Singapore Westwood

The Westwood Tower is located on a prime location on the Orchard Road, Singapore’s Champs- Elysées. Built in the seventies, the tower lacks architectural expression and amenities. Deriving its identity from the exposed concrete construction, it presents itself as a ‘building without characteristics’, being neither inspiring nor appealing. Nevertheless, the building quality and layout of the apartments are good. Therefore an intense refurbishment of the tower is considered. But a mere renovation won’t be enough, something special is needed to give it a new iconic expression. A sky village is created by stacking 13 penthouses on top of each other.

Courtesy of MVRDV

The sky village is lifted towards the maximum height of 100 m, allowing a new sky deck to be realized on top of the remaining tower. Sky deck The sky deck has a free height of 15m. It contains two small swimming pools and a sundeck with trees surrounded by a transparent windscreen. A small fitness area is positioned inside the core that is supporting the 13 new penthouses.

The existing entrance level is buried and used for parking, so that the new entrance level can be at the same level with the street. A new higher entrance lobby is created by removing the lowest level of apartments. The new lobby is accessed via a pond in which the existing tower is standing. A small waterfall filters the water and creates an idyllic background.

Courtesy of MVRDV

What type of penthouses would be most desirable in Singapore? A villa in the sky with a private sky terrace would combine the exclusive intimacy of a villa with the grand views of a penthouse. The new sky village is organized around a central core area with 3 spiraling stairlike cantilevering rooms with terraces above. Each penthouse has access to a large terrace. To achieve maximum privacy most penthouses are duplexes. The new structure is positioned on top of the existing tower via a structural transfer layer in which several elements of the collective sky deck are integrated (the pools, the tree pots, etc).

Courtesy of MVRDV

Project Info
Architects: MVRDV
Location: Singapore
Client: YTL Corporation, Malaysia
Program: extension and refurbishment of 20,000m2 residential tower
Year: 2008
Type: Residential