Marina One is a mixed-use development at the centre of Singapore’s business district aims to become its signature real estate development. Its brief is to define new standards of luxury urban living and to create an international benchmark for design and sustainability excellence.
Understanding how public space is used in Singapore is fundamental to our design approach. There is often a preconception that the climate is too hot and humid to make active use of outdoor space. But by breaking down the barriers between air conditioned interior space and exterior shaded space, we can still create spaces to dwell which are softened by plants, with a light breeze and the sound of water movement. With a positive attitude, one can enhance the quality of experience and make better use of the public realm within this development and the surrounding city.
Marina One’s is one of the first developments of its type to integrate soft landscape into the fabric of the building. Called the ‘Green Valley’, Marina One’s elevated public garden sits between its four high-rise towers, creating a seamless transition between a sculptural, planted landscape and architecture.
The vertical garden is designed with lower and mid-level ‘sky terraces’ offering lush vegetation, spectacular waterfalls and calm reflecting pools. The planting is designed to create inspiring and multi-functional urban spaces to be enjoyed by all in Singapore.
The ‘Green Valley’ at the heart of the Marina South towers evokes a rice paddy field, terraced into steep hillsides and made arable for the cultivation of rice, an essential crop of the East Asia. Visitors and inhabitants ascend skywards from the Green Valley into ‘Strata Terraces’, ‘Cloud Garden’, ‘Green Screens’ and ‘Rooftop Gardens’ that allude to the changing environments and habitats that one might experience whilst climbing a mountain.
The public enter from the commercial promenade into the lush vegetation of the Green Valley. At ground level in the heart of the Valley, water descends from above in vertical columns of light that fall into a large reflecting pool, before disappearing underground.
A shallow ramp creates both a visual and physical connection between the shopping centre’s most important levels. It rises through the abundant vegetation surrounding the pool and then passes over the pool between columns of water as it connects to the first Strata Terrace. On special occasions, people can gather on each terrace around the pool’s perimeter to enjoy the performance held at the heart of the space.
In the Cloud Garden, one can escape the activity and movement of people at the base of the Valley and find a relaxed setting for daytime and evening socialising.
At the mountain’s peak are the Green Screens and Rooftop Gardens. Filled with climbing vegetation, they screen service facilities from view and provide habitats for insects and birds.
Marina One | Singapore | Gustafson Porter
Landscape Architect | Gustafson Porter
Architect | Ingenhoven Architects
Structural Engineer | Beca Carter Hollings & Ferner
M&E Engineer | Beca Carter Hollings & Ferner
Local Architect | Architects 61 Pte Ltd
Quantity Surveyor | Langdon & Seah
Consultants | (Local landscape architect) ICN
Consultants | (Façade and lighting) ARUP
Consultants | (Residential interior designer) Axis ID
Client | Mapletree Investments Pte
Status | 2012 to 2017
Image Credit | Gustafson Porter or as noted as © 2014 M+S Pte. Ltd.
