Location: Singapore.

Architect: Serie + Multiply Architects.

Oasis Terraces reinvents what a community centre is in a high-density city, combining a shopping centre, polyclinic and community amenities in a single building. The primary challenge was to cohere these diverse programmes into a legible whole, with an architecture that is both familiar and surprising. The architecture of Singapore’s public housing blocks in the 1970s and early ’80s was instructive: the open frames of the common corridors leading to individual apartments formed an impressive and civilising framework for the housing blocks and the wider estates. The void decks on the ground floor, articulated and delineated by fin walls, resemble communal porticos and colonnades, and the open verandas surround the entire elevation of the building, framed by double columns. The third element, landscape, is used to generate activities that cultivate a sense of community.

Oasis Terraces is a new generation of community centres for Singapore that transforms public housing precedents into a light and open frame that captures and accommodates diverse programmes for the community in a landscape setting. The terraced gardens cascade down from the roof to the waterfront, providing open spaces, gardens, and play and exercise areas for both the shopping and polyclinic sides. The roof is heavily landscaped and features planting beds for urban farming. The architecture is characterised by a sense of lightness and openness allowing daylight and breezes to permeate the building, promoting the use of natural ventilation.