PARKROYAL on Pickering is a hotel in the midst of Singapore's high-density city center. A contoured podium responds to the street scale, drawing inspiration from terraformed landscapes, such as rice paddies. These contours create dramatic outdoor plazas and gardens, which flow seamlessly into the interiors. Greenery from nearby Hong Lim Park is drawn up into the building in the form of planted valleys, gullies and waterfalls.

The podium houses the above-ground car park, transforming it into a sculptural urban object: its roof becomes a lush landscaped terrace, housing the hotel’s recreational facilities, which include birdcage-shaped cabanas.

Above the podium the crisp and streamlined tower blocks harmonize with surrounding high-rise office buildings. They are attenuated into an open-sided courtyard configuration, breaking down the “wall of buildings” effect and maximizing views and daylight.

With the hotel-in-a-garden concept, the design team introduced extensive amounts of landscaping into the building. Multiple, extensive sky gardens are inserted along the façade, bringing lush greenery directly to the guestrooms and public areas. Corridors, lobbies and common washrooms are designed as garden spaces with stepping stones, planting and water features, which creates an alluring resort ambiance.

PARKROYAL on Pickering achieves an unprecedented amount of greenery and landscaping in a high-rise development, integrating them in innovative ways that address urban design and sustainability issues. There are 15,000 square meters of plantings, water features, waterfalls, terraces and green walls in the many sky gardens. In terms of scale, the landscaping amounts to 215 percent of the site area, showing that, even as our cities become taller and denser, we do not have to lose our green spaces.

The sky-rise landscapes are designed to be self-sustaining and rely minimally on precious resources. Roof surfaces collect rainwater for irrigation of the landscaping through gravity feeds. Collection tanks are sized to hold reserves and are supplemented with non-potable Newater (Singapore's recycled
wastewater) only during extended dry weather, which is rare in Singapore's tropical climate. A drip irrigation system is used to optimize water consumption. All landscape areas will also be fitted with rain sensors, which turn off irrigation when a minimum level of rain is detected. A 60kW peak photovoltaic cell array is placed on the roof, sufficient to power all the grow lamps and landscape feature lighting in the evening.

The hotel’s sustainable features mentioned above are estimated to offer a 30 percent energy savings in operation compared to a conventional building of the same scale. Singapore's Building & Construction Authority has awarded PARKROYAL on Pickering the Green Mark Platinum status, the nation’s highest environmental certification.

PARKROYAL on Pickering's vertical greening and elevated gardens demonstrate how we can not only conserve greenery in a built-up high-rise city center, but also multiply it vertically in a manner that is architecturally striking, integrated and sustainable.