In 2010, an agreement on a land swap deal between Singapore and Malaysia settled the issue of the latter’s now dis-used KTM Railway land in Singapore. Six plots of railway land were exchanged for sites in Marina Bay and Ophir-Rochor.

The land in the Ophir-Rochor area is bounded by North Bridge Road, Rochor Road, Beach Road and Ophir Road. It was described in a joint Prime Ministers’ statement at the time as part of a new growth corridor that is being developed to extend Singapore’s central business district.

Now the future shape of the plot has been revealed by Buro Ole Scheeren.

DUO is a mixed-use high-rise development scheduled for completion in 2017. Its two towers will accommodate premium offices, a luxury hotel, residences, and retail/F&B. Construction will begin in 2013.

The towers will rise 50 storeys (residential) and 39 storeys (office/hotel) above ground level. Three levels of basement parking and a connection to Bugis MRT station will also be incorporated. The lifting of vehicular traffic off grade will allow uninterrupted pedestrian circulation through a permeable ground level.

Says Buro Ole Scheeren, the towers were not conceived as autonomous objects, but are defined by the spaces they create around them. The design subtracts circular carvings from the building volumes, and the concave facades that result wrap new urban spaces.

This approach was a response to the prescribed zoning of the site, which splits it into two separate pieces and leaves large footprints for the resulting tower envelopes. Such blocks, says Buro Ole Scheeren, would have risked overpowering the surroundings and the intimate scale of the adjacent historic Kampong Glam district.

A porous landscape has thus been designed for the ground level, where leisure zones and gardens will be open to the public 24 hours a day. The main plaza is carved into the centre of the towers and also integrates the neighbouring Parkview Square tower into its perimeter.

DUO’s series of cantilevers and setbacks “evoke choreographed kinetic movements of the building silhouettes,” say the architects, and net-like hexagonal sunshades “reinforce the dynamic concave shapes.”

Multiple vertical connections will deliver hotel guests and residents to large elevated terraces, and the public to an observation deck and a sky restaurant. Ground-level and elevated landscaped areas will provide accessible green space equal to the existing site area.

The development is a Malaysian-Singaporean joint venture. The developer is M+S Private Limited, which is owned by the investment arms of the Singapore and Malaysia Governments.

Images of DUO by Ole Scheeren © Buro-OS

Buro Ole Scheeren
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