Abstract
The aim of conducting a series of community design workshops was to understand the unique needs and desires of the community, gather older residents’ ideas, suggestions and solutions for their community’s public space and urban problems so as to aid the design and placemaking of neighbourhood public space for an ageing community. The eight workshops were conducted in Bukit Panjang Town, specifically on Bukit Panjang Neighbourhood 2 Park. The themes included: Needs, Experiences and Vision; Accessibility and Connectivity ; Park Identity and Activity; Safety and Security ; Walk and Talk Urban Audit Session; Park Spirit and Sense of Place ; and Community and Ownership. While participants expressed a general satisfaction with the park, they had concerns mostly with tidiness of the park, maintenance of greenery and managing the presence of undesirables.
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Notes
- 1.
HDB is the abbreviation for Housing and Development Board, the public housing agency in Singapore. Public housing is popularly referred to as HDB housing/block/flat in Singapore.
- 2.
Refers to the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) set by the Singapore Armed Forces, Singapore Police Force and Singapore Civil Defence Force to test the basic components of physical fitness and motor skills of their service people.
- 3.
This is a 62 m long purpose-built wildlife bridge across the Bukit Timah Expressway. Built some 30 years after the expressway, the ecolink bridge seeks to reconnect Bukit Timah Nature Reserve to Central Catchment Nature Reserve, Singapore’s largest nature reserve. These two nature reserves were connected before the construction of the expressway.
- 4.
See Chap. 5
- 5.
See Chap. 6.
- 6.
Succeeding the report submission to the local town council, many of the recommendations for BPN2 Park were implemented.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the following for their generous support and assistance with the community design workshops: Dr. Teo Ho Pin, Mayor, North-west Community Development Council for his advice and guidance; Lawrence Toh, Senior Property Manager, Holland-Bukit Panjang Town Council, Lin Shuang Fu, Deputy Constituency Director, Bukit Panjang Community Centre, Lim Yong Moi, Bukit Panjang Zone 4 Residents Committee Chairman, K. C. Tan, Bukit Panjang Zone 4 Residents Committee Manager for their facilitation and outreach to residents and for allowing us the use of Bukit Panjang Zone 4 Residents Committee premises for the workshops; Rita Soh, Advisor, Lee Li Ming Programme for Ageing Urbanism (2014–16), Director, RDC Architects Pte Ltd and President, Board of Architects Singapore (2010–15), for working alongside us during the workshops; our colleagues, Josephine Ng, Parvathi S Nair and our student intern, Lim Aunn Ning for helping us with the workshop organisation, facilitation, translation and report on workshop proceedings; residents of Bukit Panjang Zone 4 who participated in our workshops and generously shared with us their ideas, solutions as well as their own grown and baked food.
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Yuen, B., Cheong, S.W. (2019). Designing with Older Residents. In: Yuen, B. (eds) Ageing and the Built Environment in Singapore. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92444-1_10
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