A city is shaped by various historical and geographical features. A city is like a ‘living organism’ in continuous metabolism. Buildings and places in urban areas are constantly being transformed to adapt to urban development needs. In this process of continuous flux, a single historic building or a place should not be seen as heritage alone. The historic buildings/ places in dense urban settings, such as in Singapore, can influence a larger area. Several conserved buildings in Southeast Asian historic cities share common issues, such as underutilisation and low vitality, both a waste of resources and space. In response to this situation, rejuvenating the past by making it relevant and vibrant for the present and future should be the only way to revitalise the place. However, this should be done by considering various cultural, economic, social and architectural aspects. Using Capitol Singapore, a historic building complex built in the 1930s, located in the heart of the Civic District of Singapore, this paper will analyse its effectiveness as a rejuvenation project and sustain its relevance and appeal to the city centre. Capitol Singapore underwent a $1.1 billion mixed-use redevelopment from 2011-16 and won the 2016 Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Architectural Heritage Award. Based on the findings, this paper will develop a ‘Vitality Assessment Framework’ for redeveloping historic buildings in urban settings.
Wang Weiwei is pursuing her MA in Architectural Conservation at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Before joining NUS, she worked in China on conservation and redevelopment projects and brought new ‘vitality’ into areas. Her interest includes developing policies for sustainable heritage management and research on balancing the relationship between conservation and development in historic cities. Weiwei is a member of ICOMOS, Singapore.
Nikhil Joshi is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore. Educated in India, UK and Singapore, he is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, UK, and recipient of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings – Lethaby Scholarship, UK. Nikhil has been an active speaker in various conferences throughout the world and has several publications to his name. His main recent publications include Mahabodhi Temple at Bodhgaya: Constructing sacred placeness, deconstructing the ‘great case’ of 1895 (2019); and Managing change: Urban heritage and community development in historic Asian cities (2018, edited).