ReCOnnect is a multi-generational, multi-accessible mixed-use community that draws on the master plan’s egalitarian principle of returning the land to its people. In reconnecting the oft hard-lined divide between the public/private realms archetypically found at the interfaces of buildings and their adjacencies, or where mandated setback requirements physically distance meaningful urban life from the streetscape, a renewed intrinsic connection between people and the city is sought – one where the ground level, accessible 24/7, is returned to the public, where activities are brought closer to the very people who traverse the streetscape, as well as where the synergies arising from serendipitous encounters and purposeful intergenerational interactions are harnessed and enjoyed.

 

Situated at the intersection of three important thoroughfares of the FlexiCity master plan, namely the bustling Tramway Loop, the dynamic Market Street and the idyllic Riverfront Promenade, ReCOnnect melds each of these unique characters into seamless, yet layered, transitions from one destination to another. The variety of threshold spaces lining publicly accessible walkways around, through and within the architecture implicitly modulate the degree of public/private notions to further define the ground level (and thus fenceless) activity spaces, ranging from an intergenerational day-care centre to co-located farm-to-table F&B outlets, communal courtyards, spill-out spaces, as well as a community grocery mart and farm. The upper storeys house the private domains of the residents, which comprise flexible apartment layouts catering to varied family types and communal spaces such as co-working decks and community gardens. The resultant contribution of the architecture to the urban experience is thus that of a public-activated ground level abound with convivial opportunities to co-mingle with people of all ages from all walks of life, yet at once with no compromise to the privacy of the residents above.

 

ReCOnnect, in seeking to renew meaningful connections between people, architecture and urban life, is thus poised to provide a socially equitable setting where close-knitted communities, bound neither by age nor provenance, thrive. It reconnects people to the forgotten joys of a non-segregated lifestyle, as well as a collective community spirit reminiscent of the kampungs of yesteryear.