JUROR 2018

As Principal and Creative Director of Tierra Design, Franklin Po is passionate about the holistic integration of landscape and architecture. Franklin creates viable amalgamations of these allied disciplines, removing the divide between the built form as monument and the landscape as garden, in order to enhance the quality of the environment for its users.

Franklin’s journey in design began after completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology at the University of California, Irvine. Thereafter, he attended the UCLA Graduate School of Architecture and Planning on a Welton Beckett Architects Fellowship, graduating in 1973 with a Masters Degree in Architecture with Design Excellence. Franklin practised for the next 20 years in Los Angeles.

Franklin’s work in California included the Tom Bradley International Terminal, UNOCAL Oil Museum, Carl Bean Aids Hospice and Angelus Plaza Elderly Housing. All have won AlA Awards of Excellence.

Franklin returned to Singapore, and founded Tierra Design in 1995. Informed by his training as an architect, his work at Tierra incorporates landscape architecture into architecture and urban planning as a hybrid called Landscape Urbanism.

Tierra has become known as a champion for urban vertical greening. Key projects include the 15m high, 300m long hanging green tapestry at Changi International Airport Terminal 3, and the Loft condominium, featuring the first strips of vertical planting onto a granite clad wall in Singapore.

Other works include the landscape design for Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, the Marina Barrage and PARKROYAL on Pickering, which was highlighted at the World Green Roof Congress 2015 by Patrick Blanc as the one truly integrated green building he had encountered.

Franklin consciously endeavours to push the boundaries of landscape design beyond mere accessory or decoration. In the pursuit of Excellence, he finds importance in benefitting society as a whole.