Redefining co-location: From adjacency to interdependence

Bukit Canberra, the new 12-hectare integrated development in Sembawang, is introducing a new urban form set in a green haven, with its diverse uses from fitness to food, wellness, and park spaces. The design and project leads, DP Architects’ Chief Executive Officer, Seah Chee Huang and Senior Associate Director, Chin Li Nah, share how the project pushes the boundaries on the concept of co-location as well as their dreams for new kinds of recreational spaces and opportunities.

Located near Sembawang MRT station and opened from 2022, Bukit Canberra is an integrated sports and community hub providing a wide range of amenities to meet the needs of the residents in the area. Image: DP Architects.
  

A key aspect of Bukit Canberra as an integrated co-located development is how its diverse uses are purposefully organised to explore new possibilities and experiences for residents. Tell us more.

Chee Huang: Learning from our earlier co-located developments such as Our Tampines Hub and One Punggol, Bukit Canberra enables us to experiment and push the co-location concept further, beyond adjacency to synthesis and synergy. As opposed to grouping uses based on facilities managed by different government agencies, we set up a framework to organise uses according to their programmatic synergies – how the spaces relate to one another for vibrancy and collaboration, and how users relate to the spaces and other users for stronger interaction and bonding.

For example, instead of the traditional approach of placing Sport Singapore and Ministry of Heath (MOH) facilities in their own zones, we intentionally nestled sports and care facilities in close adjacency to create spatial and programmatic opportunities for enhanced collaboration between stakeholders and the community. The Senior Care Centre, under MOH Holdings’ care, is located in close proximity to the public gym and swimming pools. The seniors can conveniently utilise these facilities, designed with universal access, as part of their care programme too. 

Interrelated uses in Bukit Canberra are organised based on four core focus areas: greenery, water, food and health. Image: DP Architects. (

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By doing this, we also provide more opportunities for spontaneous discoveries. Such interdependent mix of uses naturally bring different groups of people together which can maximise interactions and encourage further participation. This is a key strategy that we have learnt from designing other integrated community and sports developments that have yielded positive outcomes of greater cohesion and participation from residents and stakeholders. 

Li Nah: In organising the spaces, what is most important is to approach it from the residents’ point of view, in understanding how they will use the spaces and how the experience and use of the spaces will benefit them. 

In my many visits to the site, I have observed how people access and use different amenities seamlessly. For example, fathers who bring their sons for swimming lessons at the pool would move on to have lunch at the nearby hawker centre on the premises; people who bring their grandparents to the senior care centre would then pick up medication at the pharmacy nearby. 

In creating a green haven, you have gone beyond providing green buildings and roofs to creating more ecologically connected habitats, and differentiated vegetation and experiences. Tell us more about your approach.

Chee Huang: Our approach was to create an architecture that works with the biodiversity and ecology of the existing site instead of imposing itself and weakening the natural system. With our landscape consultant partner, Henning Larsen, we leveraged on the natural assets of the site to introduce community spaces while intensifying the greenery in the in-between spaces and levels to further enhance liveability and biophilia. In Bukit Canberra, the buildings and spaces are designed in a way that retains the existing natural topography, and provides a network of green and blue spaces, allowing them to continue to flourish. 

A perspective showing the approach to creating a more responsive urban scape. Image: DP Architects. (

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The idea of co-location applies not only to built facilities, but is extended to include nature, greenery and biodiversity, to foster interdependency between the built and the natural, man and nature.

Our approach is also shaped closely by URA’s urban design guidelines as well as collaboration with the National Parks Board, in respecting the natural and built heritage of the site, which helped to determine which areas can be built, the kinds of spaces to provide, the height of the buildings, the types of trees to conserve or local species to introduce etc. 

Li Nah: The site itself is quite challenging. It is not just a triangular site but also has a hilly terrain. The challenge is how we can work with the uneven topography and insert interventions into the different levels. Instead of developing the entire site, we worked with the site terrain to keep most of the natural ecology intact, including preserving the top of the hill. 

Chee Huang: Beyond retaining the natural ecology of the site, we also planted over 2,000 new trees to restore and further intensify the site with greenery. One of my favourite stories about Bukit Canberra: During the COVID-19 circuit-breaker period, construction was halted and the site closed. Upon returning to site, we discovered that nature had taken over. Many of the plants flourished on their own, the abundant flora also attracted insects and other animals, forming a thriving ecosystem. In fact, I just brought my family for a visit to Bukit Canberra recently, my kids were thrilled to see so many butterflies in the area. 

Taken during the construction phase, greenery flourished when the site was closed for awhile. Image: DP Architects.

Creating a natural, relaxing haven with accessible and inclusive green spaces for people, flora and fauna, contributes not only to the overall health and wellbeing of residents and visitors, but that of wider biodiversity and planetary life.

Li Nah: Beyond just providing green spaces and recreational facilities, we also clustered the uses and experimented with providing various fitness options even in open spaces. 

We have designed a jogging trail that loops around the entire site under phase three of the project. The trail offers various difficulty levels, from flatter ground to hilly terrain to cater for people who might want a harder challenge. There will also be a forest gym set within nature which is accessible for everyone. 

 A perspective showing the future outdoor gym which will be completed later under phase 3 of the project. Image: DP Architects.

There is a deliberate design of a variety of public plazas and community spaces throughout Bukit Canberra. Why is this important? 

Chee Huang: The larger vision of this place is that we want it to be a place of many places within a park of many parks. This community hub was designed to offer a diverse range of biophilic spaces and uses to cater to different segments of the community. 

Whether it is the pedestrian mall or the wide array of differentiated public domains, gardens, trails and green spaces, we see these as not just being used for wayfinding for seamless movement and flow; such spaces offer opportunities for people to spend quality time, be it alone or with friends and loved ones, to forge more memorable experiences. 

We hope that residents who visit and spend time here will find a space that they can identify with and, over time, develop a sense of pride and ownership so that they would want to help care for and maintain the place well. From place-making to place-keeping and even place-loving, that is the positive impact of quality public space and amenities on enhancing a stronger sense of community and deepening social capital. 

The plan showing the variety of community gathering nodes and pathways designed throughout Bukit Canberra. Image: DP Architects. (

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Co-located uses have evolved from community centres to more mixed-use community hubs like Our Tampines Hub (OTH) and Kampung Admiralty. What are the challenges and directions you foresee in our exploration of mixed-use co-located developments?

Chee Huang: In the context of Singapore, the idea of co-location has been one of the many creative solutions adopted over the years in response to land scarcity, to yield land productivity and more significantly, address increasing demands and expectations from residents of having more convenient and accessible amenities within a site or precinct, or in the case of OTH and Bukit Canberra, a hub or an integrated development. 

One of the key challenges in making co-location work well is alignment – how to converge different priorities, needs and viewpoints of the stakeholders, including agencies, interest groups and residents, towards a common vision and purpose for the larger good. In designing co-located developments, the architect can play a critical role in synthesising the diverse needs, to encourage co-creation amongst partners and reimagine new possibilities in not only co-location but also co-sharing and collaboration, to refresh the way spaces are used and community mingle. 

Our Tampines Hub brings together many synergistic uses and activities under one roof. Image: DP Architects. 

An example of such a positive outcome was in Our Tampines Hub, where we proposed to People’s Association (PA) and National Library Board (NLB) to locate PA’s culinary studio within the library to synergise with NLB’s cookbook section so that people going to the studio might also find books with helpful recipes. We also placed an indoor playground within the library so children can have fun while learning. This sets up favourable circumstances and unique environments for different user groups to interact with one another. Such meaningful adjacency gives rise to dependency that creates potential for collaborations on programming and activities. These enriched experiences are key outcomes of synergy that we hope to further expound for future co-location projects.

One of the strategies in the Recreation Master Plan is to tap on existing under-utilised spaces in our neighbourhoods to turn them into community nodes that can be conveniently accessed and enjoyed by residents. What kinds of spaces can we tap on and what would you like to see more of?

Li Nah: I would like to see more organic spaces that encourage spontaneous participation and activities for the community, aside from spaces that are more regulated and manicured.

One example is the space under the Benjamin Sheares Bridge, which was unused until it was converted into a site where different activities can take place at various times of the day. It is used as a venue for cycling, exercising, dog walking, dancing, or hanging out with friends. Although this is a much quieter recreational space compared to, say, East Coast Park which can be quite crowded and daunting, I often see families using this space during weeknights and weekends. 

The space under the Benjamin Sheares Bridge offers a quieter alternative place for people to jog, stroll, cycle or to just enjoy the outdoors. 

Chee Huang: In addition to the large-scale recreational activities and cultural or historical attractions, there is equal potential for smaller and more network-based everyday spaces, like our bus stops and void decks, to also serve as extensions of our social and recreational landscape. 

Some years back, we experimented with the idea of creating a prototype bus stop where we reimagined the ubiquitous transit amenity as a mini playground, a library, a garden with interesting activities to keep commuters engaged and find delight even while waiting for the bus.

Another avenue to tap on is community spaces in our neighbourhoods such as void decks. We designed a series of Goodlife senior centres in various void-deck spaces with our partner, Montfort Care, that focused on food and carpentry. The challenge as well as opportunity here, is how we can celebrate this network of community-based centres and components that are contiguous with our public realms, to synergise with bigger hubs and public domains for expanded uses for the community. The idea here is really to allow wider segments of our society to be more connected physically, socially and emotionally, so that our cities remain sites of imagination, possibility and serendipity.