make profit from, ever larger areas of urban land.12 The objectives behind the conception of One North project follow a similar ideology.

The planning and development marked a point of departure from the typical science parks characterised by sanitised and isolated environments. Instead it aimed at composing closely built buildings on permeable blocks that would guarantee continuous circulation. Aimed at capturing the street life of the central city living in Singapore, a lot of importance was given to the street environment through consciously treating the ground level as an element of negotiation. Streets as a method and tool of urban continuity is employed while perceiving it as a place of negotiation between the mobility demands and fostering efficient pedestrian movement.

The Design Competition of the masterplan aimed at obtaining design proposals based on the premise that One North should look physically different from the rest of Singapore The JTC (Jurong Town Corporation) created a brief that envisioned the district to be non-conventional in its approach while being ground-breaking and hotbed of science and technology.13 The design brief highlighted the term “convivial” in order to reinforce the need of interaction amongst the users. The shortlisted entries were judged based on their ability of being implementable while also being visionary. Zaha Hadid’s proposal met the demands of the vision and captured the essence of modernity. The fundamental ethos of the way European cities were constructed influenced the planning principles. 12

The project was planned as a dynamic sector on the fringe of the city centre, to act as the focal point of the technology corridor stretching from Buona Vista to the NTU. The motive was that the technology-research ecosystem that would be generated could then extend outwards, beyond one-north’s physical confines and tap the resources of the surrounding institutions, creating a potential to support the entrepreneurial ventures.

Using the concept of the flow of energy in spaces, Zaha described how human energy would flow based on the natural topography of the site. This particular trait take us back to the theories by Frampton, where the megaform insinuates itself as a continuation of the surrounding topography. He also defines the megaform as ‘an urban nexus set within the space-endlessness of the megalopolis ’ This brings us back to the argument of the megaform being able to be read as a collection of buildings that, as a whole share the its character.One of the driving factors that lead to this understanding is the way the masterplan deploys a mix of low-rise and highrise developments, the undulating pattern created through the heights of different buildings, controlled to create a feeling of a gentle rhythm. The masterplan aimed at creating coherence at a larger urban scale through the continuous roof carpet which would bring together the various building typologies.

The starting points of the masterplan were based on the pre-existing features in the landscape. The bending of the grid and the orientation character were aligned to existing pieces of the city-gird. The argument was about how to have closely built structures on permeable blocks, in a fine, dense grid with continuous circulatory environment. The three main clusters that were designed as a part of the masterplan were - Biopolis, Fusionopolis and the Mediapolis.

The undulating high-density, low-to-mid-rise urban ‘envelope’ called the ‘ground form’ in the proposal theorised that the real ‘energy’ of a development lies at the street level. Analogous to the older parts of Paris, where the buildings are built to the street edge, the plan aimed at creating a similar street condition by weaving a series of curvilinear roads through the site, carving out blocks of varying sizes and creating streets and spaces of different shapes and openness, which would lend themselves to host street level activities.

The idea of group form can be explained through the notion of an urban order based on a collection of elements. This collection of elements is not random but of buildings that have reasons to be together.14 The parcels of land in the masterplan of One North come close to this concept of a group form but fail to portray a sense of unity in typology due to the gap between the planning and the implementation. The intended integrating heterogeneity only works when looked at without considering the typological needs of the building blocks. Instead when looked at as a whole, the masterplan can be read as a single large megaform through the formation of an artificial urban landscape that merges in with the topography and integrates with the built mass as well. It also follows the idea of densification of the urban fabric and can be indirectly termed as a Megaform.

Image credits: https://www.zaha-hadid.com/

Typically, in Singapore, a ‘white’ site is a plot where a number of uses are allowed, although very ofte, a minimum component of a specific use is stipulated to meet its planning objectives. Instead of being innovation-driven, it is driven by real estate values. In contrast, the one-north Development Group wanted to champion a different approach to ‘white use’ This meant giving the master developer the ability to change the mix of the ‘work’ and ‘live’ components. After several rounds of negotiation, it was decided that while a mixeduse proportion was allocated to each land parcel, the overall mixed-use proportion within the entire one-north district could be adjusted. In the official master plan, the land use zoning for one-north would be indicated as ‘reserved use’. This zoning made the proportions of different land uses to be adjusted at different phases according to demand.15

The Biopolis campus is dedicated to providing space for biomedical research and development activities and promoting peer-review and collaboration among the private and public scientific community. Biopolis is one the key projects that supports the biomedical industry as Singapore's engine of economic growth Spanning over an area of around 200ha of land, it aimed at anchoring the entire value-chain of life-sciences In order to promote collaboration between private companies and the public, scientific or educational bodies, the project holds is of key value by accounting for 6% of Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) This takes us back to the idea of accumulation and generation of capital that leads to the formation of megaforms.

The economic value of the project adds to the responsibility of the project to outdo the expectations and is also at a higher risk of failure when the infrastructure does not support the typological needs of the industry. The merit of the plan was the street environment it created and fostered Pedestrian activity in central city Singaporean life given prime importance Blocks were thought of being permeable Instead of building distant views, it aimed at creating a more local sense of belonging and engagement. This was accomplished through targeting immediate views that were built due to the framing of the foreground, middle ground and the background.

So why exactly was the One North masterplan a failure?

The masterplan of One North, despite having a strong conceptual base, ended up facing issues due to two major reasons. The parceling of the blocks in different zones did not take into consideration the typology of the buildings. The supporting services and the required facilities could not be accommodated in the land parcels, leaving them at a loss of typological intelligence. When it was crucial for the plan to evolve as per the typology, it failed to function as per the necessary parameters of the particular industry Secondly, there was a huge gap between the planning and implementation of the projects, which created a massive change in the outcome of the overall masterplan as it did not follow the sequence of the development proposed by the architects. Due to this, it created disjunction and an incoherence between the different phases and zones in the plan, hence it could not be read along the same lines as it was intended to.

Conclusion

The investigation of the megaforms based on their response to the urban fabric and the existing grid of the city helps us look at the size and scope of modern day projects in more than one way. It is vital to understand the effect of ‘bigness’ in the city while certain areas are dominated by increasing accumulation of capital that results in large compositions of buildings that are of singular use or do not hold the anticipatory nature required to evolve over time and thus lead to the deterioration. Vast amount of land resources are taken up corporations that focus more on their representational character and not enough of the quality of spatial experience. In the process of creating interactive street environments as a part of a cluster of buildings, is it essential for the futuristic design themes to accommodate and function based on the typology of the building. The architectural abstract concept that focuses more on the form of the megaform can easily create a rift between the form, purpose and value of the building, if the typology is not taken into consideration and given thought based on the future needs of the industry. The idea of large structures and groups of buildings involve multiple actors that need to co-ordinate and in a cohesive, harmonious manner, only then the scale of these projects can be used for the benefit of the larger urban area. A gap of planning and implementation can lead to vast areas of land to face redundancy of spaces and might even have to go under the threat of demolition, thereby wasting a large amount of materials, resources and capital. The relationship of the three elements- the grid, geography and size are closely interlinked in a way that influences the growth of the city while creating a unique combination of morphological character and the typology of the built mass The juxtaposition of the megaform on the grid can sometimes become an instrument of city-building while addressing patterns of integrated street environment, pedestrian movement and accommodation of anticipatory functions that create interesting crossovers in the building. Thus, the notion of ‘Bigness’ described by Rem Koolhaas and its relation to context is not so much related to the opposition of big buildings to the context and order but can be used as a tool for the urban development. The complexity involved in the regime of Bigness can be effectively handled if the intelligence of architecture is in synergy with the other related fields with which it operates in unison, to mobilize the bold visions into reality.

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