COMMUNITY LIVABILITY IN SINGAPORE'S PUBLIC HOUSING: A STUDY OF VOID DECKS AND ELEVATED PUBLIC SPACES

Abstract

To cater to the increasing population, Singapore’s built environment has undergone many changes since independence. In terms of housing, a change from low rise to mainly high rise mass public housing (HDBs), constituting a majority of the high-rise, highdensity environment of Singapore. While high-density living is a solution to many urban issues, it presents the risk of overcrowding, which could lead to social and spatial degradation. Therefore public spaces become important for livability in such conditions. In HDBs, void decks have been prominent public spaces since the 1970s. Elevated public spaces however have started to become more popular nowadays while void decks are diminishing. While this trend is not necessarily negative, different public spaces have different qualities. This research studies how these spaces affect livability at a community level. This is done by first studying the evolution of public spaces in HDBs, developing a framework for analyzing community livability, followed by on-site investigations. Void decks are important community spaces even today; while elevated public spaces have better physical provisions, their potential as social spaces are not fully realized. Factors like age of the development, surroundings, interrelation between livability factors and demographics affect livability. The future promises newer developments with more variations of elevated public spaces in both residential and non-residential contexts, therefore realizing some utopian concepts of the 20th century, while opening up further possible visions for the future.