Sentosa Island, a lively hub of tourism and leisure, might not seem an obvious setting for a Serie Architects project. However, for more than two decades, Serie has built a significant body of work that deeply engages with typology and context in contemporary architecture. This discourse is evident in their projects in Singapore, including the State Courts, SDE4, and Oasis Terraces.

It would be remiss to reduce Sentosa Island as a chaotic free-for-all. The Sentosa Development Corporation, the client behind Sensoryscape, is adamant that new developments preserve and enhance the island's natural landscape. The brief tasked designers with reimagining the connection between Imbiah Station and Beach Station, replacing the outdated, inefficient, and obsolete route with a new path that not only improves arrival and wayfinding, but also offers an inclusive and immersive experience in harmony with the island’s natural environment. In this carefully considered exercise of place-making, a project like Sensoryscape emerges as a thoughtful addition to the island’s architectural fabric.

Serie’s investigations of typology as an architecture of the city is evident, but is also disrupted through the subtle articulations of an architectural language informed by historical and contextual references. Typologically, Sensoryscape is a public realm project, but Serie - as is the case with their other projects - employ a number of subtle and thoughtful design moves to challenge what we might associate with a conventional public realm project.

The first of these is the link between the two stations. It is a long, steep and challenging site, but Serie takes advantage of this, using gravity to draw pedestrians from Imbiah Station to Beach Station along a subtle fall, with a drop of nearly 13m between the two points. Drawing inspiration from Singapore’s iconic covered walkways, the 4m-wide double-deck walkway serves as the main pedestrian route linking five attractions between the two stations. It accommodates up to 3,000 people across both the lower and elevated levels. Visitors may wonder whether to use the covered walkway or the upper deck; to wonder how one should wander largely depends on the time of day. By day, the sheltered walkway provides relief from the elements, with at least 2.4m of shade. By night, the open sky beckons. The covered walkway, with its inverted arch hammock structures, redefines public space, offering seating and comfort while also being a load-bearing feature.

The term "resolution" is deliberate, not simply reflecting an engineered solution, but embodying a critical design approach where the seamless integration of structure and space is so refined that the distinction between the two becomes almost indiscernible. The sequence of three central "basket-like" spaces, though similar in form, are distinguished by subtle differences, each rooted in a shared architectural language. This unity is reinforced through a tessellated diagrid pattern, which forms the backdrop of each space. The tessellation is consistent yet uniquely refined in each iteration, creating a common architectural language that responds to the varied, immersive experiences within each garden. The careful material palette, chosen for both its structural integrity and its sensory impact, further defines each space’s character. The diagrid’s double-strand arches form complete, uninterrupted openings in each "basket” as they intersect with the double deck covered walkway, framing views into the garden from both elevations and allowing you to effortlessly dwell into the immersive gardens at the lower level. The diagrid structure, developed through a series of parametric iterations, also affords an omnipresent connection to nature, framing its surroundings by means of larger apertures at the bottom, decreasing in size towards the top. Form, material, and experience intertwine.

When evaluating the merits of this project, it is impossible to detach it from important dialogues we should have with regards to typology, civicness, and urban artefacts. The mere fact that the covered walkway is enlarged to such an extent whereby its inhabitation and connection to nature no longer qualifies it as a building, yet it has all the architectural elements of a building present, speaks of an inventiveness by the architects to successfully challenge type as an artefact of the city. Serie recognises the tension between authorship and keeping true to the precedent when working typologically. They’re driven by a curiosity, an obsession even, of how structure in its reductive form can be both a load-bearing element and a spatial organiser.

You might be forgiven for wondering how uncompromising the architects were with this very specific design response. An alternative design was considered at concept stage: an axial proposal that cut much more aggressively into the landscape. It was challenging from a topographical standpoint, but also questionable whether there was much to be gained experientially. Alternative proposals have their use. They are important as contingent narratives where through discussions with stakeholders these types of discourses create dynamic explorations to merit specific design trajectories.

It should be pointed out that alternative does not equate to iteration. Rather, seriality instead of iteration - the latter being in and of itself - is valued by the practice. In this sense, Sensoryscape, is distinctly recognisable as a Serie Architects project, but simultaneously also distinct from other Serie projects. When the crowds have dissipated and the audiovisual immersive experiences are switched off, what remains is a project that demonstrates a deep understanding of the historical and contextual precedent of urban artefacts, and a skillful ability by the architects to reinvent prevalent typologies of the city.

Client: Sentosa Development Corporation

Design Architect: Serie + Multiply Architects

Executive Architect: Axis Architects & Planners

Landscape Architect: COEN Design International

Lighting Designer: Lighting Planners Associates Singapore

Structural Engineer (Concept and schematic design): AKT II

Structural Engineer: AECOM

MEP Engineer: AECOM

Greenmark Consultant: Building System and Diagnostics Pte Ltd (BSD)

Pedestrian Traffic Consultant: BECA

Design for Safety Professional: PH Consulting Pte Ltd

Signage: Acacia Design Consultants Pte Ltd

Photography: Finbarr Fallon (photos courtesy of Sentosa Development Corporation)