The ‘Cloud Forest’, a gigantic greenhouse in the Gardens by the Bay, where energy is generated from garden waste and rainwater is used for irrigation. Photos: Carola Frentzen/dpa
Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew had a vision for the city-state in the 1960s, namely to create a garden city that was green and liveable despite being densely populated.
Those decades of planning have yielded one of the world’s greenest metropolises, making Singapore a leader in sustainable building design.
Whether it’s the vertical jungles on the fronts of buildings or the 18 futuristic Supertrees with more than 160,000 plants growing on their metal scaffolding, as an ecological innovator, Singapore is taking it to the next level.
More action is planned, in the form of extremely ambitious goals to transform the garden city into a city in a garden, as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put it in 2012.
“It is a play on words (...) and it means connecting our communities and our places and spaces through parks, gardens, streetscapes and skyrise greenery.”
The authorities are now going even further, with a “Green Plan 2030” setting out how the transformation into a “City in Nature” is to be achieved by the end of the decade.
“Some say that Singaporeans live in restricted spaces, almost everybody in apartments without having their own garden,” says Gee Soo, who works as a city guide for Hello! Singapore Tours.
The Parkroyal on Pickering hotel is a showcase project for vertical greenery, with sky gardens, hanging plant walls and reflecting pools of water running through the building.
“To them I say: ‘Guys, the whole city is my garden!’”
No matter which window you look out of, you always see greenery.
Kerstin Vieth, a German who moved to Singapore 11 years ago, also appreciates the advantages compared to concrete jungles like Bangkok or Jakarta elsewhere in Asia.
“Sometimes you feel like you’re in a rainforest in the middle of the city, like in MacRitchie Reservoir Park with its great TreeTop Walk in the treetops.”
“The provision for greenery is built into our city’s development plans, to ensure that the greening of the city is in tandem with urbanisation,” says Chua Yen Ling from the National Parks Board (NParks).
The government body is responsible for the improvement and management of urban ecosystems and is the lead agency for green spaces and biodiversity conservation. It stipulates that space must be reserved for tree planting when roads are built and that sufficient land must be reserved for parks and gardens everywhere.
In addition, one million new trees are to be planted by 2030, with a special focus on heat-stricken areas on the main island and on the offshore islands, says Ling. Trees provide much-needed shade.
Visitors admiring orchids in Singapore’s National Orchid Garden, home to the largest collection of orchids in the world.
Above all, however, in the future no citizen should live more than a 10-minute walk from a park. Hundreds of kilometres of routes will connect the various green spaces directly with each other.
You can get a taste of the direction the city is heading in at the airport. The Jewel was built at Changi Airport in 2019, a circular glass building with 280 restaurants and shops and a 40m round indoor waterfall that cascades down from the glass ceiling.
This spectacle is surrounded by hanging terraced gardens full of palm trees, ferns and orchids. The water comes from tanks that collect rainwater.
A sustainable side effect: the cool water also provides water for the plants.
“It looks like it’s from another planet,” says one visitor in hushed tones.
The orchid is Singapore’s national flower and has its own record-breaking oasis. The National Orchid Garden is home to the largest collection in the world and is a leader in the art of hybrid cultivation.
When monarchs, ministers or heads of state come to Singapore to visit, the government regularly names a new orchid species after them, a special honour, as little else represents Singapore better than these exotic plants.
Recipients of Singapore’s orchid diplomacy have included Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan, singers Elton John and Ricky Martin, tenor Andrea Bocelli, South Korean actors Kwon Sang Woo and Bae Yong Jun, and fashion designer Michael Kors.
There’s the Dendrobium Joe and Jill Biden and the Dendrobium Memoria Princess Diana and even a Dendrobium Frank-Walter Steinmeier for the German president. The Dendrobium is a type of orchid.
Plants like these thrive more easily close to the equator with its hot and humid climate than in drier regions, but the skill lies in cultivating them and enabling them to proliferate and transform the city.
The Parkroyal on Pickering hotel displays its plants vertically, with sky gardens, hanging plant walls and reflecting pools of water throughout the building.
Some 50 species live in its 15,000sq m space including monsteras, alocasia and calatheas.
Nowhere are Singapore’s revolutionary greening techniques better showcased than in the Gardens by the Bay park. Alongside its world-famous Supertrees, the centrepiece is two gigantic greenhouses.
In the Cloud Forest, visitors stroll through a cool cloud forest that features a 35m mountain with an indoor waterfall, covered in bromeliads and ferns.
Then there’s the 1.28ha Flower Dome featuring tens of thousands of flowers, in a temperate climate. The marvel has been in the Guinness Book of Records since 2015 – as the largest glass greenhouse in the world.
Everything is built around a cycle.
“When they do the trimming, like cutting dry leaves and branches, they collect them and send them to a biomass incinerator,” says city guide Gee Soo.
“The energy created is more than enough for the air-conditioning inside the two domes.”
Rain is also collected here, cleaned from aquatic plants and used for irrigation.
The green spirit can also be found in the city’s neighbourhoods, where many have solar-powered smart bins that automatically notify the waste collection service when they are full and also serve as WiFi hotspots.
The city also ensures its public transport is not only efficient, but also affordable. No journey costs more than S$2.10 (RM7.30), helping to reduce traffic congestion.
Despite all the praise for so much environmental awareness, human rights activists also criticise the increasing autocracy and the many repressive laws. One single party, the People’s Action Party, has been in power since the end of the colonial era.
“But why change a winning team?” asks Gee Soo, adding that many citizens are behind the government’s ideas, especially the green revolution.
In the interactive gallery of the Urban Redevelopment Authority Centre, a public space, citizens can check out what the authorities are planning for the future – and what they have already achieved. In the mornings, school classes often gather here to pursue the nature conservation and greening education that the curriculum includes for even very young children.
When night falls and the Supertrees come to life in a Garden Rhapsody, it is evident that the city state has brought together technology, sustainability and nature.
They form a symbiosis in the city, with the Supertrees producing power for the spectacular light show where the giant trees seem to dance to the music thanks to numerous photovoltaic cells. – dpa
