In this episode, Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell talk of new ideas on beauty, contesting prevailing isms and styles in the process. They argue that architecture attains beauty when it fosters human-to-nature and human-to-human relationships.

WOHA’s early works were notable for unconventional forms. The ground level opened up to the outdoors whilst the upper floors were sheltered and private. These spatial patterns, appreciated in sectional drawings of the building, were described by one commentator as the ‘upside-down house’.

In subsequent bigger and taller buildings, Mun Summ and Richard continued to explore the vertical axis. There were also experiments with facade design wherein the simplest elements (e.g., sunshade, window) were repeated many times, creating a textured quality and rhythmic pattern.

WOHA’s 1 Moulmein Rise in Singapore exemplifies the firm’s early thinking on high-rise tower facades.
© Patrick Bingham-Hall

The ‘monsoon window’ of 1 Moulmein Rise in Singapore was inspired by traditional Borneo longhouses in which windows let breezes through while keeping the rain out. The project received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for its climatic innovation.

The vertical face of a ‘monsoon window’ can be sealed while the horizontal one is kept open to let the wind in, but not rain.
© Tim Griffith

The 1 Moulmein Rise tower is one apartment deep. However, The Met in Bangkok has two rows of units, staggered in plan view and separated by a void that runs the height of the building. This arrangement permits multidirectional movement of light and air. The building also has community sky gardens that are distributed vertically.

The Met in Bangkok, Thailand, is punctuated by voids and community decks.
© Patrick Bingham-Hall

Large-scale building-integrated greenery was first introduced by WOHA in Newton Suites. A full-height green wall, punctuated by cantilevered balconies, frames this residential tower in Singapore. The combination of social space and vegetation has started off a conversation on socio-ecological systems that benefits both humans and other life forms.

Newton Suites’ unique architectural features are its full-height green wall and cantilevered balconies.
© Patrick Bingham-Hall

Residents enjoy the greenery of Newton Suites by accessing sky gardens, located next to the lift lobby. This principle of stacked social spaces would later be fully realised in SkyVille @ Dawson, a public housing development, also in Singapore.

In Skyville @ Dawson, 960 apartments are subdivided vertically into four clusters, named sky villages. Each village has its own sky garden that serves 80 apartments.
© Patrick Bingham-Hall

Explaining SkyVille, Mun Summ recalls growing up in low-rise developments, no more than 10 stories high. To recreate the intimacy of those experiences, where neighbours knew each other, the building was subdivided into clusters, referred to as villages, with easy visual and audio connections from a sky garden and the furthest apartment from it.

The Duxton Plain competition was a pivotal moment for WOHA where many new ideas were test-bedded.
© WOHA

WOHA’s experiments with form began with the Duxton Plain competition for another public housing development in Singapore. Some of their initial ideas would be carried over to subsequent projects: from textured facades that adapt to climate passively to biophilic features such as green walls and unit clusters aligned around large semi-outdoor social spaces.

Socio-ecological engagement is the firm’s primary contribution to the pursuit of sustainable performance: a building performs well if it fosters neighbourly interactions and creates room for life. To deliver these goals, Mun Summ and Richard have reimagined the arrangement of parts, creating a new vocabulary of form patterns that defy old ideas about beauty.