Sometimes you discover things in surprisingly serendipitous ways.
I spent part of the day today doing research on a condominium development in Singapore that my girlfriend and I are interested in. In the process I inadvertently learned a few things about architecture, architectural history, social/urban planning and the architect who designed the World Trade Center Towers; which seemed appropriate on this the ten-year anniversary of their destruction.
The condominium I was researching proves to be a very unique development in that each unit has a high degree of outdoor space that is relatively public (almost like a suburban front-yard) and which neighbors must pass on their way to the elevator. This semi-private space is included in each unit even as far as the top levels of the development and is staggered to provide two floors of volume above each space. Some inhabitants have quite lush gardens growing in these spaces, some use it as an open-air shed. Some of the units are small, some are huge. The architect reportedly modeled the development on the native Malay Kampung (village), renown for it's communal and family-oriented style of life. I do not know the specific design choices that make the development work, but . . . it works. Even during our brief visit to look at one of the units, we struck up a lengthy conversation with one of the neighbors 'over the fence'. A recent survey conducted with the inhabitants indicated their (self-reported) communal interactions, feeling of security, etc were all in the 90th percentiles.
