CREATIVE PLACEMAKING: REIMAGINING UNDERUTILISED AND OVERLOOKED URBAN SPACES IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Singapore’s urban development has often been closely tied to pragmatism and global capitalism, where architecture and urban planning focus mainly on practical considerations such as efficiency and cost. The Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore sifts out a quinquennial Master Plan to revise the use of Singapore’s limited land resources by dividing them among various functional land use needs. However, such highly centralised planning of the urban space has raised concerns about the inadequate focus given to the articulation between planned spaces and the importance of place to people living in the city. This led to increasingly more urban groups pushing for a shift from top-down planning toward a more people-oriented city planning to create a more liveable and inclusive city. Creative placemaking is a recent idea that puts arts and culture at the heart of transforming underutilised or overlooked areas into meaningful places by the community. Increasing ground-up efforts are already underway to encourage people in reimagining spaces through design, public art and civic engagement in Singapore. As a new initiative in pilot testing phase, local projects are usually short term and employ light and quick interventions to test immediately with direct community involvement in early stages of implementation. However, the temporal nature of such projects often limits the learning process of both the planners and community in planning, which is crucial for the future development of creative placemaking in Singapore. Therefore, this paper looks into the growing trend of bottom-up creative placemaking projects in Singapore to understand the challenges in the process of creative placemaking and its potential in transforming spaces into places with distinct identity and life through the arts. Having identified the potential and challenges of such temporary urban interventions, this paper will also distil recommendations on how creative placemaking can have long term sustainability in order to facilitate further development among the community to shape Singapore’s future urban-scape.