Designing for Resilience in Public Housing: An Architect’s Perspective

Abstract

In master planning, design features can play an important role to forge strong communal bonding and resilience. Shared spaces such as common corridors, void decks, ground floor backyards, and connected walkways can act as catalysts for enhanced social participation and interactions. Fundamentally, planning must seek to bring people together and promote social cohesion so that when disasters happen, they will pull together to address emergent problems. Policy makers and planners have to adopt an integrated approach at the early planning stage to seek input from other stakeholders to respond effectively to the evolving needs of the community. They can also pay greater attention to flexibility, support the ageing community and integrate environmental features. Nursing homes for instance, can blend into urban neighbourhoods so that they become part of the residents’ social life. Architects need to empathise with the diverse points of views from other disciplines and the end users, and nurture a symbiotic relationship with the different segments of the community.

Ivan Nasution collaborated in the writing of this paper by transcribing Siew Man Kok’s perspectives and reflections.