Heart Initiative 5 (H.I. 5) is a community outreach project started by three Master Thesis Students (AY2013/14) from NUS Architecture who came together with the common interest of exploring a whole new boundary to community design.
The name H.I. 5 comes from the team’s strong want to reach out to the community. The name acts as a key driving force for their designs. Furthermore, “Hi 5″ is a typical way of displaying one’s friendliness and affability within most communities.
Through the initiative, they hope to reach out to the community as friends and buddies, and engage the community to create a more inclusive living environment for all. They also strongly believe that a strong community-oriented design is one which is created BY the community, FOR the community, with the planner and designers as agents to bring all the different stakeholders together.
Currently, H.I. 5 is interested in rethinking HDB Rental Housing’s estate design & planning. Centering on the idea of what it takes to build a lovable neighbourhood, the team believes that the community “kampung” spirit could play a greater role in rental housing estates, especially in creating a more sustainable community where residents could share resources together to create a more vibrant and humanistic community whereby residents keep a lookout for one another.
The aim of their movement is to explore and showcase architectural ideas which are capable of creating a more self sustainable community whereby the rental housing estate acts as a platform for the rental housing communities to better empower themselves to move up the social ladder, and to co-create a more cohesive and caring environment for those who will be staying in the estate for a long period of time.
Through this project, they hope to document their unique journey of this community outreach initiative and showcase some of their ideas and alternate visions for the rental housing communities in Singapore with more participatory design.
The sites chosen for the exploration of this concept of alternative rental housing planning are Jalan Kukoh, Jalan Minyak and York Hill.
Here are some additional details of H.I. 5:
Vision & Aim
Building lovable neighbourhoods together
Approach
Through Community Engagement (Dreaming & Visioning Exercises)
Desired Outcome
An alternate planning & masterplan of Jalan Kukoh which encourages self sustainability.
Architectural Intervention as agent to bridge gap between state & community while encouraging a self sustainable community.
A Set of Guiding Principles for design & planning of rental housing estate for the future.
Our Contribution
To raise awareness of rental housing community concerns & dreams / vision
To showcase how design of an alternate built environment could better empower & inspire the community to appreciate & activate assets they possess.
A Rethink of rental housing neighbourhood for the future communities.
(Source: www.heartinitiative5.wordpress.com)
The founders hope that more students can share their ideas in this journey of community-based design and planning for the rental housing community in Singapore and contribute more to the community around them.
They also hope that this initiative can inspire more of their peers from various faculties to do their part for the community using skills and knowledge they possess regardless of the nature of their degree.
If you are keen to contribute towards this meaningful project, visit their website at www.heartinitiative5.wordpress.com and like their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HeartInitiative5