LIQUID FRONTIER: REIMAGINING THRESHOLDS BETWEEN LAND AND SEA

Abstract

The sites of land reclamation are symbolic of Singapore’s appetite for growth over the past 200 years. Coastlines and marine ecosystems are traded and marginalised for the pursuit of land expansion. As a sea state, Singapore is trapped in the dilemma of development and ecological destructions. While the conservation of the original marine habitats is expedient, it is not always viable because land reclamation is never finished. Hence, we ask the following question. Must urbanism be always at odds with natural ecosystems?

This thesis is a critique of the island’s reclamation regimes and years of static delineated masterplan planning that have led to an increasing artificiality and alienation of our cities from the natural environment. It seeks to reverse the trajectory of water edge hardening and posits for a blurred frontier between land and sea that allows natural submersion processes to act on it. This thesis recalls the role of the architecture as an ecological facilitator and mediator and looks to land as a partner in the remediation and restoration of lost marine ecosystems.

By redistributing the armoured edge, the thesis proposes a new way of engaging the edge by creating a landscape activated by the dynamics of water. This new edge boundary will serve as the shared territory between two opposite presences – man and nature. A new framework will be developed to create edge conditions adept at accommodating and benefiting adjacent marine ecosystems while incubating new hybrid programs that are recreational and ecological.

Keywords: Land reclamation, land, sea, marine ecosystems, ecotones