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CSC Knowledge

Kampung Admiralty: Building for All Ages

by Yap Chin Beng

Last updated 20 July 2026

ETHOS Digital Issue 04, Apr 2019

A modern, multi-storey building complex with rooftop gardens and greenery on the terraces, surrounded by other buildings.

Kampung Admiralty has the distinction of being Singapore’s first integrated vertical kampung. A one-stop hub with housing for the elderly and co-located facilities for residents of all ages under one roof, Kampung Admiralty was designed for ease of maintenance and built with sustainable design features. It won World Building of the Year at the 2018 World Architecture Festival, and has also received a number of accolades for its innovative approach.

A Conversation with Yap Chin Beng

Senior Advisor of HDB Yap Chin Beng shares inside stories on how Kampung Admiralty came about.


Kampung Admiralty: Overcoming Design and Construction Challenges

Kampung Admiralty: Promoting Integration and Synergy

Kampung Admiralty: A Socially Vibrant, Resident-Centred Place

Lessons and Insights for Future Integrated Developments

The development of Kampung Admiralty suggests several learning points that would be useful in planning future integrated projects:

1. Carry out more intentional planning and selection of co-locators

  • Look for compatible partners at the early stage of town development planning, lest the opportunity is lost if these potential partners have committed to their own individual developments.

  • Provide scale to create opportunities for collaboration and co-programming, and amenities to facilitate seniors to lead independent and active lifestyles.

  • Integrate healthcare facilities within the same development so that medical staff and volunteers can actively work with senior residents, particularly on chronic disease management; this also eases patient load at hospitals.

  • Bigger sites allow more housing units to be integrated into the development, letting more families enjoy the benefits of being co-located with facilities. Providing other flat types for young families also makes the development more vibrant.

  • Co-locate child care with senior care facilities to promote inter-generational bonding.

Children and adults interact and play in a room with a couch, clock, and windows in the background.

Bonding through inter-generational activities (Source: HDB)

A nurse is talking to two elderly individuals at a hospital reception desk with a sign about diabetes in the background.

Integrated healthcare (Source: HDB)

2. Observe good universal design principles and user-centric design features

  • Be barrier-free and wheelchair-friendly.

  • Provide seamless connectivity and plenty of rest-stops.

  • Design social communal spaces (such as a community park or 3G playground/fitness corner) to encourage residents to interact daily.

3. Offer shared community spaces

  • Provide plenty of shared community spaces to leverage the synergy of co-location, with venues for community engagement and events.

  • Encourage seniors to venture out of their homes to interact with other residents by making such community spaces available.

  • Include good connectivity to surrounding areas, to help engage other residents in the vicinity.

4. Curate strong co-programming activities

  • Co-programming activities should not be left to chance to be developed organically; instead, they should be curated upstream.

  • Close coordination amongst agencies is a must. Bring on board facility operators who can propose and implement cross-programming initiatives that capitalise on the synergy of available facilities, and minimise overlaps that might cause confusion and result in wastage.

5. Establish support from co-locating agencies

  • Set up a steering committee, well-represented by senior management from the respective co-locating agencies, to oversee the planning and construction of the new development.

  • Kampung Admiralty benefited from a Steering Committee which adopted a whole-of-government approach to oversee development.

Two people stand beneath a terraced, greenery-covered building with lush vegetation under a partly cloudy sky.

Lush greenery abounds at Kampung Admiralty (Photo credit: Patrick Bingham-Hall)

In Kampung Admiralty, a greener, cleaner and more sustainable living environment is created through a number of incorporated features:

Kampung Admiralty: Technology and Sustainable Living

In Kampung Admiralty, a greener, cleaner and more sustainable living environment is created through a number of incorporated features:

  • Active, Beautiful and Clean Waters (ABC Waters) features in Kampung Admiralty include: rain gardens, a storm water management system, and bioswales that treat surface water runoff. Treated rain water is recycled for auto-irrigation of the landscape, saving some 4.1 million litres of tap water annually.

  • Lush greenery provides visual relief and brings down the ambient temperature during warmer seasons.

  • A Pneumatic Waste Conveyance System, an automated waste collection system that uses a vacuum pipe network to collect household waste for disposal, making the process of collecting waste more efficient, cleaner, greener, and hygienic.

  • Solar panels harness solar energy for powering common services in two residential blocks.

  • A central courtyard at the Medical Centre provides spatial relief with greenery. Consultation and waiting areas are bathed in natural daylight, promoting wellness and healing. Views towards the Community Plaza below and the Community Park above help seniors to feel connected to nature and to other people. An air well allows for even distribution of light and movement of breeze within the development, promoting natural lighting and reducing the need for artificial lighting.

  • Motion sensors at staircases reduce energy consumption.

  • An integrated building management system track energy consumption and water usage.

  • A fully automated underground bicycle parking system, operated by SecureMyBike, offers secure parking for more than 500 bicycles. This system complements existing surface-level bicycle parking at the Admiralty MRT station, and promotes cycling for residents of all ages in the vicinity.

Collage showing eco-friendly building features like solar panels, recycling chutes, and automated bike parking.

Source: HDB

In Kampung Admiralty, co-programming is carried out to encourage elderly residents in the vicinity to lead active and healthy lifestyles, and to stay connected with the community through various activities, such as volunteering.

Promoting the “Kampung Spirit”

In Kampung Admiralty, co-programming is carried out to encourage elderly residents in the vicinity to lead active and healthy lifestyles, and to stay connected with the community through various activities, such as volunteering.

  • After Kampung Admiralty was completed, a Management Committee comprising all co-locating agencies was set up. This was to encourage co-locators to collaborate and to come up with programmes to promote the “kampung spirit”.

  • A Plaza Activation Team co-led by HDB and the People’s Association was formed to drive activation efforts at the Community Plaza (e.g., Thursday morning mass exercises, CNY celebration and bazaar, National Art Council Upcycling programme, ActiveSG and HPB Step Challenge roadshows).

  • Through a supermarket tender and a Request for Proposal for the Active Ageing Hub and Child Care Centre, the various subsidiaries of NTUC Enterprises came on board to coordinate programmes amongst the different facilities and agencies.

  • Since Kampung Admiralty’s completion in May 2017, more than 190 community activities have been held in the Community Plaza.

  • The Active Ageing Hub (AAH) has recruited more than 200 senior volunteers and patrons, with some residents helping to cook daily meals for dementia care seniors. Seniors at the AAH mingle with children from the Child Care Centre through inter-generational activities such as story-telling sessions, and art & craft or music classes. Parents have observed that their children have since become more willing to interact with their grandparents, and more respectful of them.

A large crowd watches a colorful performance with lion dancers and drummers in an indoor public area.

Shared community spaces for residents to meet and mingle (Source: HDB)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yap Chin Beng is Senior Advisor (Estate & Corporate) at the Housing and Development Board (HDB), where he has worked for close to 40 years. Prior to July 2017, he was HDB’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Estate & Corporate), overseeing a wide spectrum of functions including public housing policies, special housing programmes, supply of new housing units, planning and management of carparks, industrial and commercial properties, community bonding, corporate strategies, corporate communications, and provision of ICT, legal, audit and financial services. He also shares his expertise in the Centre of Liveable Cities Expert Panel, China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city, and advanced training courses.


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