The School of the Arts (SOTA) is a specialist arts school cum professional performing arts venue designed by WOHA. The design brief from its client, SOTA, was to create a space that would not only inspire its staff and students in their creative endeavours, but would also have the flexibility to allow for future changes in curriculum activities. The SOTA building also has to be sensitive to its surrounding urban environment and establish a dialogue with the community and the city.

To incorporate a school and arts venue — two functions of extremely different design and construction complexity — WOHA took a “club sandwich” approach to its design on this very tight site. Two visually connected horizontal levels demarcate the building’s different functions. The six storeys of academic blocks are a safe and secure learning environment known as the ‘Blank Canvas’, and they sit above a pedestal of performance venues named the ‘Backdrop’.

While the Blank Canvas is a simple and flexible space that allows for student activities and their works to take centre stage, the Backdrop is envisioned as a performance venue that creates a sense of freedom from our regular world of geometry. This was inspired by Michelangelo’s sculpture, Captive Slave series, and his quote: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

Explains WOHA’s director, Mr Wong Mun Summ: “The Backdrop was envisioned as a heavy pedestal, a gargantuan mass of stone carved out and chiselled to reveal dynamic and unexpected volumes of various proportions. It gives students and visitors a stimulating entry into the building and entices passers-by to explore the public areas.”

Another issue WOHA had to tackle was the Ministry of Education’s requirements on the design of the school’s academic blocks. These have to follow closely the specifications and budget guidelines set — similar to other government schools in Singapore that have non air-conditioned classrooms and generous ground level fields. However, SOTA, is situated in the city where there is more traffic, noise and dust; and also less social spaces and play areas. WOHA’s design solution was to create the building as a “Machine for the Wind”.

Its single-room-thick design allows cross ventilation to every classroom so that it can function with or without air-conditioning. The building façade is also lined with walls of green capers to help cut out glare and dust, dampen traffic noise, and keep the rooms cool. On the roof of SOTA is a large recreation park in the sky that also has a 400-metre running track.

“SOTA demonstrated the possibility of creating a sustainable design that meets the challenges and objectives of the brief through passive design strategies, vertical greenery, and a simple palette of materials,” says Mr Wong. “This results in a robust aesthetics that, at the same time, is cost-effective and requires minimal maintenance.”

The design of SOTA came about through WOHA’s regular feedback sessions with the school’s principal and the various Heads of Department. Besides focus group sessions at the initial stages to figure out their needs, WOHA also got its client to attend on-site viewings of visual mock-ups, samples and prototypes. The client gave their preferences on colours and textures, as well as comments on safety and general maintenance. Mr Wong says these helped to give the client a greater sense of involvement, appreciation, and ownership of the decision-making process gone into the design and construction of SOTA.

This project continues WOHA’s explorations on tropical building designs. Mr Wong says that the studio has been able to pursue this in Singapore because of the government’s active promotion of design and the city’s reputation as an effective and efficient business port, helping WOHA win projects both in Singapore and overseas. He also adds that this city gives the studio the chance to work with a pool of good designers and talents from around the world. In WOHA, one can find some 22 nationalities working together.

It is these features that make Singapore the leading city in the tropical belt, says Mr Wong, creating an ideal place to incubate, test and explore innovation, sustainability and design. “Designing is about continuity and does not stop with one project,” he says. “Each project we undertake is the test bed for one or more ideas about how to live more sustainably in the future, but always framed in the context of architecture providing daily delight to the end-user.”