this book, the marriage of luxury and sustainability has been achieved not by spending huge sums of money but by the application of some simple, imaginative and well thought out strategies.
Most of these homes are free-standing landed properties. In the tiny island state of Singapore, this means, by definition, that a lot of money is spent to acquire the land even before the design process begins. Money, though, is forever the elephant in the architectural room. Despite the many lessons learned from traditional architecture about how to live in a tropical climate, money has always provided the resource—as everywhere else in the world— that has enabled architecture to experiment, explore and innovate. Over time, the lessons learned from these ‘luxurious’ projects are applied across the board, including to medium- and low-cost housing.
Rather than viewing luxury and sustainability as being mutually exclusive, it may actually be that true innovation is driven by the desire for luxury, especially given that luxury and comfort mean such different things to different people. Let me give just one example of how a current trend in Singapore is bringing together the issues of luxury, sustainability, innovative design and financial capacity. This is the way in which architects are currently experimenting with multi-generational houses. They are responding to the desire to maintain the extended family, to the high cost of real estate (that encourages adult children to remain at home longer) and to changing social mores which result in people, especially the younger generation, seeking greater independence and privacy. In other words, how do we reconcile privacy and community within the contemporary family home? The result is some very beautiful houses, but houses that are also highly sustainable—socially, culturally, economically and environmentally.
Sustainability: The Big Picture
‘Sustainability’ has become a somewhat rubbery term, so let us put things into perspective. There is a lot more to sustainability than simply throwing out the air-conditioner. Showing me over his Travertine Dream House (page 142), architect Robin Tan Chai Chong made himself very clear: ‘We don’t buy into the trendy new way of describing green architecture. We look at it in a holistic manner…. What are our limitations in Singapore? We don’t produce anything. We import everything. The task of architecture is to balance consumption.’
In this case, the client had worked his way up through a series of modest dwellings to this, his dream house. He wanted all marble finishes. Tan suggested travertine, just as beautiful but less expensive and less ostentatious. The client agreed and went off to Italy to source the travertine himself at a fraction of the cost. ‘That’, says Tan, ‘saved resources. Saving money is a kind of sustainability.’
The back story to this house is reflected in different ways in all the other homes in this book. Yes, there is money to play with and, yes, these homes are luxurious. But each home is luxurious in a way that is right for the people living in it, and each represents a thoughtful and innovative approach to the challenge of sustainability.
The true splendour of the Andrew Road House by A D Lab (page 54) lies below ground level where there is a lush, cool water garden court.
The Mandai Courtyard House (page 34), with its modestly scaled living/dining space and engawa deck, is the epitome of the ‘good neighbour’.
Just as important is the way the architects and their clients have viewed environmental sustainability as part of a bigger picture. The result is that residential architecture in Singapore is setting new benchmarks, not just in the tropics but throughout the world.
In my previous book, The Sustainable Asian House (2013), the word ‘sustainable’ was used in the broadest sense, and a number of readers commented that they appreciated the fact that I was not just looking at sustainability in a narrow environmental sense. In this book, I want to be clear from the outset how I define the term since it is often used too loosely and ends up being applied to things that are not even remotely sustainable.
The term ‘greenwashing’ is sometimes used to describe this sleight of hand, applied to design which only pretends to be environmentally responsible. Nonetheless, one can argue that a mixture of legislation and good intentions has resulted in an architectural agenda that is now broadly, and genuinely, sustainable. As Robin Tan also points out: ‘Architects have always been environmentally sensitive, socially sensitive… but we look at it in a holistic way. There needs to be a holistic view of sustainability.’
Today, sustainability looks less like a single aspect of design, for example, using specifically sustainable materials, and more like a systemic challenge that involves looking at how all the elements fit together as a whole. It may not be simply a case of using particular materials to conserve energy or reduce carbon emissions but more about examining the big picture. It is not so much the particular materials that are used but what is done with them!
There is much more to sustainability than the materials used and whether a house uses too much air-conditioning. It involves the entire habitus of the society, the aggregate of all the things that enable a community to sustain itself physically, socially and culturally over the longer term. It is what makes the community unique and encompasses the physical environment (including climate), the language, the cultural heritage and the memories of people, without which there would be no culture, language or competence in the performance of everyday tasks.
It is this broader context that frames this book. Sustainability consultants Leyla Acaroglu and Liam Fennessy have commented that ‘Sustainability is the equity of social, economic and environmental resources.’1 In other words, a sensible balance of these three core factors creates an ecology in which all the participating elements influence one another and work together to achieve a common end. As Acaroglu says elsewhere: ‘When you step back from the hype, sustainability is really about understanding and working with systems.’2
When I talk about sustainable living in the Singapore context, I am referring to a broad range of environmental, social, cultural and economic issues that are currently shaping this vibrant island nation as it approaches the fiftieth anniversary of its founding as a nation state, and specifically the way in which its residential architecture is responding to these issues. As architect Mark Wee says, ‘Singapore may still be less than fifty years old but there is a fair degree of nostalgia… the task of the architect in Singapore is to create new spaces that can add to the soul of the city.’
Architecture is not produced in a vacuum. It responds to the programmatic requirements of its clients, to the specifics of location and to regulatory constraints, which in turn reflect established societal goals and values. This makes up what the great anthropologist of the South Pacific, Bronisław Malinowski, referred to as the immediate context, the actual situation we find ourselves in. Beyond that, however, is what he terms the wider context, or the broadly cultural context which shapes our responses. Meaning, he said, was function in context, what we are doing at any given moment within the broader context.
While it may not be always apparent amongst the swirl of professional obligations, shopping lists, domestic chores and getting the kids to school on time, meaning is what drives our lives. Take meaning out of someone’s life and the result is alienation: psychological breakdown, anti-social behaviour and aimlessness. Our lives become unsustainable.
The primary factor in sustaining ourselves is the home; in other words, a house (or shelter) imbued with meaning. The home services Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs: physiological,
