2022 Clifford Wong Prize in Housing Design: Brian Lee’s “People’s Park Complex: Repairing the Modern City”

by Brian Lee (MArch ’22) — Recipient of the 2021 Clifford Wong Prize in Housing Design

This thesis explores the role of the addition as an alternative and stealthy form of preservation for the People’s Park Complex, a typological archetype of modernist housing in Singapore. Eschewing the tendency to demolish aging mid-century projects and without the benefit of government subsidy, the design proposes an architectural prosthetic that heroically invigorates the old through the new. The strategy leverages the iconic status of the complex to diversify unit types, rehabilitate dysfunctional accessibility, and introduce a much-needed middle scale of semi-public space.