About the Newton Suites
Developer/Owner: UOL Group Limited
Architect: WOHA Architects
Why the Newton Suites?
The site is at the edge of a high-rise zone and fronts a height-controlled area that afforads expansive views of the central nature reserves; a rare luxury in densely built Singapore. This 36-story development is a study in environmental solutions to high rise living that adopts a variety of issues to control the climate in a passive way for tropical living conditions, such as vertical green walls and protruding large balconies. The design integrates several sustainable devices, such as sunshading elements and creeper screens, into a contemporary architectural composition, creating a sustainable, contemporary addition to the city skyline. Newton Suites represents a refinement of vertical living in dense metropolitan cities that keeps the quality of the surrounding environment high and refreshing and can be seen as a role model for other tropical cities. The environmental elements added to liveable apartments and extensive communal areas combine to make a unique tropical building that achieves both Singapore’s national vision for a green city and an improved living environment for the inhabitants.
The exterior of the tower uses sunshading elements, patterned planes of textured panels and protruding balconies to create a facade that is functional yet expressive. The horizontal, metal expanded mesh sunshading screens the strong tropical sunlight. The angled mesh prevents insolation while permitting visual connection to the ground. The angled expanded mesh changes appearance with viewpoint, appearing anywhere between solid and transparent. This, combined with the cast shadows and interference patterns between shadows and the mesh, gives the building a constantly shifting, blurred appearance depending on angle and time of day. The layers of sunshading screens also change the reading of the projections of the bay windows, a standard applied feature of Singapore apartments due to their contribution to developer profit and perscriptive regulations, embedding them in the language of the building.
The Newton Suites…
- A climate conscious residential high-rise that adopts sustainable devices to control climate in a passive way.
- Represents a new aesthetic in tall buildings based on a natural pallette of green.
- Extensive greening of development with 130% landscape (110% planted) site coverage.
- Elevated interaction spaces centered around sky gardens facilitate communal high-rise living.
- Tropical outdoor living shaded by cantilevered balconies and protruding gardens.