WOHA is a

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

an multinational

architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in adva ...

firm. First established in 1994 by Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell, its name is derived from the initial letters of the founders’ surnames. Based out of Singapore, the firm has built and designed dozens of projects throughout the Asia-Pacific, including residential towers,

public housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

estates,

mass transit Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whi ...

stations, hotels and cultural institutions. Their work incorporates

sustainable design Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability ...

strategies as a response to

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

and widespread

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation in British English) is the population shift from Rural area, rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. ...

. They aim to integrate landscape, architecture and

urbanism Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, a profession focusing on the design and management of urban ...

in high-rise buildings to improve quality of life for residents in high-density megacities. Their buildings are notable for their extensive use of natural vegetation as a building element. In 2007, they came to international attention when the Moulmein Rise Residential Building in Singapore was awarded the

Aga Khan Award for Architecture The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) is an architectural prize established by Aga Khan IV in 1977. It aims to identify and reward architectural concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Muslim societies in the fie ...

, establishing their reputation as designers of sustainable, naturally ventilated

skyscrapers A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Most modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise bui ...

for an urban

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

context. In addition to architectural practice, WOHA have also taught at the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

(NUS) and both Hassell and Wong have lectured at universities around the world.

History

WOHA story began while both the founders (Wong and Hassell) met while employed at

Kerry Hill Architects William Kerry Hill (19 June 1943 – 26 August 2018) was a Singapore-based, Australian architect who specialised in hotel design in tropical Asia. His works were known for their features of steeply-pitched pavilion roofs, shaded walkways, an ...

in Singapore before founding their own practice WOHA (Name Initials of its founding owners) in 1994. WOHA’s practice begun with small projects and private houses. Following their success in the open competitions for two Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations in Singapore in 2000 (

Bras Basah MRT station Bras Basah MRT station () is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore), Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station on the Circle MRT line, Circle line (CCL) located in the Museum Planning Area, Museum planning area, Singapore. It is underneath Bras B ...

and

Stadium MRT station Stadium MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore), Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station on the Circle MRT line, Circle Line (CCL). Located in the area of Kallang, Central Region, Singapore, Central Region, Singapore, the statio ...

) and the commission for the 1 Moulmein Rise condominium complex, the firm shifted its focus to public and commercial architecture. According to the firm, a defining moment in the development of their design approach came with the entry for the Duxton Plain Public Housing International Competition held by Singapore’s

Urban Redevelopment Authority The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is the national urban planning authority of Singapore, and a Statutory boards of the Singapore Government, statutory board under the Ministry of National Development (Singapore), Ministry of National De ...

in 2001. Although WOHA’s entry was not selected for construction, it was awarded the Merit Prize and provided them with an opportunity to experiment with design strategies for environmentally and socially sustainable high-density developments that would inform their later work. WOHA subsequently completed a number of high-rise and large public buildings that were designed to be sustainable for tropical climates. These were open permeable buildings that encouraged

natural ventilation Passive ventilation is the process of supplying air to and removing air from an indoor space without using mechanical systems. It refers to the flow of external air to an indoor space as a result of pressure differences arising from natural for ...

to reduce reliance on mechanical cooling. They were also characterized by the extensive use of planting to cool the structure through

transpiration Transpiration is the process of water movement through a plant and its evaporation from aerial parts, such as leaves, stems and flowers. It is a passive process that requires no energy expense by the plant. Transpiration also cools plants, c ...

. It is an approach the architects have described as “breathing architecture”. Examples include the Newton Suites

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...

complex in Singapore, completed in 2007, the Singapore School of the Arts and The Met residential tower in Bangkok, both completed in 2009. The Met raised the international profile of the firm outside of South-East Asia, winning international awards such as the 2010

International Highrise Award The International High-Rise Award () is an international award in architectural design. The award is bestowed to "a structure that combines exemplary sustainability, external shape and internal spatial quality, not to mention social aspects, to cre ...

and 2011

RIBA ''Riba'' (, or , ) is an Arabic word used in Islamic law and roughly translated as " usury": unjust, exploitative gains made in trade or business. ''Riba'' is mentioned and condemned in several different verses in the Qur'an3:130

Lubetkin Award. The building was characterized as an example of sustainable high-density development for tropical megacities. The RIBA jury noted that the building offered an alternative to glazed skyscrapers common in

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

climates and made clear “that an alternative strategy to the sleek air-conditioned box can work in the tropics and has implications everywhere.” WOHA have experimented with developing new types of green skyscraper. The Parkroyal on Pickering, completed in 2013, incorporates 15,000 square meters of elevated terraced gardens, which the architects refer to as “sky gardens”. The Oasia Hotel Downtown, completed in 2016, features a façade of aluminum mesh that supports 21 species of plants. The vertical landscaping of these structures is intended to reintroduce greenery to the built environment and encourage urban bio-diversity by attracting local birds and insects. The SkyVille @ Dawson public housing estate, completed in 2015, provided the architects with an opportunity to realize many of their ideas about housing, which were first articulated with the Duxton Plains competition. According to the architects, SkyVille @ Dawson incorporates design strategies that are intended to promote community living. Communal terraces are provided every eleven stories in order to create groupings of 80 homes, referred to as “Sky Villages.” The building’s rooftop contains a publicly accessible park. Kampung Admiralty, the firm's most recent public housing project, is an integrated development that houses apartments for seniors, a rooftop park and urban farm, a medical center, child- and elder care, retail as well as food and beverage outlets under one roof. The project was named "World Building of the Year" at the 2018 World Architecture Festival. The scale of WOHA’s built and proposed housing projects is intended to respond to the population growth of Asian cities. It is also an outcome of Singapore’s constrained geographic area. Wong has stated that the goal of WOHA’s architecture is to create “comfortable garden suburb experience and then replicate it vertically through a

megastructure A megastructure (or macrostructure) is a very large artificial object, although the limits of precisely how large vary considerably. Some apply the term to any especially large or tall building. Some sources define a megastructure as an enorm ...

for everyone to enjoy.” WOHA present their high-density housing designs as replicable models for

urban development Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of peop ...

. However, critics have questioned the universal applicability of this model outside of Singapore’s communitarian

political system In political science, a political system means the form of Political organisation, political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state (polity), state. It defines the process for making official gov ...

and coordinated urban planning program. At the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, WOHA launched a book called Garden City Mega City, written in collaboration with

Patrick Bingham-Hall Patrick Bingham-Hall is an architectural photographer. He is also an architectural writer and editor, and owner of Pesaro Publishing. Early life He was born on 15 July 1958 in Aden in Yemen, where his father (Group Captain T. L. Bingh ...

. The book outlines WOHA’s design strategies in the context of the threats posed by global warming and the pace of Asian urbanization. WOHA currently have buildings under construction in Singapore,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, Australia,

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and China. In August 2019, WOHA was picked by URA as the designer of Singapore's Pavilion for World Expo 2020 in Dubai. The team is tasked to create a green oasis on a 1,550 square-meter site in the Expo's Sustainability District. In July 2020, a team led by WOHA was awarded the project to redevelop the Marina Bay floating platform, which will be renamed "NS Square" when completed in 2025.

Awards

* 2020 World Expo Dubai, Architecture Best pavilions, Gold award for Singapore Pavilion. * 2018 World Architecture Festival, Building of the Year, Kampung Admiralty, Singapore * 2011 RIBA Lubetkin Prize – The Met * 2011 Australian Institute of Architects, Jørn * Utzon Award for International Architecture – School of the Arts, Singapore * 2011 Singapore President's Design Award, Design of the Year – School of the Arts, Singapore * 2010 The International Highrise Award – The Met * 2010 World Architecture Festival, World Holiday Building of the Year – Alila Villas Uluwatu * 2010 World Architecture Festival, World Learning Building of the Year – School of the Arts, Singapore * 2009 World Architecture Festival, World Transport Building of the Year – Bras Basah MRT station * 2009 World Architecture Festival, World Housing Development of the Year – The Met * 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture – 1 Moulmein Rise

Significant Built Works

* Sky Green,

Taichung Taichung (, Wade–Giles: '), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality in central Taiwan. Taichung is Taiwan's second-largest city, with more than 2.85 million residents, making it the largest city in Ce ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, 2015 - 2019 * Design Orchard, Singapore, 2017 - 2019 * Kampung Admiralty, Singapore, 2014 - 2017 * Parkroyal on Pickering, Singapore, 2010-2013 * School of the Arts, Singapore, 2005-2010 * Bugis+ (formerly known as iluma), Singapore, 2005-2009 * The Pano, Bangkok, Thailand, 2004-2009 * The Met, Bangkok, Thailand, 2003-2010 * Newton Suites, Singapore, 2003-2007 *

, Singapore, 2000-2008 *

, Singapore, 2000-2008 * Church of St Mary of the Angels, Singapore, 1999-2003

References

External links

WOHA

WOHA on Archdaily

WOHA on YouTube

Media Facade Video

{{portalbar, Architecture, Singapore Architecture firms of Singapore Architecture in Singapore

History

Awards

Significant Built Works

Further reading

References

External links