SPARK envisions a sustainable floating hawker centre for Singapore
In the tradition of conceptual and visionary architecture proposals, SPARK Architects revealtheir design for a floating hawker centre – the Solar Orchid. This concept for self-contained,solar-powered, floating hawker pods suggests a way to mend the now distant relationshipbetween Singapore and its waterscapes, while celebrating and reinvigorating a favouredlocal pass time.
Singapore was built on an intimate relationship with the water, which has historically beenan artery of culture, commerce and recreation. However, the recent decades of urbandevelopment, industrialisation and land reclamation have largely severed this relationship,deleting most of the traditional kampungs and kelongs from the coast, inland water bodies,and sea.
SPARK’s concept for a floating hawker centre draws on our experience of the city, its cultureand heritage, and all that we enjoy about it, to imagine a new relationship with Singapore’spublic waterscape. This visionary project imagines a mobile, reconfigurable and sustainablefloating hawker centre that could ‘pop up’ in a variety of locations and formats.
The Solar Orchid recalls the mobility of the original Singaporean hawker – the mobile streetvendor – with self-contained, solar-powered, lightweight floating pods. Each podaccommodates cooking stalls (incorporating built-in exhaust, water, gas, electrical, wastecollection and water recycling services) as well as table settings.
The protective canopy is an energy-generating inflated ETFE pillow incorporating thin-filmphotovoltaic cells. It complements the $11 million Singaporean government initiative todevelop floating solar islands in Singapore’s reservoirs. The Solar Orchids can be clusteredtogether in various formations to create hawker centres that are able to respond to differentlocations and conditions. They would leave no trace of their presence due to their selfcontainednature.
Stephen Pimbley says “The idea of reinventing the hawker centre grew from the widely documented observationthat the popularity of the traditional hawker lifestyle has begun to wane. We seek to reenergisethe hawker centre typology while retaining the soul of a very Singaporean diningexperience”
We have a duty as designers to develop and propose ideas and visions that can enhance ourcities, as well as contribute to making them more liveable places. History offers manyextraordinary examples of visionary projects that remain on paper, serving as vehicles fordebate about the future of our cities.
SPARK’s Solar Orchid proposal is a bold vision unhindered by commercial and planningconstraints. It is our reflection on changing social, cultural and environmental conditionsand concerns and how the best the untapped pockets of the city can be used to support andmake better the lives of Singaporeans.
