A group of residents living in Marsiling Rise have come together to question their Town Council’s decision to remove an assortment of trees that they planted into the ground and have tended to for a decade. It was first reported on Today newspaper and was followed by a response from the Town Council. Not satisfied with the developments, a resident wrote into the Straits Times Forum today questioning the Town Council’s actions against the call for making Singapore into a garden city.

I headed down to Marsiling Rise today and it was quite a sight to see how the ground-floor residents of Block 103 to Block 127 have created a pathway of gardens outside their homes. Against the backdrop of a grass slope of Woodlands Town Park East, these residents’ gardens add on to a unique green corridor that these four-storey blocks face.

The current problem arises because the resident planted some trees that into the ground of the estate’s common property. As we’ve seen in several cases in our story, Town Councils today are okay with potted plants but will clamp down when one plants into the land that is managed by them. The land, common property, is meant for all residents to enjoy but under such tight management by the Town Councils, they have been usually left alone instead.

According to the news report, some residents support the decision to remove the trees because it is unsightly. We think that is a convenient solution. How about bringing the residents together to come up with a garden that is aesthetically pleasing instead of just removing it? Based on the above gardens, I’m sure the residents can create something beautiful. Plus, the community can get to work together to solve their problem.

The Town Council’s other solution of asking residents to plant in the community gardens set aside for them (left) smacks of a convenient excuse to manage things Singapore-style. Want to protest? Go to Speaker’s Corner. Want to garden? Go to a community garden.

Yet by setting aside land for singular purposes, we not only make the country smaller than it actually is, we return to a banality that pervades our environment — everything has its place in this grand masterplan that we are living in.

By Horst Kiechle

Last weekend’s Straits Times Saturday Special Report by Tan Hui Yee took a look at one of Singapore’s more interesting architecture space — the void deck. This is usually found on the ground levels of public housing and it’s deliberately left empty for residents to use it for various purposes. These could range from weddings and funerals to more interesting activities such as bird-singing and parkour practices. The report, What’s up downstairs, also showcased future models of void decks conceptualised by four young designers who suggested adding technology and integrating the space with greenery.

While the void deck holds great possibility for community-building and for people to reclaim as their own, in reality, the space is often avoided. To hold events, a resident has to get the permission of the Town Councils who manage these spaces. As these spaces are so open, they also attract illegal activities like gambling and the Town Councils’ solutions are often swift and heavy-handed.

Two series of photographs by Horst Kiechle, an Australian architect and artist, reflect this issue. One documents the space itself, and the other, the seating provided in the void deck. Both show how void these spaces are, but also the occasional human intervention in the form of a resident-provided furniture.

The future of the void deck is to loosen up control over these spaces and encourage residents to grow them as their own. We love to hear stories of anyone doing that right now, so let us in if you know of any!

Singapore climbed up four places this year to number 18 on Monocle magazine’s Top 25 Most Liveable Cities. According to Monocle, this year, it re-looked the criteria that measures over 40 cities based on public transport, education, cultural outlets, crime, hours of sunshine and global flight connections. In addition, the magazine also looked at factors such as chain store pollution (the number of international brand food outlets and retailers versus the total mix), ease of opening a business and major infrastructure improvements currently underway.

The upcoming casinos in Singapore and its reputation for being a business-friendly city definitely score in these new factors and probably  explain this year’s rise. Monocle’s also suggested that one way to fix the city is to allow more media freedom.

Going by comments to the Straits Times (ST) report on this survey, Singaporeans readers seem to agree with Monocle’s view on media freedom as some see ST’s coverage as nothing more than part of a government agenda to make the city look good. As for the actual results, many think that Singapore is more liveable for the rich businessman than ordinary citizens.

A Sunday Times report yesterday, Overgrown Orchard, looked at how three new shopping malls coming up in Orchard Road in the next few months was making it over-retailed. The report looked at Singapore’s shopping district purely from a retail and consumer point-of-view and suggested that the issue isn’t in terms of quantity but quality — a greater variety of retailers will enhance the shopping experience.

Perhaps another variety that would aid this district is more public places where people can come together, sit around without the pressures of being treated solely as a consumer. Such places that allow informal public life to gather or what Ray Oldenburg calls “great good places” help bring all sorts of people together as a community. This is unlike the malls where strategic leasing of retail space segregates consumers according to their purchasing power. The foyer in front of Takashimaya comes closest in my mind to being a “great good place”, but the lack of proper seating and shelter, plus the fact that an event usually happens there, deters it from becoming one.

The lack of a great good place in Orchard Road might explain why the MRT stations become convenient meeting points for the public. It is the only space in the district where people can sit around without feeling the pressure of having to spend. In my view, Orchard Road is overgrown with malls, and to enhance the experience and make it A Great Street, mall space should be opened up for more.

Soccer may be the favourite sport of many Singaporeans but  finding a public field to play the game used to be the hardest thing to do!

Tak Giu (2005), a local film by Jacen Tan and his team at Hosaywood tells the tale of three boys and their quest to find a space to play the sport here — a depiction that any Singaporean soccer lover can definitely connect with.

The film helped to open up a discussion on this problem and soon after, the authorities made public fields and school soccer fields more accessible to recreational games.

This was also one of our inspirations when we started on Reclaim Land and we highly recommend you watch the film that is available online on YouTube.

It seems that smokers have “reclaimed” new spaces to light up a cigarette based on this sighting posted at STOMP. “Yellow boxes”, a way to demarcate where smoking is allowed in Singapore, have been spotted in strange places. No one can confirm if these boxes are set up by the authorities but they sure remind me of, Yellow Puff, a piece of conceptual work from local designer Larry Peh.

An editorial about street buskers that appeared on The Sunday Times, March 29, 2009

No one should be surprised if buskers bemoan the slew of regulations which confine them to 109 designated spots, including 14 along Orchard Road. After all, the word ‘busk’ comes from the middle Spanish ‘buskar,’ meaning ‘to seek or to wander’. Surely the new rules constitute another symptom of regulation-prone, ‘fine city’ Singapore? Not quite. As Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lee Boon Yang has pointed out, busking should be done in an orderly manner ‘without creating disamenities to other users of public spaces’. The restrictions also come after complaints about noise pollution, especially from those performers who use sound amplification. Moreover, such regulations are not new. Ancient Rome banned public performances which parodied the government. Henry VIII in England ordered the licensing of minstrels and players; those who disobeyed were whipped. This, of course, won’t happen here.

It should be asked, however, whether too much regulation is a good thing. Busking, after all, is the free expression of someone’s talent and joie de vivre (for spare change, of course). As such, regulation should be light, and better still, self-regulating. A good dose of the free market might work: a so-so performance will see one’s takings go down; a bad one will see shop owners throwing out buskers altogether for turning their customers off.

Fundamentally, rules should be facilitative and not merely restrictive. A good example of the former is the New York subway’s Music Under New York, which arranges for buskers to perform throughout the underground. This is self-regulating and win-win: buskers get more money (much better than getting mugged at Central Park); commuters get to enjoy the musical interludes (it should be added that the legendary Paul McCartney dabbled in busking at the London Tube). Regulations seek to inject order into the creative chaos that is busking, but in doing so, the creative chaos should not be stifled.