REGULAR PARK USER: Mr Alvin Lee is a member of a dragon boat team that regularly uses the Bedok Reservoir Park for its activities. It made him keen to join the competition. -- ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN

A 19-year-old polytechnic student has won $15,000 after coming up with the winning concept in a competition to find ways to incorporate the iconic wall in the park.

Ngee Ann Polytechnic student Alvin Lee is proposing that 10 other walls be erected around the four panels of the Berlin Wall that will be housed at the park.

European and Asian artists will then come up with designs for the other walls that express the relationship between Europe and Asia.

Mr Lee came up tops out of the 288 entries, which included ideas submitted by contestants such as professional architects, in the contest organised by the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC).

The prize for the winning idea and five merit prizes of $2,000 each were presented yesterday at Temasek Polytechnic by Foreign Minister George Yeo, an MP for Aljunied GRC.

The prize money was sponsored by Dr Albert Hong, chairman and managing director of RSP Architects Planners and Engineers.

Four sections of the Berlin Wall, 4m high and a total of 5m long, are on long-term loan to Aljunied GRC.

The donors are two Singapore permanent residents, Mr Robert A. Hefner III and his Singapore-born wife MeiLi, who are avid art collectors.

The Wall and its housing facility will be unveiled on Nov 9, the day the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, next year.

On why he took part, Mr Lee, a third-year banking and finance student, said: 'I remember being pleasantly surprised when I heard news that the iconic wall was coming to Bedok Reservoir.

'I am a member of a dragon boat team and we frequently paddle at the reservoir, so I felt it would be a great idea to contribute to the project.'

Mr Liu Thai Ker, director of RSP Architects Planners and Engineers and chief judge of the contest, said the winning idea was picked because it is 'self-renewing'.

'By having artists work on new designs for the panels over time, visitors, both tourists and residents, will have a reason to return to the Wall continually,' he said.

Ms Christiana Markert, the deputy head of mission with the German Embassy, added: 'The winning entry grasped the concept of the project very well.

'It took the Berlin Wall and its issues of freedom of expression and democracy as a starting point and broadened it to explore the relationship between Europe and Asia.'

But whether Mr Lee's idea, which calls for the walls to be housed in a glass dome, will be built depends on Phase 2 of the competition.

In this upcoming architectural design competition, participants will be asked to use six chosen ideas as reference points for their design of a facility to house the Wall. Further details will be announced in a month's time.

lijie@sph.com.sg