OUTSTANDING
HEARTBEAT @
MEICHIN
URA CUBE CHALLENGE 2017
TYPOLOGY
Urban Planning
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DESCRIPTION
Revamp Mei Chin Estate for the future
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SITE
Queenstown, Mei Chin
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ACHIEVEMENT
Outstanding
//PROJECT ABSTRACT
Over the course of three weeks, student participants from more than 35 schools will be contributing their ideas through a variety of experiential learning journeys such as workshops, talks, and tours. Besides exposing the youths to pertinent issues that city planners face today, the events also offer a platform to hear their unique insights and creative solutions on how to make the city better.
Students also get to experience what it is like to be an urban planner through existing programmes such as the annual Challenge for the Urban and Built Environment (CUBE) workshop and competition. Last year’s workshop and competition saw 16 teams from local pre-university institutions develop concepts to create a more vibrant identity for the Mei Chin estate.
//PROJECT SYNOPSIS
Heartbeat@Mei Chin used the basis of 3 main components - the Heart, the Rhythm, the Vessels - to encapsulate the proposed urban plan, highlighting a need for social activity, accessibility and healthy living.
A revamped sports stadium represented the Heart, sunken so as to further amplify engagement around the vicinity and to act as a water catchment area. Filled with communal amenities, it is centred on pumping the blood of Queenstown, which are its residents.
The Rhythm represents the multitudinous nodes of the area and focuses on high and low energy activities to encourage a healthy lifestyle. The six health types were used as foundations, such as Physical (comprises sports facilities dispersed around the area), Mental (proposing a conducive library to those who seek knowledge), Emotional (featuring an Amphitheatre as a display for expression and the Arts), Environmental (revamping a canal into a luxurious river), Social and Spiritual (a community garden).
