ADS-B 2021 Singapore Studio, Masami Kobayashi & Junko Tamura

The Hybrid Metropolis: A New Gateway for Singapore

Background
Then what’s next for Singapore’s future?
There is an opportunity arising for an emergence of new Singapore in the upcoming years. Singapore will be connected with the rest of Asian cities by a high-speed railway via Malaysia allowing to form a metropolis, which will then eventually be extended all the way up to China creating a new dynamic
flow locally and internationally. Therefore, this studio provides a framework for a new vision of Singapore, which is the Hybrid City.
The question then will be: can Singapore be transformed beyond a mixed used city? What quality can
a city provide to make Singapore truly a Hybrid City?

VISION OF HYBRID METROPOLIS
In the case of Jurong East, following ideas can help implement this objective of a more continuous and hybridcity: TOD and The Productive City.
Lessons from Japanese TOD model: Transit Oriented Development, which is widely known to have established in the US since the 90s has become a key concept aiming to encourage the use of public transport rather than the individual car mobility system. However, this has developed in a purely functional way of designing the city, and therefore it became a useful methodology to implement an efficient “mobility machines”.
On the other hand, Japanese TOD, which was first initiated in 1910s developed as a dynamic economy system by the private railway companies to help the city in recovery process of the housing needs, mainly in the suburbs after the great Kanto earthquake in the 30s. Therefore, it integrated community development where the local shop owners’ association participated in the process of place making. This is known as the Ensen Kaihatsu in Japanese. (See Youtube video on
“Understanding TOD – Japan Model” https://youtu.be/ZkF8elCxY2M). Therefore, the studio aims to integrate this Japanese TOD model, rather than the typical methodology of the US version.
The Productive City: An innovative and creative economy requires the organisation of “ecosystems” in which large, medium and small companies are encouraged to interact, cooperate and stimulate one another. Singapore, with its Randstad concept (the establishment of a Ring city by the Dutch) like the Yamanote line of Tokyo, has a potential to generate network of flows as engine for the local economy to grow. With the new international railway from Malaysia plugged onto Jurong East area, just like the Ensen Kaihatsu of the Japanese TOD model, the studio aims to establish a new economy for the future of Singapore (See Youtube video on “Capitalism and Commons” to be uploaded soon). With the TOD and the Productive City, what new culture could emerge in Singapore?