Introducing UNStudio’s Scotts Tower in Singapore, a vertical city of residential ‘neighbourhoods’

The Scotts Tower SOHO apartment building is situated on a prime location in Singapore, close to the Orchard Road luxury shopping district and with views encompassing both nearby parkland and the panoramic cityscape of Singapore City.

The 18,500m2, 31-storey, 231-unit tower consists of 1 to 3-bedroom apartments and 4-bedroom penthouses, along with expansive landscaped gardens, sky terraces, penthouse roof gardens and a variety of recreational facilities.   

Ben van Berkel: "An interesting facet of The Scotts Tower is the way that it reacts to the urban context of Singapore. Instead of the more usual means of planning a city horizontally, we have created neighbourhoods in the sky: a vertical city where each zone has its own distinct identity."

Neighbourhoods in the sky

The concept of The Scotts Tower is that of a vertical city incorporating a variety of residence types and scales. In addition, outdoor green areas in the form of sky terraces, penthouse roof gardens and individual balconies form an important element of the design. The vertical city concept is interpreted on the tower in three scales; the ‘city’, the ‘neighbourhood’ and the ‘home’.

City

The three elements of the vertical city concept, along with the green areas, are bound together by two gestures: the ‘vertical frame’ and the ‘sky frames’.

The vertical frame organises the tower architecturally in an urban manner. This frame affords the tower the vertical city effect by dividing the four residential clusters into different neighbourhoods.

Neighbourhoods

The four residential clusters that are stacked on top of each other are each designed for versatile and customised living. Situated above the lower sky frame, the one bedroom City Loft residences pixelate the lower tower.

The second cluster of the City View units (two bedroom apartments) face the adjacent Goodwool hill on the lower part of the tower and continue above the first package.

Park View units form the next cluster, above the second sky frame. Crowning the tower is the final cluster containing three exclusive Penthouse residences that also have private rooftop terraces.

Home

Individual identity is given to each unit by means of type, scale, distribution and articulation of outdoor space, along with the possibility for personalisation of the interior layout.

Ben van Berkel: "The balconies, combined with the zoning of the individually framed neighbourhoods, in The Scotts Tower create different scales of detail in the structure; both intricate, smaller details and larger gestural details. In The Scotts Tower the balconies form part of the interior furniture."

Gardens, Recreation and Sky Frames

The nearby green area to the West of the tower is extended into The Scotts Tower site initially by means of a ground level landscape concept designed by Sitetectonix. This ground level concept incorporates a multi-layered environment which links together the different zones and recreational facilities available to the residents.

Recreational facilities within the gardens include a 50 meter lap pool with sun deck, a children’s pool, a wellness pool, dining & BBQ pavilions, a meeting pavilion and massage and gym pavilions.

A green gateway to the residences is created by the lower sky frame terrace, the ‘sky lobby’, which is located eight meters above the access routes to the building. This terrace serves to continue the natural landscape of the gardens vertically into the tower.

A second sky frame terrace, the ‘sky garden’ is introduced above the third cluster, offering panoramic views and the possibility for use as a social platform for outdoor events. Facilities such as Jacuzzi pools, a swimming pool and a dining deck can be found on the sky garden level.

Lobby design

A verdant landscape unifies the communal outdoor spaces. An extension of this quality, through the use of natural materials, was the primary design intention for the lift lobbies of the tower.

The two main elements of the lobby spaces are the warm wooden ribbons and the elegant marble floors. These elements clad the primary parts of the lobbies (lift entrance walls and circulation) in order to create emphasis, while the technical cores are clad with white back-painted glass to reflect and enlarge the space.

Marble tiles (90x90cm) are arranged on the floor in a random pattern and extend upwards on the lower part of the lobby walls to extend the space. Above this, curvilinear wooden ribbons fold on to the ceiling and span across the lobby, connecting both ends and introducing motion and residential warmth into the space.

The soft curves that characterise the wooden ribbons used throughout the lobbies link to the language found on the exterior of the tower and the white metal frame in particular. 

Client: Far East Organisation   

Location: 38 Scotts Road, Singapore

Building surface: 19127.89 m2

Building volume: 115000m3

Units: 231 units (128:1bd; 80:2bd; 20:3bd; 3:4bd-penthouse)

Floors: 31 stories (156.2 m high)

Building site: 6099.7 m2

Programme: SOHO type residential tower

Status: under construction

GFA: 16855.34 m2

Footprint: 800.53 m2 for the building; 1444.28 m2 incl. all landscape pavilions

Material: Structure: reinforced concrete/ beam & column system

Facade: unitized Curtain wall/ Laminated Glass/ aluminum frames & finishes/ In-situ concrete Balcony balustrades/ aluminum shingles for the SkyFrame cladding

Credits

Design Architect UNStudio: Ben van Berkel, Astrid Piber with Ger Gijzen, Konstantinos Chrysos, Luis Etchegorry, Cynthia Markhoff, Elisabeth Brauner, Shany Barath, Thomas van Bekhoven, Iris Pastor, Rodrigo Cañizares, Albert Gnodde, Mo Ching Ying Lai, Grete Veskiväli, Philipp Weisz, Samuel Bernier Lavigne, Lukasz Walczak, Alicja Chola, Cheng Gong

Executive Architect: ONG&ONG, Singapore

Project Management: Arcadis, Singapore

Advisors:

Landscape Architect: Sitetectonix, Singapore

Structural Engineer: KTP Consultants, Singapore

Mechanical Engineer: United Project Consultants, Singapore

Interior Design (Residential Units): Creative Mind Design, Singapore

Visualizations: rendertaxi, Aachen

Located at the corner of Scotts and Cairnhill Roads, The Scotts Tower (TST) sits in close proximity to the Orchard Road shopping district. Containing 231 residential units spread over 31 floors, TST was envisioned as an exclusive vertical city. This UNStudio design combines a contemporary ‘Live. Work. Play.’ concept with spectacular views of the surrounding urban landscape.

Offering a range of residential units, homes within TST were conceptualized with customizability in mind. Four different unit types - City Loft, City View, Park View and the Sky Park Penthouse – are clustered and grouped at different intervals within the building, ensuring that TST can cater to a variety of lifestyle pursuits and needs.

The design team pictured TST as a neighbourhood in the sky. The new development features communal recreational facilities that are integrated seamlessly with tiered landscape features which gently rise from the ground-level deck to beckoning sky terraces on the 2 nd and 25 th floors. The underlying intention was to use innovative design to embody the spirit of community and home within a modern milieu.

Architects introduced Vertical Skyframes as an architectural motif, shaping TST to suit its surrounding urban context. Residential clusters are programmed into the Vertical Skyframes providing TST with added structural definition, which resulted in the creation of private balconies for each residential unit. This framework also works to accentuate the building’s facade, forming an arresting tapestry characterised by physical and spatial variations.

The interconnectivity of the landscape and living spaces reflects the manner in which architects worked to integrate TST into the surrounding urban fabric. Internally the main objective was to provide versatile living spaces that are as flexible as they are luxurious – epitomizing the finest in contemporary high-rise living.