Thursday 12 April 2012

To HDB or not to HDB?

At the moment I'm going out to a lot of different schools all over the island.

I came back from holiday and almost immediately got ill again. I couldn't understand why I was picking up so many bugs and then did a quick sum. At the moment I am teaching about 520 students a week. I think that's why.

It's slightly depressing to me that everywhere you go looks the same. One of the things I really miss is architectural character. Old buildings. It sounds very spoiled to say so, but when people say that Singapore is a bit sterile this is part of the reason.

This is largely because of the fantastic public housing scheme they have here. Affordable housing with uninspired architecture is available if you tick the right boxes. Married couples are preferred. Those with children. I'm sure you can imagine. The flats are called HDB's. They're like British council housing got right. Clean, well maintained, with un-vandalised, un-graffitied play areas and outside gyms. The downside is that the design doesn't seem to vary. So getting off the MRT in Woodlands, Chinese Garden, Sembawang or Ang Mo Kio it looks exactly the same. Rows and rows of identical HDBs.




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