http://www.straitstimes.com/archive/...ideas-20150110

Building blocks with stacks of ideas

The Interlace's unusual looks and greenery a draw for tenants, buyers

Published on Jan 10, 2015 1:49 AM


The Interlace's 31 blocks are stacked in interlocking hexagonal formations. Between the blocks and inside the clusters are landscaped courtyards, which are an integral part of the development's design. -- ST FILE PHOTO

IN 2010, when French architect Armand Devillard moved to Singapore the first time, he rented a room in a condominium complex of cream-coloured towers with blue-tinted glass. He remembers it as being "very, very standard".

So when Mr Devillard, 31, returned here in January last year, after working in Vietnam for a few years, he pored over architectural blogs to find a condominium that was more in line with his aesthetic tastes.

He settled on The Interlace, a project designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, a Dutch firm known for its famous founder, Mr Rem Koolhaas. The project, which obtained its temporary occupation permit in late 2013, is in Telok Blangah.

In March, Mr Devillard rented a roughly 200 sq ft room there, part of a three-bedroom apartment, for $1,900 a month. The price was slightly higher than what he might have paid elsewhere, he said, and the 30-minute commute to his downtown office was not ideal. The apartment's interior - white walls, wooden furniture and a black sofa in the shared living room - was not a selling point, either.

But he loved The Interlace's signature design twist: Its 31 white apartment blocks are set horizontally, and stacked in interlocking hexagonal formations with wide gaps in between.

Each block is six levels tall, and the complex's height rises to 24 levels in spots that are four blocks high. For anyone passing by nearby Depot Road, The Interlace may look like an enormous pile of Lego blocks or possibly a bunch of shipping containers arranged in curious patterns. Taxi drivers, Mr Devillard said, call it "the container place".

The blocks have grey-tinted windows and alternating balcony configurations. And the gaps between the blocks offer panoramic views of Singapore's port and urban skyline.

Inside the hexagonal clusters are eight courtyards, each with its own landscaping arrangement. One has a swimming pool, for example, and the courtyard that Mr Devillard sees from his seventh-level apartment is a lawn dotted with mini-playgrounds. A running track loops through the complex, and the apartment blocks are linked by elevated passageways and dotted with rooftop gardens.

Thanks to these green elements, including solar panels and natural ventilation features, the project earned a Gold Plus designation from BCA Green Mark, the Government's sustainability rating agency for buildings.

Mr Devillard said he has spent many evenings exploring the complex's twists and turns, and revelling in its quirks - so much that he occasionally loses his way. "It's good to be lost, at some point," he said on a recent Saturday while circumnavigating the nearly 8ha property with a reporter. "In Singapore, everything is a well-oiled machine, so I like this organised mess."

The Interlace, developed by CapitaLand and Hotel Properties, has units ranging from two-bedroom apartments to four-bedroom penthouses.

Mr Wen Khai Meng, chief executive of CapitaLand Singapore, said in an e-mail that sales began in 2009, and 865 of the 1,040 units had been sold as of Sept 30. The average sale price was $1,034 per square foot, and foreigners accounted for 20 per cent of the buyers, he added.

Under Singapore law, foreigners must seek government approval to buy vacant residential land or certain types of landed property. But they may lease landed residential properties for as long as seven years and buy units in approved condominium projects such as The Interlace.

Mr Ole Scheeren, a German-born designer and a former partner of Mr Koolhaas', designed The Interlace for OMA, working with RSP Architects of Singapore. He later left OMA and, in 2010, started his own firm, Buro Ole Scheeren, with offices in Beijing and Hong Kong.

In a telephone interview, Mr Scheeren said the project appealed to him partly because it was aimed at the middle class rather than the ultra-wealthy, and allowed him to challenge the status quo of Singapore towers that "propagate more isolation than any sense of communal togetherness".

"There's no attention paid at all to the space in between buildings or the relationship between the buildings - each building is conceived as its own individual entity," he said.

"I wanted to really rethink that, and first of all to question the typology of the tower."

Mr Devillard said, however, that The Interlace's design had not translated into a palpable sense of neighbourliness within his apartment block.

But he acknowledged that his job with Group8asia, a Swiss firm, involved long hours and that he had little time for socialising.

He said he was disappointed when his property agent rented out the roughly 40 sq ft room adjacent to the kitchen for $900 a month, bringing the number of room-mates to four from three.

But he acknowledged that he generally was happy with his living arrangement, and in September he signed his second six-month lease.

"Singapore is pretty green," Mr Devillard said. He was in his balcony, which has a view of a lush-green courtyard, where children were playing and, through a gap in some horizontal apartment blocks, the city's skyline.

"But, especially here, you really feel like you're in a garden."

NEW YORK TIMES