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Primer
Designing urban spaces for connectivity, community and climate change
This is part of a series of primers on current affairs and issues in the news, and what they mean for Singapore.
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Geneo's newly opened event plaza, The Canopy, is an example of a "privately owned public space".
ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH
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SINGAPORE – More than a century before urban design formally became an academic discipline, one architectural feature that would undoubtedly be considered an urban design element today was mandated for new houses in Singapore.
The five-foot way – a feature ubiquitous of shophouses – was made compulsory by Sir Stamford Raffles in his 1822 town plan for Singapore, which stipulated that houses to be constructed needed to have “a verandah open at all times as a continued and covered passage on each side of the street”.
