The master plan proposes unveiling the unique spatial character of the old Paya Lebar Airport Runway in Singapore as a new construct for the heartlands, and promote the creation of an urbanism that encourages civic participation to address needed questions of national aspirations and identity.
An uninterrupted expanse – an oddity in our dense urban fabric; where every meter is optimized towards a larger strategic plan for the growth and survival of our country.
In its return to the public, the openness shall be preserved, an element of our country’s journey, and its utilitarian division of landscapes transposed from one for the movement of planes to one for the movement of people. Hermetic containers of steel shall give way to a topography for expression and chance encounters.
Marking their presence, the existing airport buildings are converted into a series of cultural containers - addressing their past use and program through the lens of the country’s journey.
The intimidating length is segmented to more intimate scales, each of which engages the runway in novel, tactile ways. The linearity is broken by a staccato of material and site interventions, landforms that allow park goers to appropriate uses and claim their spot in the city.
In a city where landmarks constantly eclipse the last in an endless bid to be the grandest spectacle, the programs of the runway are positively banal; yet in their synthesis with the unique site, achieve spectacularity.