Limited land and infrastructure in fast growing cities mean that more and more people will live in apartments. Overwhelmingly, these will be high-rise. The challenge is how to make high-rise apartments more like a home and less like a shoe box. Is it possible to provide the amenity of a landed house in an apartment block?

Singapore-based architects, HB Design certainly think so. But what about developers and their bottom lines? Well, HBD have the answer there as well. Their process-driven problem-solving entails getting the developer on to the same page. It is all about adding value through creative design.

In this article we profile HBD, review their history and explore the values and strategies underlying the practice. We also look at The River, a twin-tower high-rise apartment complex on the ‘wrong side’ of Bangkok’s Chao Praya River. It won the 2012 Thailand Property Award for Best Condominium in S-E Asia after the completion of first tower ─ the second was finished in 2015.

The River exemplifies HBD’s mottos of placemaking, and humanising and democratising the high-rise where the residents share equally in all the amenities, including views. At the same time, it adds to urban amenity at the ground plane making the building a ‘good citizen’.

Read the full story in Issue 63 of Indesign, on sale December 23.