Site Visit to Pearl’s Hill 

Participants visited the site — Pearl’s Hill — which is adjacent to Chinatown conservation planning area, where they explored the Upper Barracks, a conserved building that serves as office space and is showing signs of gentrification, the iconic semi-circular Pearl’s Bank Apartment blocks, and the underutilised Pearl’s Hill City Park, which sits atop steep slopes that restrict mobility. There, they engaged with the space through participant observation and interviewed passers-by and residents of the area to obtain qualitative insights about how the site could be improved.

Scenario Simulation and Stakeholder Meetings 

Key to the reimagining of the site is a keen awareness of present needs, potential future crises and nuances in messaging. The scenario simulation gameplay sought to do just that, where the five teams each responded with an action plan to a hypothetical ‘breaking news’ ticker feed hosted on this website. For instance, one scenario featured a clash between two groups of park users such as skateboarders and the elderly who share similar routes in Pearl’s Hill City Park, and this was meant to highlight the need to consider spaces that cater to multi-generations as well as niche interest groups that could liven up the space.

The idea for this scenario simulation gameplay was inspired by the lively and engaging format employed at the Princeton Interactive Crisis Simulation (PICSim); three organising members of this symposium — Jerome Kok, Ng Huiying and myself — had represented USP at PICSIM in previous years, as part of USP’s International Programmes. However, the format we have adopted here went beyond that of wargames or a policy-making ministerial cabinet. Groups were encouraged to respond and critique each other’s action plans, while the outcomes of the scenarios were left open so as not to dictate a specific path of the final development plans.

Stakeholder meetings were another way that realistic dimensions were injected into the programme. Over two sessions, participants pitched their ideas to organising members who role-played government agencies and interest groups. This tested the ability of their plans to be flexible to different policy making and civil society agendas.

Presentations and Panel Discussion

The development proposal plans that culminated as a result of intense discussion in between stakeholder meetings, scenario rooms and lectures were then presented. The project proposals that resulted were an amalgamation of ideas that stemmed from considerations of heritage preservation, nature conservation, demography and community structures and social activities, as well as urban design. The expert panellists brought with them wise contributions steeped in years of experience to rationalise not only the feasibility, resilience and relevance of their proposals, but how they aimed to change the landscape of Pearl’s Hill physically and in the mental images of current residents.

Mr Lim was in his element as an urban planner from the URA, and notably remarked on how Team Xin Cheng’s design would open up Pearl’s Hill City Park to the residents in its rearrangement of the surrounding residential sites, thereby symbolically giving the park back to the people. Prof Edwards had questions about the governance and management of common spaces in Pearl’s Hill City Park for plans envisioned by Teams Iceberg and Urbanisers. A/P Ryan shed light from an academic’s point of view, analysing the messaging behind the development plans and challenging the expectations of social engagement in the teams’ development proposals as human agency was overlooked. She also critically dissected how sociological themes were explored, such as age in inter-generational spaces, but brought up how the discussion of gender was missing, much to the surprise and collective recognition in the audience. She brought up the example of the skate park as depicted in Urban Trees’ plans, which tends to be a male-biased activity.