Twenty beautiful garden homes inspired by Singapore’s vision of a “City in a Garden”. EDEN was envisioned to be precisely that. The freehold, ultra-luxury residences by developer Swire Properties from Hong Kong is set to be a new landmark in one of Singapore’s most exclusive districts.
Situated within Singapore’s prestigious District 10 in the prime Ardmore/Draycott area, each of EDEN’s 20 exclusive apartments occupies the entire floor, ensuring complete privacy to residents. The apartments are luxuriously-sized over 3,000 sq ft with a floor-to-floor height of 3.5 metres. Each comes with four en-suite bedrooms, unique hanging garden balconies and private lift access.
Visionary Collaboration
Swire Properties is a leading developer that has amassed an impressive portfolio of mixed-use, office, retail, hospitality and residential properties in Hong Kong, Mainland China and the United States. Their ultra-luxury residential developments have been long recognised for featuring innovative architecture and for being elegantly contemporary.
For their first residential project in Singapore, Swire Properties has collaborated with the award-winning London-based Heatherwick Studio, whose latest work in New York’s Hudson Yards development was praised by Fortune Magazine as “Manhattan’s answer to the Eiffel Tower”. EDEN marks the second partnership between Swire Properties and Heatherwick Studio, the first being the successful contemporisation of Pacific Place in Hong Kong.
EDEN is Heatherwick Studio’s first residential project in Asia. The Studio’s founder, visionary British designer Thomas Heatherwick, was excited to work with the Hong Kong developer again. He said: “We’re lucky to be collaborating with Swire Properties. Our experience is that Swire Properties takes design more seriously than any other developer that I’ve ever worked with or known of. Their attention to design and their commitment to quality gave us the confidence and freedom to build something exceptional.”
Revolutionary Architectural Design
With that confidence at hand, Heatherwick Studio has reimagined the design of an apartment and how to live well in a tropical climate. Inspired by Singapore and the island’s fame as a City in a Garden, the design team has brought out in EDEN the elegance of the colonial ‘Black and White’ houses from Singapore’s heritage, the comfort of spaciousness and open ventilation, and the beauty of wonderfully exotic gardens.
The traditional box-like floor plate, common in many steel and glass residential towers found in Singapore, has been transformed. Within the south-facing apartments, EDEN’s interior spaces are optimised through connecting four en-suite bedrooms and other discreet service areas to a large central living space in a creative and intuitive way.
This unique design allows a large, light-filled, main living space with windows on three sides, made even more delightful with the luxury of having cooling cross ventilation and stunning views across the exquisite garden balconies.
The positions of these deep shell-like balconies, which provide shade from the sun whilst maximising the benefits of natural light coming into the apartments through full height windows, are alternated as they ascend through the building to create rare double-height spaces.
Viewed from the front, EDEN’s balconies resemble a series of vertical gardens filled with a wide variety of hand-picked species of plants, drawing Singapore’s natural landscape upwards towards the skyline while softening the building’s appearance.
The garden and nature inspiration for EDEN also led the team to incorporate Singapore’s natural landscape and physical topography in the building’s phenomenal facade design, creating a unique identity for EDEN’s residents. The inspiration continues throughout the apartment with the thoughtful use of organic building materials. “I want the person who lives in each of these homes to be able to feel and smell the qualities of nature around them,” said Heatherwick.
City Living in Prestigious Ardmore/Draycott Enclave
EDEN is highly accessible and is located close to the many amenities found along Orchard Road, Singapore’s premier shopping street. At its doorsteps are The Tanglin Club and The American Club, two of the city’s finest member-only clubs. It is also near to Singapore Chinese Girls’ School and several other prestigious educational institutions as well as the Singapore Botanic Gardens, Singapore’s first and only UNESCO World Heritage Site.
With the first apartment already 23 metres above ground level, each of the 20 apartments in EDEN gets to enjoy an impeccable 270-degree panoramic vista of Orchard Road neighbourhood, reaching as far as the Marina Bay Sands integrated resort.
Swire Properties and Heatherwick Studio have successfully presented a new, unique way of city-living. With its evocative use of natural materials and textures, coupled with bespoke, luxury finishes and fittings, EDEN will undoubtedly set a new standard for ultra-luxury residential properties.
Article originally appeared in Selections, October 2019 issue.