Singapore’s Park System Master Planning

Dr. Raffaella Sini is an assistant professor at the Department of Landscape Architecture, in the College of Art and Architecture of the University of Idaho. She has held positions at various universities around the world, including five years as assistant professor in the Department of Architecture of the National University of Singapore. Master’s degree in architecture and PhD in landscape architecture from University of Rome La Sapienza, Raffaella has a multidisciplinary background in architecture, landscape architecture, planning and public art. She is co-founder, with Roberto Capecci and Marco Antonini, of the design collective LAND-I archicolture (2000-ongoing). Her focus on the exhibition of temporary narrative landscape architecture works has been documented in several journals and the international press, and has become part of her on-going research and pedagogy. Her primary research interests are in the areas of designing contemporary landscape architectures and in cultural landscapes.

Introduction.- Framing the Discourse of Urban Green-provision and Constructions of Nation: Western Policies and Singapore’s Debate.- Design and Planning of Singapore’s Public Open Space, Parks and Gardens in the Early Colonial Times.- The British Colonial Planning Model provides an Integrated System of Public Open Spaces: the 1958 Master Plan.- Parks for the Community: the Modernist City State Planning Model.- Design of Parks and Public Open Space in the Post-Modern: from Creation of Character and Visual Identity to Theme – Gardens.- Heritage Parks. Re-purposing and Thematizing Colonial Gardens: Construction of History and Nation in City Parks.- Singapore’s Green Infrastructure Concept and Biophilic Urbanism.- The ‘Singapore Playground’: System of Themed Public Parks Conceived as Green Infrastructure. Building Environmental, Social and Cultural Sustainability through Nature-Reconstruction, Community Participation and Identity-Making.- Conclusions.