MAY 2023 · ESCAPE

Singapore Green Spaces

Gardens by the Bay, Singapore

The Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay are engineered structures — steel frameworks planted with bromeliads and ferns, the botanical panels covering vertical surfaces, the canopies spanning walkways. Up close they are unmistakably constructed. The effect from a distance is of something organic but enlarged. A white sculpture of a reclining figure sits in the manicured landscape nearby. Palm trees and skyscrapers in the same frame.

Supertree structures with arching metal frameworks spanning walkway at Gardens by the Bay — Supertrees — engineered, unmistakably so

— Engineered nature

Then you walk into the actual forest reserve and the registers shift. A moss-covered tunnel with rusted metal railings disappearing into dense vegetation. A concrete structure enveloped entirely by jungle growth, the building barely distinguishable from the forest around it. Aerial roots descended from the canopy, tangled over walkways. Towering trees with exposed root systems forming natural walls of interlocking timber. The forest floor path between trunk bases.

The managed garden and the unmanaged forest are both present in Singapore, within walking distance of each other.
Gardens by the Bay — May 2023

White sculpture of reclining figure nestled in manicured green landscape — Sculpture in the managed garden

— Into the reserve

The managed garden and the unmanaged forest are both present in Singapore, within walking distance of each other. Flowering vines line a pedestrian bridge, radio towers visible through clouds above. A monkey sits on a wooden rope. A sunlit forest path with dappled light across an asphalt walkway — the path maintained, the canopy completely wild overhead.

Moss-covered tunnel with rusted metal railings disappearing into dense forest — Forest reserve, the older growth

Dense jungle vegetation envelops a weathered concrete structure — Concrete being absorbed

— Two systems

What Singapore has done is insert nature as infrastructure at the designed level while the older forest reserves operate on their own terms alongside. The two don't quite meet. In the reserves, the humidity is different, the sound different, and the concrete structures — drainage channels, old paths, the occasional railing — are being absorbed. The jungle doesn't accommodate the engineering. It just takes longer.