We have been working around the world for 15 years and have two principles: First, we try to build "radical green". Second, we strive to create a sense of home in a building. I consider: What would be on the property if I would not build there? Because I take something from the earth, the first thought is to give it something. By greening, by propagation of public space. Our attitude is: "No energy, no waste, no emission." It helps if we dispense with emitting materials and use biologically correct materials. Wood for example. That's warm when you touch it. And it is olfactorily pleasant. There may even be a meta-level: chimpanzees live on trees, we will also have lived on trees. I think people do not want to be without air, light and opening eyes.
Let us translate this into Singapore, where we are currently building the largest house in the city-state, with more than 400,000 square meters of office and living space: we see such buildings as survival models for densely populated cities. Even today, 50 percent of the world's population live in megacities, and soon it will be 70 percent. We have to organize this growth. Without skyscrapers that is not possible. And we hope that the people feel comfortable there, because we build a homeland for them.
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Christoph Ingenhoven's building: Sustainably beautifulHome is always something that you can see and feel. I do not want to live anywhere where I live "in the third street on the right in the fifth house on the left" and where everything is even and unspecific. If you look for a place in nature, it is more like under a tree. At the beach people make their home by lying down in a towel. You would always settle on a hill so you could look down and have something in the back, that's psychologically important and the result of millions of years of human development that is in every fiber of our body.
Ingenhoven Architects / Christoph Ingenhoven
Marina One in Singapore: The four skyscrapers with a huge park are considered a successful example of compact living. They can accommodate 30,000 people. The project will be presented at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin from 15 to 17 November
For the project in Singapore, which consists of four high-rise buildings, we have created a common center that consists of green space. It is mandatory that 25 percent green space be created in a new building, instead we have fought 125 percent. In this district of Singapore, a lot will be built in the next few years - that's why we were looking for a strong inner identity. I believe that too little homeland education is practiced.
A positive example is Central Park in New York. To park there was awesome! It has become a social, political and public space, and the whole city is defined by how far away is Central Park. When I ask people if they can call me a house on a nice street like the Champs-Elysées, the same thing always happens: no one can remember a single building. The road is the star. Architecture is overrated, public space is home-building.
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