Introduction

The site is a 75 hectare area situated between Dover Road and the AYE, and adjacent to One-North. The floor area required for each person is 35m2, for a population of 75,000. Thus, the total floor area of the built-up environment equates to 2.6 million m2 and must be consistent across all three urban prototyping iterations. Of the total floor area, some must be dedicated to residential use, of which 22m2 per person is given, and the rest is allocated to commercial and clean-tech industrial purposes, of which 6m2 and 7m2 per person are given respectively.

Besides the basic area requirements, this project will make use of the courtyard typologies in the generation of urban masses for each required programme to create a “mini-city” where work, leisure and rest are can co-exist within the same “city complex”, with as many good building massing.

The criteria that constitute a good building are as follows:

Good window threshold:

• view_threshold>0.4
• daylight_threshold>0.1
• solar_threshold<0.2

Good building threshold:

• passive_threshold>0.5
• good_window_threshold>0.1

The courtyard typology is adopted as the key typology to be used for my urban prototyping. Courtyards act as central nodal features and contribute to stronger relationships between the surrounding building units that have the same inward focus towards the same courtyard feature. The courtyards could potentially be green spaces and/or include large water bodies. Courtyards also help to create micro-climates that can reduce the Urban Heat Island effect which can be significant in a dense urban settlement. Having courtyards also allow for natural ventilation and daylighting to better penetrate the depths of the building masses, therefore creating more thermally comfortable and liveable spaces and an efficient urban model.

Good liveability for the residents is also ensured by creating a residential zone that is accessible to the 2 main roads that border the site (AYE and Dover Road), with a commercial centre of the “mini-city”, creating a vibrant central zone within the master plan where activity is most concentrated, formed by the urban courtyard massing of varied heights and densities, thus resulting in a more visually intriguing and human scaled urbanscape.

Lastly, a unique identity to the site that is distinct from the surrounding neighbourhoods and the adjacent One-North can be created through an urbanscape of courtyards in the master plan.