RE:INTERPRET & RE:GENERATE

Driven by Singapore’s rising electricity demand in the post-war period and the need to become self-reliant in energy resources, Power Station A was commissioned in 1953 to prepare for the city’s future intensive economic development. Although the station’s operation was halted in 1997, the building remains an important testimonial of Singapore’s quest to become a highly resilient society – one that continuously evolves and adapts to the ever-changing world. Taking inspiration from the past strategic role of Power Station A in generating the city’s power resources, our proposal aims to breathe new life to the building while restoring the significance the station once had in its early days. The power station will be re-interpreted as a Creative Industries Hub where talented artists and designers of all background are invited to collaborate through short-term artists-in-residence program and promote the growth of local art and creative industries. The ‘fuel’ of the power station in the modern context is thus represented by the flow of these creative professionals which is constantly depleted and replenished as they supply the input power of creativity and imagination to the station, allowing it to invigorate and ‘empower’ the neighbourhood through the exhibition events hosted inside the building.

As a gesture to embrace the building’s industrial past, the new programmatic zoning of the power station was greatly inspired by its old operating mechanism and can be classified into 3 main components, which include ‘dwelling’, ‘working’ and ‘exhibiting’ spaces. The ‘dwelling space’ consists of 2 new residential towers which will be constructed outside of the power station and serve to replace the demolished chimneys in restoring the building’s iconic look along the coastline.

One of the towers will be used as artist residence to house the creative professional while the other functions as a hotel for visitors to experience the rejuvenated Pasir Panjang district. Each of the towers is connected to Power Station A via a sky bridge that brings the creative workers to their ‘working space’ along the building’s boiler plant. This second component houses all the necessary supportive facilities such as studio, office and workshops to provide a conducive working environment for the staffs. Works generated at this zone will then be brought toward the ‘exhibiting space’ at the building’s turbine hall. This high-volume space represents the final output of the power station and consist of exhibition and event halls that are fully open to the public for them to enjoy and experience the artists’ collaborated works.

As the current entry to the turbine hall is relatively narrow for the aforementioned new use, a part of the turbine hall’s external wall where electricity was distributed to the rest of Singapore will be made to hover to form a more celebrative and symbolic point of ingress/egress.

Throughout the project, new architectural elements will be added to the building interior to accommodate the new program while the exterior façade is kept almost intact to preserve its iconic look, except for the west and east elevation where minor modifications have to be made to accommodate the new point of entry and sky bridges. The use of shipping container as the primary material for the residential towers was greatly inspired by the presence of the nearby PSA terminal. The hotel tower will be constructed as a permanent building while the artist residence is designed to be a much more adaptable structure.

As shipping containers are transported to the previous water treatment site, they will be modified into dwelling units that were pre-ordered and customized for incoming staffs. These units will then be slotted to the artist residence’s steel frame structure through a vertical crane. Over time, as the creative professionals move out of the building, these dwelling boxes will also be brought down and replaced by new units – retrofitted for a new program and new occupants. This dynamic ‘production line’ enables the tower to continually evolve as its intended use and occupants change overtime – a highly flexible approach that also reflects Singapore’s adaptability and resilience as a nation.

TYPOLOGY: Adaptive Reuse

PROGRAM: Mixed-Use, Housing, Hotel, Commercial, Exhibition Space, Public Area

LOCATION: Pasir Panjang, Singapore

YEAR: April 2019

STATUS: Concept

TOP 3 DESIGN AWARD

URA idea competition 2019- Professional Category Topic B: Repurposing Heritage Pasir Panjang Power Station A