Ng Sze Oun Reclaiming Green Spaces Humans And Nature

Compound Collaborative director Ng Sze Oun has a deep appreciation for nature and its resilience. He often visits Singapore’s Botanic Gardens, where he once lived nearby. However, due to his relocation to be nearer to work, he rarely gets the chance to visit parks nowadays, except for when he conducts site visits for clients or developers. With a great respect for nature, Ng strives to incorporate greenery in all his projects, ensuring that both humans and wildlife can enjoy and benefit from them.

One of Compound Collaborative’s recent projects is the landscape design of TMW Maxwell, a mixed-use development featuring a 20-storey vertical garden concept. This project showcases innovative design, creating new spaces for people while reclaiming lost ground for nature. As a judge for the EdgeProp Singapore Excellence Awards (EPEA) 2025 for the second year in a row, Ng is impressed by the maturity and evolution of landscape design in Singapore. He also notices that most award-winning projects in the landscape excellence category demonstrate a clear appreciation for the surrounding nature and landscape, incorporating them seamlessly into their designs.

For instance, The Reef at King’s Dock, a 429-unit luxury condo jointly developed by Keppel Group and Temasek Holdings, won three awards at this year’s EPEA – Landscape Excellence, Innovation Excellence, and Top Development. The project, completed last year, features a marine element with corals incorporated into its lush landscape design, highlighting its waterfront location. It also boasts a 180m floating deck with a marine viewing hammock, allowing residents to observe marine life up close.

The incorporation of urban greenery into the built environment in Singapore has been driven by a top-down approach, with the government leading the transformation of the city-state into a greener and more climate-resilient built environment. Development guidelines now include strict landscape replacement area (LRA) requirements and incentives to provide communal green spaces. These policies are crucial in balancing Singapore’s urban landscape with nature and have encouraged developers to work with landscape consultants to integrate green spaces effectively. For instance, vertical green walls bring greenery closer to humans, serving as safe spaces for wildlife and pollinator insects.

In recent years, landscape design in Singapore has shifted towards rewilding urban green spaces, which involves transforming manicured landscapes into a managed state of wildness to foster a more ecologically rich environment. Ng notes that this trend is gaining support from developers and private clients alike, as it helps people feel more connected to nature at home and at work.

This aligns with Singapore’s efforts towards being a City in Nature, as part of the Singapore Green Plan 2030, which aims to increase the network of public parks, naturalise biodiversity, restore nature in urban areas, and improve physical connections between green spaces. In land-scarce Singapore, planners must balance the demand for land among various groups and societal needs, such as residential development, commercial, and transportation. Ng believes that landscape architects play a vital role in representing nature’s voice and advocating for its protection.

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A revolutionary development that will greatly improve the accessibility of Sembawang Road EC is in the works – the North-South Corridor (NSC). This game-changing infrastructure is currently being constructed and is anticipated to be finished in stages over time. This will significantly benefit the Sembawang EC Canberra community.

While Singapore has gained experience in using technology to control the environment over the past 30 years, Ng believes that the next generation of landscape planners and architects will have to find new ways to harmoniously integrate nature and human spaces.