Abstract
Year 2100 predicts the rise of global temperatures by up to 4.2 °C and in extreme circumstances, the complete meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet places sea level rises up to a staggering 2 meters. Despite being a world-class coastal city, waterfront architecture in Singapore today is observed to not only have a clear disconnect with the water, but is seemingly severely illequipped for the environmental climate of tomorrow. In order to better prepare ourselves for such a pressing and potentially realizable future, there is a need to explore tidally responsive and adaptive typologies that employ defensive, restorative and rejuvenative solutions at our coastline. Architecture that allows for temporality and growth ought also to be studied to ultimately create an urban chameleon that adapts with the ever changing waterline the tide brings in. This thesis envisions a coastal landscraper typology that seeks to marry urban development and coastal mitigation to not only to enhance the citizen’s enjoyment of the coast and to integrate it with the life of the city but to restore the region’s coastal ecology as well as to defend and provide resiliency against coastal threats that result from global warming. It seeks to redefine living by the coastline to give rise to a dynamic and harmonious exchange between the land and the water and be at the forefront of sustainable development of a coastal port city. An architectural solution in the form a combination of typologies would be designed based on the principles researched upon in this thesis and eventually be translated into a masterplan of the chosen site; Tanjong Pagar Port.