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Video> Shanghai Talks: Mun Summ Wong of WOHA Architects

Video> Shanghai Talks: Mun Summ Wong of WOHA Architects

This Fall, I served as special media correspondent for the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat‘s September symposium in Shanghai. The topic was “Future Cities: Towards Sustainable Vertical Urbanism,” and among the many architects, engineers and other tall building types I interviewed was Mun Summ Wong of Singapore-based WOHA.


WOHA’s work celebrates human-scale spaces in high-rise buildings. Take the PARKROYAL on Pickering, a cluster of hotels in Singapore that spruces up the standard podium with lush greenery and sleek, curvilinear geometries. Its 15,000 square feet of green space climb up through the towers’ balconies and terraces, in a sense extending nearby Hong Lim Park. The project was one of CTBUH’s Best Tall Buildings of 2013.

In our interview, Wong discussed net-zero skyscrapers, urban sprawl and “using tall buildings as columns.”

Watch the video above, courtesy CTBUH, in which Wong envisions his ideal future city.

“The way forward isn’t to continue with two-dimensional master planning where cities can only grow sideways,” Wong said. “I think skyscrapers can do more than be themselves.”

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