December_1967 — Page 9

SINGAPORE

ARCHITECTURE

T.R.

SINGAPORE'S housing problem is

a direct result of its rapid popu- lation increase.

Only five years after the founding of modern Singapore in 1819, the po- pulation had grown to over 10,000. By 1850 the population had reached 52,900, and by 1901 it was 229,900.

In the 20th Century the growth of the population has been even more staggering: in 1911 the population reached 311,300 and by 1921 the population increased to 430,000. Im- mediately after the Second World War, the population reached 940,700 and the population again doubled it- self in 20 years to reach 1.9 million today.

Throughout the 19th Century and the first quarter of the 20th Century the increase of the population was mainly due to the immigrants who came to Singapore to earn a living. An overwhelming majority of the im-

PLANNING OF PUBLIC

ΠΟΧΗ

HOUSING IN SINGAPORE

by Teh Cheang Wan, B. Arch (Sydney), ARAIA, ARIBA Chief Architect, Housing & Development Roard

migrants were the poor Chinese con- sisting almost entirely of single men; and in fact Singapore at one time was virtually an all-male town.

Growth of Slums

The layout of the City of Singa- pore was planned in the 19th Cen- tury with the main streets running parallel to the water-front and trans- versed by secondary roads at right- angles. Within this area housing plots were divided to give a narrow street frontage of about 12 ft. to 16 ft. by 150 to 200 ft. depth.

The buildings were single-storey initially with the front as shops and the back portion utilised for storage

and dormitory for the workers with- out families. As the city grew the old single-storey houses were turned into 2- or 3-storey shophouses with the front of the ground floor for the shops and the back and upper floors for storage and dormitories.

At the end of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century, the families were slowly migrating in- to Singapore and partitions were put

up

in these shophouses for the families. As the population and families increased, more partitions were put in to sub-divide the accom- modation into small cubicles and eventually the whole central area of Singapore became one of the most crowded slums in the world.

Aerial view of part of Queenstown. Most of the 17,500 flats in Queenstown were constructed between 1960 and 1965

Far East Architect & Builder December, 1967

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