Studio Woodroffe Papa was commissioned with Lawrence Barth to develop urban design guidelines for a refinement of the Nepal Hill and ICT Media districts in Jurong Town Corporation’s (JTC) master plan for one-north, Singapore.

One-north breaks from the traditional science park and recognises the urban character and vitality of contemporary innovation ecologies. Eschewing the usual suburban pattern of the peripheral research campus, the original Zaha-Hadid plan emphasised a compact, street-based morphology. However, the design guidelines contained little awareness of educational and research building typologies, and consequently no understanding of how the plan could promote the formation of a social fabric structured around the streets, gardens, courtyards, and plazas of vibrant urban cam- puses.

Our task was to clarify the essential spatial ambitions of the Hadid plan and demonstrate how a realistic understanding of today’s building typologies could achieve these. Equally importantly, our work developed guidelines which preserved important urban qualities while remaining flexible: more than a blueprint, it was a manual for evolution and transformation.