Most public spaces have two identities: day time, and night time.
Visually, there are obvious differences – the difference of light, visibility, and colour. But the most sophisticated placemaking also takes into account a place’s personality shift, as day becomes dusk. It asks the questions: how will people use this space when evening descends? how will they feel about it?
In Singapore, aesthetics lead personality. Here, darkness becomes the evening’s greatest asset; an opportunity to light the city and turn it into something other. Business districts are lit for bar culture, shopping malls are aglow with restaurant promenades, and gardens bloom into night-time spectaculars.
The ingredients were already here – those important questions already answered – but it is the changing of the light that hallows the city’s nightly transformation.
