Lecture 5 : Community Architecture

Singapore's East Coast Park with 'Beach Huts'

SPARK Architects proposes a special prototype reviving Singapore's East Coast Park to draw attention to the world's oceans caused by the similar problems.

SPARK Architects wants to use plastic to build a series of elevated beach huts resembling giant pine cone in Singapore. They envisions using some of the millions of tons of plastic waste dumped into the world's oceans every year to build a series of unusual architectural structures along the shoreline of the city's East Coast Park.

The aim is to offer sheltered camping spaces for park visitors, but also to help raise awareness about the effects of ocean plastic, which is estimated to be killing over a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals every year.

A large percentage of the waste is high-density polyethylene (HDPE), a non-biodegradable plastic used for manufacturing items like plastic bottle and yoghurt pots. Beach Huts are colourful, vivid and new architectural space lighten throughout the beach.

SPARK proposes collecting this material, sorting it into colours, then shredding it. The granules would then be poured into shingle-shaped moulds and reheated, creating a new type of tile for cladding a building's exterior.

The hut is clad with a modular tile made of recycled HDPE plastic, much in the same way that timber shingles are used to clad simple dwellings.

Recycle Plan for the Beach Huts Singapore

The pine-cone-like form is intended to evoke both traditional English beach huts and thatched grain-storage huts from Africa. Although Pimbley claims the main inspiration is a locally found seed pod. The hut form is similar to the Casuarina tree seeds that are found on the beaches in Southeast Asia.

A precast concrete stem and base would provide the main structure for the huts, and Spark believes this could be a colourful aggregate created with different types of recycled glass.

A timber frame would create the curving upper section of the huts, onto which the plastic tiles would be mounted. Photovoltaic cells would provide energy to power lighting, and a retractable steel rope would provide access for overnight guests.

Beach Huts are lined up as iconic elements.

At the same time it acts as an important vehicle for educating the public about the state of the world’s oceans and the problems caused by the contribute to the slow death of the oceans and the extensive life cycles it supports.

HDPE is non-biodegradable and can take centuries to decompose, so it is imperative that the HDPE ocean waste is collected and recycled and used again wherever possible to abate the escalating damage we are doing to our planet.

Our society and its current values of consumption necessitate a system in which production and imaginative recycling are in balance with long-term ecological well-being applications.

Colour variations possible using recycled HDPE will produce a family of beach huts that are engaging and elegant contributors to the Singapore shoreline whilst telling the story of an imaginative reuse of a plastic material that is part of our everyday lives but which given its disposable nature is contributing to the destruction of ocean life and our environment.

Singapore is an island therefore a maritime nation reliant on the trade that has driven its economy since its early settlers. SPARK’s beach hut is a clear statement that Singapore cares about its maritime environment and its heritage and is prepared to seek and invest in innovative ways to protect the ocean’s ecosystem for future generations and the long-term sustainability of the planet.