Designed by architects; William Lim, Gan Eng Oon And Tay Kheng Soon of Design Partnership, Golden Mile Complex is a stepped slab building that housed apartments units on the upper floors and retail and office units below.
Linear City
Completed in 1973 on a strip of land between Nicoll Highway and Beach Road (that was once known as the Golden Mile, thus the name). In terms of public transport and accessibility, the building is serviced from the rear on Beach Road, instead of its frontage with Nicoll Highway, with a continuous pedestrian spine linking all buildings in the Golden Mile of Beach Road.
Vertical City
The lower floors contain offices and a retail mall, located within staggered atria to allow natural light into the heart of the building. Here's also where lots of people loiter around with the police often making rounds. A strong Thai community exist here with Thai eateries, dodgy Thai discos and a Thai supermarket. The smell of Thai food here is subjective, one half of proconservation loves the way it reminds him of Bangkok, the wonderous food and all, the other thinks otherwise. We all agree though that it makes one feel like a foreigner, much like Lucky Plaza on a Sunday.
The stepped design of the building gave each unit a balcony that offered panoramic views of the sea and enhanced natural ventilation. okay that's what the textbooks say, these days the views are sorta killed of by the expressway in front and natural ventilation lost out to air conditioning during the 80's. The way each homeowner has personalized their home does give the building a quirky look. Over the years it has become a unique entity, a sign of the individual's non-conformity to the status quo, or maybe in Singapore its all about telling your neighbor whose home is the coolest.
Apologies for the lack in pictures, the top floor (16th) views were amazing...and then we got caught by security, who were just plain stupid thinking that we at pro-conservation are terrorist. Hey man, your gonna lose your job when this baby goes en-bloc, were on your side here okay.
the Golden Mile Complex is an exemplary type of "megastructure" described by architectural historian, Reyner Banham
3 comments:
"GOLDEN 118"
Dear Sir/Madam,
We are a group of owners from Golden Mile Complex and Golden Mile Tower in Singapore. It comprises a land area of about 400,000 square feet. It is on the southern part of Singapore and is near to the Central Business district. It is situated at the upcoming Circle-line - Nicoll Highway MRT Station and facing the upcoming park by the Kallang Basin where the future ferry-taxi terminal will be located.
We have a dream - to tear down the current old and shabby buildings, then build it into a new-design sophisticated tallest building in Asia. It will be Singapore's latest icon and will complement with the upcoming Sands and
Sentosa Integrated Resorts as illustrated below.
We hope that you are as excited as we are - to create a 108 storey building, the tallest building in Asia, where we can have:
1. A world-class in-bound and out-bound tour coaches hub where it will have the latest systematic coach bays and passengers will have a cosy and safe passageway to board or alight from the coaches. Currently the coaches and passengers can be a real hazard to the Beach Road traffic
and it is very chaotic especially in the evening.
2. A fashion and Jewellery hubs for local Singaporean and internationally-recognised designers to showcase their works. With this fashion hub, Singapore will aim to become the next top 5, besides New York, Milan, Paris and London.
3. A Western & Eastern Orthopaedic and sport-related injury clinical centre since it is so near to the upcoming Kallang Sports Hub. With this clinical centre, Singapore will aim to become the top and the only one in the world where the East combine with the West in the latest bone-setter research technology.
4. Cosmetic and plastic surgery hub where local and international qualified surgeons can under our stringent Singapore Ministry of Health regulations and assurance to legally perform the operation on local Singaporeans or tourists.
5. A sex-related disease & fertility research hospital where those shy couples can casually seek advice from the doctors. Who know we may be able to solve our most respected MM, Mr Lee Kuan Yew's "the Last of the Mohicans" problem, right?
6. Legal professional topless bars and entertainment areas where foreign or local customers can enjoy themselves
as if there is no tomorrow. Reason is all these entertainers need licensing from the Ministry and the customers do not need to worry about the entertainers being underage or having aids or sex-related disease.
7. Holiday suites or service-apartments for the rich elderly or "man/woman of leisure" to just stay and enjoy the sea-view and the peaceful cosmopolitan landscape of Singapore. We may have a new cosy place for young Singaporean to pro-create the next generation!
The upcoming "Golden 118" should be an exciting and mesmerizing building for Singaporeans as well as foreigners who would love to have short or long term stay either for enjoyment or relaxation or health reasons.
So are you with us to develop this dream?
We would appreciate very much if you or any interested party that you know of could give me a call at 65-93856938 or email gensvcs@singnet.com.sg to discuss further. I hope to hear from you the soonest. Thank you very much.
Best regards,
Jessie Ong
interesting post. I would love to follow you on twitter.
Hi
It's very interesting to read about this golden mile complex in your blog.
I am currently studying at NUS integrated sustainable design and in one of the module, I am particullarly studying about this building as part of Kallang neighbourhood context.
This building has strong historical value and nice design. where on the other hand, it's a currently visually disturbing for some people.
I agree to conserve the building because of the historical value. Also it became "little thai" to give a place for Thai people to gather and a place where they call it "home". The story of this building and the transformation is interesting. It just that we need to infuse new program and rule for this building therefore it's not called "vertical slum" and make this as a new integrated magnet and connector to the nicholl highway and Kallang basin.
Thanks,
Martha
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