Only 40 years ago, the majority of the buildings on Singapore’s skyline had not yet been constructed. In a single generation following the nation’s independence in 1965, Singapore has become one of the world’s densest and architecturally significant urban centers. From recent high rises to commercial shopping malls and cultural facilities, Singapore’s built projects are continually among the most pioneering and ambitious of their kind. The 25 firms presented here have been recognized for their part in placing Singapore at the center of current architectural discourse.
1 . ONG & ONG
ONG & ONG is a Singaporean multi-disciplinary and industrial design firm. It was first established in 1972 by Ong Teng Cheong along with his wife Ling Siew May, and handed down to Ong’s son Ong Tze Boon in 2001, who expanded it from 60 employees to 1,000 located in eight countries. ONG&ONG is a holistic solution consultancy focused on infrastructure, education, commercial and high-density living. Its projects include 59BTP-House, a private home in Singapore that merges a 1950s home with a new wing using concrete, plaster, Travertine, teak and marble. An open, cross-ventilation strategy was used in the layout of the house, allowing it to be naturally ventilated and illuminated throughout the day.
2. WOHA Architects
WOHA was founded by Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell in 1994. WOHA has completed project types ranging from apartment towers to luxury resorts, mass-transit stations, condominiums, hotels, educational institutions and public buildings. WOHA demonstrates a commitment to the implementation of sustainable yet innovative architecture. Its Oasia Hotel Downtown is a prototype of land use intensification for the urban tropics. For this project WOHA created a series of stacked programs, each with its own sky garden - these additional “ground levels” allow generous public areas for recreation and social interaction throughout the high-rise, despite the inner city high density location.
3. DP Architects
DP Architects is a leading multi-disciplinary design practice in Asia with over 1,200 staff and 16 offices worldwide. Founded in 1967, DP Architects has a long history in a wide variety of projects with an expertise in vast undertakings including Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay, The Dubai Mall and Resorts World Sentosa. Recent landmark projects include Singapore Sports Hub and Sengkang Hospital. The firm was founded on a deep concern for the built environment and the need to create architecture of excellence that enriches the human experience and spirit.
4. Park + Associates
Established in 1999, Park + Associates offers customized and crafted projects designed with rigor, building upon the clients’ expectations and challenging the studio’s own body of work, while respectfully responding to the site context. Its portfolio includes House 24, a triangular residence with a unique perforated facade, that turns away from the main road and neighboring houses, and focuses its views on the mature greenery to one of its sides.
5. Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF)
KPF is one of the world’s preeminent architecture firms, providing architecture, interior, programming and master planning services for clients that include some of the most forward-thinking developers, corporations, entrepreneurs, and institutions in the United States and around the world. Based in NYC with an office in Singapore, the firm’s extensive portfolio spans more than 40 countries and includes a wide range of projects from office and residential buildings to civic and cultural spaces to educational facilities.
6. Ministry of Design (MOD)
MOD is an integrated architectural, interior design and branding firm that has been a recipient of Singapore’s President’s Design Award, New York’s Gold Key Award, and named “Designer of the Year” by USA’s International Design Awards. Headquartered in Singapore and established by Colin Seah to question convention and redefine the spaces, forms and experiences that surround us, MOD provides services in architecture, product design, interior architecture, branding, graphics and landscape.
7. Aamer Architects
Aamer Architects considers design as a means to finding an ideal solution to the combination of factors that include site, culture and climate, structure and services. Aamer’s designs tend to feature ‘flair and curves’, and aim to reconcile function and beauty in design backed by strong service and management support. Aamer offers architecture, master planning, interior and landscape design with a dedicated team of professionals.
8. HYLA Architects
HYLA Architects is an award-winning architectural practice headed and founded by Principal Architect Han Loke Kwang. HYLA’s work seeks to be timeless, unique and personal. Its experience is focused on high end private residential projects, which have won the firm numerous awards including the Singapore Institute of Architect’s Design Award and Architectural Heritage Awards by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.
9. Wallflower Architecture + Design
Wallflower was founded by Tan Chai Chong Robin and Cecil Chee, who together bring experiences with designing commercial projects and residential developments. Established in 1999, Wallflower has undertaken a wide spectrum of work and has received numerous awards for excellence in design. Its Travertine Dream House in Singapore is organized as two parallel blocks connected by a glass enclosed bridge. The separation between the two blocks allows daylight to stream down to basement spaces. Thick travertine walls and large overhangs are placed on the western side to limit heat gain from the harsh afternoon sun.
10. K2LD Architects
K2LD is an international practice that was established in Singapore in 1998 and Melbourne in 2007. K2LD’s design philosophy embraces ‘the sense and sensibility of architecture: senses mold the intricate relationship between time, light and material to allow spatial freedom that is beautiful in its myriad of expressions.’ The studio’s notable Christ Methodist Church project on Singapore’s East Coast was designed to establish the church as a visible landmark, be environmentally responsible and offer multifunctional spaces.
11. HB Design
HB Design was founded by Hans Brouwer in Hong Kong in 1995 following a distinguished career working for Foster and Partners. In 1998 he relocated the office to Singapore and later established regional offices in Phuket and Bangkok. HB’s portfolio includes finely crafted buildings with clean contemporary expressions that respond to the unique requirements of each project. Its Whizdom 101 Sale Gallery in Bangkok includes three residential towers, a retail mall, an office component and an experimental house.
12. Guz Architects
Guz Architects seeks to produce refreshing architecture that is tranquil, inspired by nature and human in scale. Its projects derive inspiration from and relate closely to nature. Structure, materials and technology are used to express minimal transitions between inside and outside. The practice makes extensive use of sustainable design technologies, and both passive and active design principles inform design decisions. Its project at Logie Point in the UK integrates two residential structures into the ecology and topography of an exposed headland, healing the damage of previous developments and capitalizing on spectacular coastal views.
13. SCDA Architects
SCDA is a multi-disciplinary architectural practice established in 1995. The office employs a staff of 110 architects, interior designers and landscape architects. It has a holistic approach to architecture that includes full interior design, landscape and planning services. The practice has extensive experience with private residences, resort hotels, apartments and commercial buildings and is working on projects both locally and regionally.
14. New Space Architects
New Space Architects has a strong international team whose collective skills seek to achieve maximum functionality without compromising on aesthetics and design. New Space draws strength from this diversity to explore new paradigms. The practice has built up a varied portfolio of mixed developments in Singapore, China and Southeast Asia that include private housing, commercial buildings, hotels and resorts as well as urban design and masterplanning for townships.
15. FARM
FARM considers itself a cross-disciplinary design practice, a curatorial team and a community-centered arts organization. Its namesake was chosen for its pursuit of the cultivation of ‘a culture of imagination’. Since 2005, FARM has worked on community projects which promote the arts. The studio also organizes national public art competitions and events and runs an online creative portal, and has a portfolio that includes projects ranging from architecture and interior design to product design and merchandising, graphic design and branding, art installation and sculpture, exhibition design and curatorial work.
16. Ming Architects
Ming Architects is headed by principal architect Tan Cher Ming, who graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2007. Having worked at several renowned architecture firms in Singapore before starting his practice, Cher Ming has had extensive experience leading projects both locally and overseas, and specializes in the architecture and interior design of residential private homes.
17. G8A Architecture & Urban Planning
G8A is an architecture, urban planning and interior design company with offices in Geneva, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore. Its wide-ranging portfolio includes ‘Tropical Chalet’, a four-bedroom family villa designed to reflect the simplicity of its lush context in Vietnam through a porous design that welcomes the surrounding environment of lake-front greenery with a porous brick moucharabieh facade.
18. M Moser Associates
M Moser is a leader in helping companies unlock new value in the workplace. It is a global strategy, design and delivery firm that focuses on crafting work environments for organizations that want to transform. Its projects include Kai Hua Group Central Tower in Guangzhou, China, which involved optimizing an existing building’s facade and interior, main entrance and lobby with an arrival sequence featuring stainless steel columns, marble flooring and warm lighting.
19. SAA Architects
SAA is a leading full-service architecture practice with over 50 years of design and delivery expertise. Headquartered in Singapore, the firm is made up of 200 multinational professionals and has received accolades including BCI’s Asia Top Ten Awards, the FIABCI Singapore Property Awards, and Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority Green Mark Awards for sustainability.
20. Multiply Architects
Multiply Architects was founded in 2007 by Yap Mong Lin. Based in Singapore, the firm has been responsible for several important local projects including a hotel extension on the island of Sentosa, a 35-storey high-end residential development at Leonie Hill in Singapore and the Mahabodhi Monastery at Bukit Timah - a finalist for a World Architecture Festival award in 2015. Its projects include the Science Park Drive Flagship Building which features a three-story ‘city room’ that incorporates a series of cascading platforms with a café, break-out spaces and a small auditorium to focus on collaboration, discussion and networking.
21. A D Lab
A D Lab is an architecture firm founded by Warren Liu Yaw Lin and Darlene Smyth, which focuses on simple and elegant solutions that evoke a sense of complexity with economy and poetry in mind. Adaptability, the prolonging of the occupancy lifespan of buildings, the integration of systems and the relation of the spaces with the environment, are part and parcel of its design philosophy.
22. RSP Architects Planners & Engineers
RSP is an established professional practice focused on creating environments that enrich and transform lives. Headquartered in Singapore with offices in China, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and India, RSP’s international workforce brings diverse perspectives to the design process, creating innovative and sustainable solutions. As a subsidiary of Rowsley Ltd., a Singapore-listed real estate company, RSP has the capacity to plan, design, and manage project operations.
23. AR43 Architects
Founded in 2006, AR43 Architects Pte Ltd is an award winning design firm which has completed a wide range of works ranging from commercial, hospitality, institutional, and custom-designed residences to interior architecture projects around Asia. The firm is led by founder Lim Cheng Kooi, who has more than 20 years of experience, and whose works have received numerous awards. The firm's works reflect simplicity in its use of basic compositional and geometric elements. Its House at 22 Olivia Road in Singapore sits on 16,000 sqft of a hilly part estate in the central region of Singapore. It features large windows fraling the surrounding views with interior spaces converging around a water feature.
24. WY-TO
WY-TO is multidisciplinary Architectural Designers based in Singapore and Paris, specializing in architecture, interior design, exhibition design and cultural curation. The Singapore practice was established in 2010 by Yann Follain, and together with Pauline Gaudry, the Paris office was founded in 2012 to strengthen the office’s multicultural portfolio, leveraging cultural exchanges, new forms of construction and synthesizing disciplines for an integrative design approach.
25. Bedmar and Shi
Bedmar and Shi is a Singapore based design practice, established in 1986, that incorporates a wide range of architectural, conservation, landscape and interior design projects. Since its inception, it has maintained a staff of 12 designers - a multi-cultural mix of personalities from various parts of the world with a desire to explore the relationship of buildings and nature.
The selection curated by the Archello editorial team is based on a mixture of the amount of featured projects and the views they generated. For a more comprehensive list of Singapore architects you can take a look here.
