WOHA

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WOHA
Left: Richard Hassell Right: Wong Mun Summ
Practice information
Key architects	Wong Mun Summ Richard Hassell
Location	Singapore
Founded	1994 (1994)

School of the Arts, Singapore 2005-2010

Bras Basah MRT Station, Singapore 2000-2008

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Changi Airport, Singapore 2005-2008

iluma, Singapore 2005-2009

Alila Villas Uluwatu, Bali 2003-2009

Oasia Downtown, Singapore 2011-

WOHA is a Singapore-based architecture practice, founded in 1994 by Wong Mun Summ (born 18 August 1962) and Richard Hassell (born 28 October 1966). In 1989, Wong graduated from the National University of Singapore and Hassell graduated from the University of Western Australia. Both were then employed by Kerry Hill Architects in Singapore, where they realized that they shared a logical approach to solving architectural problems, determined by the requirements of a building’s program rather than by the form-making opportunities.

In their early years of practice, the partnership became well known throughout Southeast Asia for their crisply detailed houses in Singapore. In 2000, when the partnership won the open competitions for two MRT railway stations in Singapore and the commission for the 1 Moulmein Rise,^[1] apartment block, they decided to focus on public and commercial architecture rather than houses. Their unsuccessful entry to the Duxton Plain Public Housing competition^[2] in 2001 was a groundbreaking scheme, which comprised nine forty-storey towers, separated by large vertical spaces and linked by sky streets on every fifth level. By opening up the elements of the building and creating natural ventilation, WOHA were proposing a new model for tropical architecture and a passive, structural solution to the problems of sustainability. These ideas were subsequently adapted to a series of completed apartment towers and public buildings, notably Newton Suites and the School of the Arts in Singapore, and The Met and Hansar in Bangkok. These high-rise projects appear as monumental expressions of their structural functions, and demonstrate a sustainable alternative to generic glass-clad towers. Greenery is used extensively as a protective second skin on the façades of the buildings, particularly as walls of hanging vines. When The Met won the RIBA Lubetkin Prize in 2011,^[3] the jury citation stated: “The Met shows that an alternative strategy to the sleek air-conditioned box can work in the tropics and has implications everywhere.”

Working in the city is central to WOHA’s architecture, and apart from occasional resort commissions, the practice is preoccupied with public buildings and condominiums/apartments, which are clearly calibrated to perform as part of the public realm of the city. They have deliberately attempted to restore a democratic spirit to the inner city of Singapore with projects such as the School of the Arts, iluma, Wilkie Edge and ParkRoyal on Pickering. Wong and Hassell observe of Singapore: “Many of the existing buildings do not connect successfully, and we wanted to implement an active permeable ground level. A city is only interesting when you can continually access what you are walking past, and a lot of Singapore buildings do not attempt this permeability.” Both the Bras Basah and Stadium MRT Stations in central Singapore were ingenious, though remarkably straightforward, urban design solutions. Set beneath a thin water-covered glass roof, the Bras Basah Station cannot be seen at ground level, thus preserving views of the surrounding colonial-era buildings, but nonetheless constitutes a monumental piece of architecture. Sunlight pours into the station through the glass roof, bounces off a huge canted limestone wall to the low-lying platforms, and the nominally subterranean space has become one of Singapore’s great urban experiences. The Stadium Station takes the form of a canyon clad in finely ribbed aluminium, set between a straight wall and a convex wall, with the deep platform level lit from above through a long crescent-shaped skylight.

Many projects directly explored the aesthetic possibilities of designing in the tropics, where colourful decoration and expressive geometries reflect the landscape, the foliage and the local building traditions. Resembling giant orchids in bloom, the exterior of the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Changi Airport is screened by intertwining polymer-gypsum ribbons, while the iluma shopping mall in downtown Singapore features a curvaceous façade studded with shimmering faceted hexagonal panels: a pattern WOHA describe as a ‘crystal mesh’. Several projects, such as the Church of St Mary of the Angels in Singapore, the Alila Villas Uluwatu resort in Bali, and the InterContinental Sanya Resort in China, were holistic designs as WOHA were responsible for the site planning, architecture, landscape, interiors, furniture and lighting. At Alila Villas Uluwatu, unusual for a Balinese resort as it did not directly mimic the local vernacular, WOHA built a monumental complex of white stone colonnades edged by water gardens. The landscape and the buildings combine to create a magnificent architecturally erudite folly, inspired by Wong and Hassell imagining a meeting between Mies van der Rohe, Carlo Scarpa and a Majapahit emperor.

Two tower projects under construction in central Singapore, Oasia Downtown and ParkRoyal on Pickering, comprise dramatic statements in vertical landscaping, suggesting a city where the architectural forms will virtually disappear behind the greenery. WOHA have large apartment complexes underway in Mumbai, Guangzhou and Taipei, which extend the ideas of their earlier schemes where the blocks and elements were pulled apart to create spaces for shade and ventilation. WOHA are also intent upon re-establishing the social spaces in Asian cities that disappeared in rapid recent modernization, and their recent projects and competition entries include large sheltered naturally-ventilated spaces as a fundamental component of their buildings.

Significant Built Works

Conservation Shophouse at Emerald Hill Road, Singapore, 1995-1998
House at Merryn Road, Singapore, 1995-1998
Three Houses at Victoria Park Road, Singapore, 1998-2000
House at Maple Avenue, Singapore, 1999-2002
House at Hua Guan Avenue, Singapore, 1999-2002
Three Houses at Berrima Road, Singapore, 1999-2002
Church of St Mary of the Angels, Singapore, 1999-2003
1 Moulmein Rise, Singapore, 2000-2003
Stadium MRT Station, Singapore, 2000-2008
Bras Basah MRT Station, Singapore, 2000-2008
Conservation Shophouse at Telok Ayer Street, Singapore, 2001-2002
House at Rochalie Drive, Singapore, 2001-2002
Odeon Towers Extension, Singapore, 2001-2003
Tan Quee Lan Suites, Singapore, 2001-2005
Gilstead Brooks, Singapore, 2003-2004
Newton Suites, Singapore, 2003-2007
Alila Villas Uluwatu, Bali, 2003-2009
The Met, Bangkok, Thailand, 2003-2010
NOMU, Singapore, 2004-2009
Wilkie Edge, Singapore, 2004-2009
The Pano, Bangkok, Thailand, 2004-2009
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Changi Airport, Singapore, 2005-2008
Genexis Theatre, Singapore, 2005-2008
iluma, Singapore, 2005-2009
The Hyde, Sydney, Australia, 2005-2010
Hansar, Bangkok, 2005-2010
School of the Arts, Singapore, 2005-2010
InterContinental Sanya Resort, Hainan, China, 2006-2011
29 HongKong Street, Addition and Alteration, Singapore, 2007
Space Asia Hub, Singapore, 2008-2011
Ogilvy & Mather Office Fit-Out, Singapore, 2010-2011
ParkRoyal on Pickering, Singapore, 2010-2013
Goodwood Residence, Singapore, 2010-2013

Under Construction

Skyville at Dawson, Singapore, 2007-
Commercial and Serviced Apartments, Chengdu Tianfu, China, 2007-
Alila Villas Bintan, Indonesia, 2009-
Residential Development at Wadala, Mumbai, India, 2010-
Residential Development at Tianmu, Taipei, Taiwan, 2010-
Oasia Downtown, Singapore, 2011-
The Park (residential project)^[4]

Awards

2011 RIBA Lubetkin Prize – The Met^[5]
2011 RIBA International Award – Alila Villas Uluwatu
2011 RIBA International Award – School of the Arts, Singapore
2011 Australian Institute of Architects, Jørn Utzon Award for International Architecture – School of the Arts, Singapore^[6]
2011 Singapore President's Design Award, Design of the Year – School of the Arts, Singapore
2010 The International Highrise Award – The Met^[7]
2010 World Architecture Festival, World Holiday Building of the Year – Alila Villas Uluwatu^[8]
2010 World Architecture Festival, World Learning Building of the Year – School of the Arts, Singapore^[9]
2010 RIBA International Award – Bras Basah MRT Station
2010 RIBA International Award – The Met
2010 Australian Institute of Architects, Jørn Utzon Award for International Architecture – The Met
2010 SIA-Getz Prize for Emergent Architecture in Asia – WOHA
2010 Singapore President's Design Award, Design of the Year – Stadium MRT Station
2009 World Architecture Festival, World Transport Building of the Year – Bras Basah MRT Station^[10]
2009 World Architecture Festival, World Housing Development of the Year – The Met^[11]
2009 Singapore President's Design Award, Design of the Year – The Met
2009 Singapore President’s Design Award, Design of the Year – Genexis Theatre
2008 Singapore President's Design Award, Designer of the Year – Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell – WOHA
2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture – 1 Moulmein Rise^[12]
2007 Singapore President's Design Award, Design of the Year – 1 Moulmein Rise
2006 Singapore President's Design Award 2006, Design of the Year – Church of St Mary of the Angels
2006 RAIA International Award, Joint Winner – House at Rochalie Drive
2004 ARCASIA Gold Award, Conservation Projects Category – Conserved Shophouse at Emerald Hill Road
1999 RAIA International Award – Conserved Shophouse at Emerald Hill Road

Exhibitions

2012 WOHA: Breathing Architecture – Taichung gateway district, Taichung, Taiwan
2011 WOHA: Breathing Architecture – Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt, Germany
2011 Water: Curse or Blessings!? – Aedes Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2006 Exotic More or Less –Aedes Gallery, Berlin, Germany

References

External links

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