By 2030, Singapore aims to move towards a projected 6.9 million population. Hence, additional housing and infrastructure are required to support the rising population. As Singapore’s limited land space struggles to keep up with the needs of the growing population, the conflict between Singapore’s urban development and its environmental preservation is called into question. To date, Singapore has lost nearly 99% of its natural forest cover with substantial environmental consequences such as biodiversity loss, increased flood risk, and rising temperatures. Yet, more of Singapore’s forested areas such as Tengah Forest will be cleared to make way for urban infrastructures such as housing developments and transport infrastructures.

With the impact of urbanisation as a threat, how do we gain and become better from this situation? How do we strike a balance between Singapore’s urban development and its nature preservation with land space being a big challenge? Can the “City in Nature” vision be pushed further to allow for both man and nature to coexist?

As such, as a prototypical study, the thesis looks at the coexistence between an integrated train and bus depot within the upcoming Tengah Town Development and existing greenery of the Tengah Forest as a steppingstone between the Central nature reserves and the western Catchment Area to preserve the existing biodiversity that is and will be affected by the upcoming development. At the same time, it looks at the possible integration of a columbarium space with existing depots in Singapore as a study to free up existing columbarium for other developments which are often contested in land scarce Singapore, to look beyond monofunctional infrastructure and its current tokenistic nature of greening solution, as a network of systems to encourage a symbiotic relationship between man and nature.