Today, the authorities claim to have erected around 200km (124 miles) of covered walkways. Try to imagine if New York’s ubiquitous construction scaffolds were permanent sidewalk architecture and you might have some idea of what the immensely unattractive though functional achievement looks like.
In the US, real estate developers are required to set their buildings back from the street to let in more light, but in Singapore, they must contribute to the shade network by carving 8-12ft (2.4-3.7m) of pedestrian overhangs out of the ground floors of their buildings. Research suggests the canopies have an effect similar to that of a clean and well-designed bus shelter. Just as a shelter can make a wait for the bus go by faster, so too do Singaporeans report that a stroll under the walkways feels 14% shorter than a stroll under the sun.
“You’re in a tropical region where it’s always super hot, and always very humid,” says Yun Hye Hwang, a landscape architect and professor at the National University of Singapore. With daily high temperatures hovering around 31-33C (88-91F) year round, “we always need shade,” she adds.
When it comes to shade, almost everyone would prefer the leaves of a luscious canopy to a clunky aluminium roof, but trees can’t always be the answer, says Lea Ruefenacht, a former researcher with Cooling Singapore, a government-affiliated urban heat initiative. But she notes that trees create cooling through shade and by releasing water into the air: in humid Singapore, more moisture can add to the misery.
For comfort, Ruefenacht recommends a balance of both green and grey shade. In Singapore, the densest grey shade is found in the concrete understory of the skyscraper forest downtown. Real estate developers are required to furnish what the authorities consider “sufficient” shade on outdoor plazas, cooling at least 50% of seating areas between 9:00 and 16:00. The shade can come from any number of sources – trees, umbrellas, awnings – but in their design circulars, the authorities demonstrate that it can also be afforded by a nearby tower’s knifing shadow.
