Marina Barrage External Works

Humanising Infrastructure

The project encompasses upgrading to revitalise public spaces and to weave the site with access points to future MRT stations within the context. The renovation includes the insertion of a new lift access to the green roof and improvement works to public amenities such as toilets. The interventions seek to minimise physical impact to the existing structure while creating a new arrival experience layered with lush landscaping that soften the brutalist infrastructure that is Marina Barrage.

Two key entrances, the West and North entrances, were identified as nodes for the revitalisation. Parasols, a series of inverted canopies, bring the West entrance to prominence as visual markers that form a ‘white alley’ protected from weather. The landscape here is a constructed topography of mounds and valleys, forming water catchment and watershed that drain to a network of vegetated and bio-retention swales and a central bio-retention basin. Conceived as prototypical rainfall-harvesting devices, the parasols collect water that is channelled under the paving into the bio-retention swale. The parasols humanise the imposing concrete walls of the infrastructure, echoing and complementing the building’s form, leading visitors towards a glass-covered linkway. The glass canopy, suspended between two existing buildings, direct visitors to the new lift that bring them to the open roof lawn.

At the North entrance, the intervention reinforces the connection of Marina Barrage with the waterfront promenade leading to Gardens by the Bay. To facilitate events and activities such as running and cycling, the North entrance was widened, with a secondary garden path inserted as an alternative route to relieve congestion.

Year: 2016

Type: Recreational | Public Space

Client: Public Utilities Board

Location: Marina Barrage, Singapore