The Curious Case of Greens in one-north

LIM Yih Xi

The Houdini project sets off the goal to analyse the effectiveness of public greens in the urban design of towns. It challenges the widely accepted notion of the addition of green spaces in highly dense urban compactness will improve the quality of buildings in terms of vistas, daylighting and solar factor requirement for “good” building.

Set in the one-north area, the usage of mixed-use plots provides for the expected 75,000 population moving into this site using 2-dimensional land use planning of industrial, residential, commercial and offices. The first 3 iterations demonstrates different types of greens: iteration 1 showcases a highly built up urban grid with the leftover green spaces, iteration 2 allocates green spaces on each plot and iteration 3 combines the idea of the localized greens and a central park. Finally, in an attempt to test out a larger urban grid with a greater central, iteration 4 is then displayed.