ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES

PPS 1786/04/2013(022947)
Vo l u m e 6 1

Jul-Aug 2018 | volume 61

MCI (P) 007/11/2017

Ecological Landscapes
Inside: Reviving Ancient Wisdom; the landscapes of Dr Yu Kongjian |
J u l -A u g 2 0 1 8

Mohan Rao; environmental designer and landscape architect | Works of

Turenscape, Sasaki Associates, HASSELL and Philippe Rahm architectes |
In Conversation with Singapore’s Mother Nature, Lena Chan
With projects from Australia, China, India, Indonesia and Taiwan

Hong Kong HKD72 RMB80 Indonesia IDR83,000 Malaysia MYR39 Philippines PHP500 Singapore SGD15 Thailand THB290 Vietnam 190,000
contents

the futurarc interview

8 Mohan Rao
Environmentalist and Architect
Partner, Integrated Design (INDÉ)

main feature
20 Green Infrastructure through
the Revival of Ancient Wisdom

projects
30 Turenscape Projects
48 Central Park
54 GreenWay Master Plan
60 Silk Road Corridor
64 West Java New University

commentary
68 Urban Greening and Architectural Form:
A Bird’s Eye View

people
72 In Conversation with Lena Chan

happenings
78 Milestones & Events

82 product advertorials

84 Advertising Special: Landscaping

main feature futurarc interview
Photo by Patrick Bingham-Hall
Photo by Patrick Bingham-Hall
Photo by Patrick Bingham-Hall
68 FUTURARC
futurarc showcase projects people COMMENTARY happenings books product advertorials
URBAN GREENING AND
ARCHITECTURAL FORM:
A BIRD’S EYE VIEW
Architects in a post-graduate programme were asked to
reimagine familiar building typologies by considering species
movement and habitats. The studio, led by Dr Nirmal Kishnani,
a sustainability expert, and supported by Dr Anuj Jain, a biologist,
yielded six form strategies. Heather Banerd, a graduate of the
programme, summarises the studio’s explorations.
1 Photo by Robert Such 2 by Heather Banerd
The loss of green cover in cities is often discussed
as an issue of human well-being. We speak of
increased urban heat island effect, worsening air
quality and the psychological discomfort arising from
our separation from nature. These are important
points, and critical to developing more liveable cities,
but they overlook a crucial consideration: that green
elements are also part of complex natural systems
that support life in general, including species other
than our own.
Of late, building-integrated greenery has become
a widely accepted design strategy. Green roofs are
popular as they offer added social space; green walls
are liked for their visual appeal, creating a ‘wow
factor’.
These strategies can be applied to any typology
at any stage in the design process. In other words,
they have little impact on early consideration of form.
Architects like Ken Yeang and WOHA, however, have
been exploring the potential of building-integrated
greenery in reshaping conceptual form.
3 Photo by Patrick Bingham-Hall 4 envelope in ways that make a building function
In Constructed Ecosystems (2016), Yeang lays out
several strategies for incorporating greenery within
recesses, voids and incisions. To link these with
ground-level planting, Yeang proposes the concept
of a ‘linear park-in-the-sky’, in which a vegetated
strip can be mounted vertically onto the façade (DiGi
Technology Operation Centre, Malaysia) or placed flat
as a horizontal ribbon winding upwards around the
building (Solaris, Singapore) to create continuity and
connectivity.
WOHA’s use of greenery varies with each project;
in many projects their design strives for green
coverage that is more than the site area. In Oasia
Downtown, Singapore, greenery is vertical planting
on a second skin façade with patches on mid-level
decks. In the PARKROYAL on Pickering, a high-end
5 Photo courtesy of T. R. Hamzah and Yeang Sdn Bhd 6
hotel development, the architecture is organised
around cascading terraces acting as patches,
supplemented by façade and podium planting.
Both WOHA and Yeang are explicitly interested in
using building-integrated greenery to create habitats
(patches) and pathways (corridors) for species
movement. What is not yet understood is whether
biodiversity, such as birds and butterflies, recognises
and responds to this design intent, and whether one
form strategy is better suited than another.
In response to this question, students of the
Masters of Science, Integrated Sustainable Design
(MSc. ISD) programme at the National University of
Singapore were asked to explore how architectural
form creates space for biodiversity habitats and
pathways. This was done over the course of several
12-week studios, in which they were asked to
redesign existing buildings in Singapore. The new
design had to adhere to the programme and density
of the existing development; in addition, it was
to create new spaces and surfaces for flora and
fauna. The challenge was to reconfigure space and
effectively as say, an office building, while at the
same time making it part of the urban network of
green patches and corridors. For this, they relied on
rules-of-thumb from Dr Jain on how species move
and what they need (see sidebar).
Shown here is a summary of six form strategies,
extracted from some 30 proposals from these
studios. These strategies were used by students to
manage the needs of the building programme and
create space for greenery. Notes accompanying
each strategy are by Dr Kishnani, who explains
form-logic as it pertains to programme and Dr Jain,
who discusses what is likely to work on the basis of
literature from the field of biology.
1, 3 & 5 Oasia Hotel Downtown 2 DiGi Technology
Operation Centre, Malaysia 4 PARKROYAL on Pickering
6 Solaris
FUTURARC 69

1. OPEN AND CLOSED PATCH
The building is split into several blocks that
are arranged in a manner that delineates an
open-to-sky patch. This works for developments
where each block can function independently
with autonomous circulation, for instance, a
multi-unit residential development. Open and
closed patches are situated on the ground;
the former is partially enclosed, the latter fully
enclosed. An open patch is likely to attract and
maintain healthier species populations, and
in turn, higher abundance and diversity, than
a closed patch. For a closed patch to sustain
species populations, a minimum area of 0.1
hectare is needed with a width of more than 10
to 20 metres. This threshold satisfies the home
range requirements for several birds and small
mammals. A smaller patch is still valuable, but
is at greater risk of severe edge effects, and is
likely to attract only transient animal populations.
This makes them highly dependent on adjacent
patches and prone to localised extinctions.
4. BRIDGE
Where there are multiple building blocks,
these are sometimes linked with a deck acting
as a bridge. This is useful where pedestrian
connectivity is important, both as a way of
moving between blocks or moving on to areas
beyond the site. The bridge is a combination of
a sheltered patch (tunnel) and an exposed patch
(plateau). The factors influencing the success
of those strategies apply here. The biodiversity
potential is higher if the exposed patch is at
an optimal height, if the area is large enough
to support complexity and diversity, and if the
sheltered patch has sufficient height-to-depth
ratio with visible escape routes.
Drawings by Nikita Sharma and Arunima Dasgupta
70 FUTURARC
2. PLATEAU
The plateau can be seen mostly in low-to-mid-
height developments such as shopping centres,
where the deep floor plan meant that the
development has a large roof. This form-strategy
is effectively the greening of the roof. The height
of a plateau determines how accessible it is to
different species. Beyond 20 metres, the presence
of butterflies decreases significantly; for birds, the
upper limit is 40 metres (Wang et al. 2017). The
energy that is needed to fly in windier conditions
at higher altitudes discourages most birds and
butterflies from flying beyond these heights. As
a result, patches at elevations of more than 40
metres are likely to lack species diversity. The
area of the plateau also influences vegetative
complexity. It is recommended that the planted
area be more than 1,300 square metres with a
diversity of flora. The Centre for Urban Greenery
and Ecology (Singapore) design guide suggests
providing, at a minimum: eight species of bird
nectar or fruit plants; 10 species of shrubs; five
species of butterfly nectar plants; and two species
of epiphytes and/or mistletoes (CUGE CS E12:
2017). The inclusion of a wildflowers zone is also
encouraged. The vegetated area also requires
a continuous rooting zone, to enable a diverse,
extensive root zone community of microorganisms
and associated microbial activity that are beneficial
to biodiversity.
5. HILL
Buildings that are topographically inspired to
look like hills are the hardest to resolve in terms
of spatial flows and distribution of programme.
Having a sloping façade means the building has
a bigger footprint at the bottom than at the top
(a pyramid) or is made up of floor plates stacked
at an angle (the leaning tower). Either way, this
poses challenges of where to place elevators
and stairs, how to use floor plates, small and
big, with equal efficiency. The hill is generally
composed of multiple small green patches in
a terraced arrangement. These are likely to be
low-diversity, managed vegetation, therefore
the biodiversity potential here tends to be low.
At best, a hill can serve as corridor or stepping
stone for the movement of species. If animals are
able to establish breeding populations in these
small, fragmented patches, populations will be
supplemented by migrants from larger habitat
patches nearby.
3. TUNNEL AND CAVE
This is typically a tall building punctuated by
intermediate decks, seen in buildings in high-
density situations where the decks are used to
create vertically distributed green social spaces.
These decks do not have views to the sky and,
depending on the shape of the building, have
the appearance of a tunnel (where two or more
sides are open) or cave (where only one side is
open). Tunnels and caves are therefore sheltered
patches, elevated above ground. These are
significantly less attractive to biodiversity than
unsheltered patches that are open to the sky
(Wang et al. 2017). Sheltered patches are
known to be avoided by some species of birds
and butterflies, possibly because they sense
fewer escape routes. The potential of this
form strategy can be improved by increasing
the height-to-depth ratio, which brings more
daylight into the space. It is likely that when
there are high ceilings and direct line-of-sight
escape routes, there will be greater biodiversity
potential, although this is yet to be scientifically
validated.
6. CLIFF
The cliff is planted façades and green walls. This is
by far the most common strategy since it requires
one or more façades to be covered with plants
and does not fundamentally affect internal layout
or spatial efficiency. This strategy, however, has
limited biodiversity potential due to its thickness,
usually only one plant deep. This limits complexity
and diversity, and makes it difficult for animals to
perch and use the plants on a regular basis, not
to mention form resident populations. Planting
complexity is also constrained by the shallow
planting medium. These limitations can sometimes
be overcome by using planter boxes along the inner
façade of the building, as seen in Oasia Downtown
(Singapore), or the use of eco-ramps, ideally wider
than 10 metres, which allow for contiguous multi-
layered planting, as seen in Solaris (Singapore).
There is little ecological research to support these
strategies. However, Belcher et al. (2018) found that
hill and cliff typologies in Milan support two to five
times more bird species than conventional buildings
with no greenery.
C O M M E N TA R Y
Biodiversity-Centric Greening:
Rules-of-Thumb for Urban
Interventions
by Dr Anuj Jain
The value of a vegetated patch is predicated on Enhancing heterogeneity and density of plants, Heather Banerd is a designer and freelance writer
on the subject of sustainability. Based in Singapore,
general principles of biodiversity in urban patches. increasing tree cover and creating water bodies she has a background in architecture and is a
can significantly enhance the biodiversity value of recent graduate of the MSc Integrated Sustainable
Communities of species common in urban patches habitat patches (Beninde et al. 2015). A common Design programme at the National University of
Singapore.
tend to be urban adaptors, species tolerant of urban misconception is that birds survive by living in
microclimates, noise and edge effects, and who are trees and flying between them. Many Southeast
able to move and disperse in an urban matrix. Such Asian birds, in fact, spend a lot of time at or near
species tend to be habitat generalists, and therefore the ground (Hails & Kavanagh 2013). Maintaining Dr Nirmal Kishnani is an advocate, educator
common and widely distributed in urban landscapes. a heterogeneous shrub and herb cover is therefore and practitioner in the field of sustainable
Increasing generalists is as valuable as increasing critical for bird diversity. design who teaches at the School of Design
species diversity because they are responsible for the and Environment at the National University of
bulk of ecosystem services (Gaston 2010). The arrangement of planting also has an impact. Singapore. He is Editor-in-Chief of the FuturArc
Clustered trees provide refuge, as distinct from trees magazine, resident Jury Chair of FuturArc Prize
Patches serve two broad functions, according to dispersed over an area; areas of dense refuge save and FuturArc Green Leadership Award, as well
size. Habitats, where animals live, feed and breed; birds energy in flight and allow them to establish as author of the publication Greening Asia –
and corridors, which facilitate movement between territories. The presence of water features creates Emerging Principles for Sustainable Architecture,
patches. While the design of each is highly dependent a favourable microclimate and additional niches for which has been translated to Vietnamese and
on context and species, a general rule is that habitat species, including the potential for riparian corridors. Bahasa Indonesia. He is also co-author of SG3:
patches should be a minimum of 10 to 20 metres Decoding Sustainable Urbanism, Case Study,
wide in order for small mammals, insects and lizards Maintaining habitat connectivity is a key strategy Singapore.
to form territories and resident populations. Some in planning for biodiversity. Literature suggests
small mammals may need vegetation of 20 to 30 that habitat fragmentation lowers species count Dr Anuj Jain is a biologist and biomimicry
metres wide to constitute a habitat. Patches smaller and diversity, which decreases with time as edge professional. As a National Geographic Explorer,
than 10 metres in width tend to function as corridors. effects become too high and undisturbed habitats he works with BirdLife International to prevent
The relationship between habitat size and number of too small to maintain breeding populations (Leidner extinctions and illegal wildlife trade in Asia. He
species is non-linear. It follows a power-law function et al. 2010). When movement between fragments is headed Nature Society (Singapore)’s Butterfly
(Diamond 1976), wherein a doubling in habitat size restricted, species are prone to genetic inbreeding & Insect Group from 2012 to 2016. He is the
will more than double the number of species. and localised extinction. co-founder of Biomimicry Singapore Network
and BioSEA (Biomimicry South East Asia) where
he consults on ecological planning, ecosystem
The National Parks Board (Singapore)’s Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology commissioned a service enhancement and creating nature-
two-year study of roof gardens in Singapore in collaboration with the National University of Singapore inspired designs for the built environment.
from 2014 to 2016. An initial list of 259 roof garden sites was prepared from which 30 sites were
selected after a thorough screening process based on parameters such as roof access, garden height Masters of Science, Integrated Sustainable
to allow for a mix of low- and high-rise gardens, and the presence of permanent planting pits. Twenty Design is a post-graduate degree programme
bird and butterfly surveys were conducted at each site over a period of 18 months—a total of 600 at the School of Design and Environment at
surveys yielding perhaps the most comprehensive roof gardens biodiversity dataset collected in the the National University of Singapore (www.sde.
tropics to our knowledge. Being part of the study’s ecology team, we were able to analyse why birds nus.edu.sg/mscisd). It focuses on developing a
and butterflies favoured certain roof gardens over time and draw key design recommendations. These systems approach to architecture and urbanism
results are available in a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal (Wang et al. 2017). The design that is targeted to conditions in Asia.
recommendations can be downloaded from the CUGE Standards website (CUGE CS E12: 2017).
References
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