Imagine if this garden behind me was your office lobby.
Well, for companies like Facebook and Prudential, it now pretty much is.
This is a new development project in Singapore that rethinks
the way that urban living and natural habitats can be combined.
And it could set the tone for what future buildings might look like.
The idea of a mixed-use development is that you can do pretty much anything you
need to, in just one area. Which is also a way to minimize carbon footprint.
So right now I’m standing in a sky terrace, which is connected to an office building.
But behind me you see a residential tower with a swimming pool.
Elsewhere you’ll find a gym, coffee shop, restaurants and
there’s even a grocery store in the basement.
Marina One is located in Singapore’s Central Business District.
The $5.1 billion dollar project is a joint venture between the investment
arms of Malaysia and Singapore as part of a land-swap deal.
Its architect is Christoph Ingenhoven.
His architecture firm is responsible for projects like Sydney’s 1 Bligh Street
and Luxembourg’s European Investment Bank.
But this is so much more than just a building.
This is what’s known as Green Heart. It’s the nerve center of Marina One.
Part of Singapore’s vision is to be a city in a garden. What does that mean?
It means creating more natural habitats and embedding them into urban living.
All in all, there’s more than 160,000 plants here in this development.
This is one of several sky terraces and there’s so much biodiversity here.
In fact, I’m told that it’s the equivalent of six Olympic-sized swimming pools.
This waterfall uses a special technology that prevents water from
splashing when it reaches the base. It also has quite a calming effect.
Concrete jungle.
It appears I’m going against upstream right now.
The development is LEED Platinum certified. That means it was designed and
constructed in a way that reduces CO2 emissions, water and electricity consumption.
The building orientation and facade helps to reduce heat gain and glare inside the offices, by about 20%.
And all this greenery also helps reduce heat and improve air quality.
I’m told by the developers creating an eco-friendly development better positions
Marina One to attract multinational companies, who typically prefer
signing leases on environmentally friendly buildings. And it worked.
In addition to being Facebook’s Asia headquarters, it’s also
home to the likes of PwC and Swiss private bank Julius Baer.
And what building wouldn’t be complete these days without a co-working space?
Here’s the view from Facebook’s cafeteria 30 floors from the top.
But for employees who don’t have a cafeteria in their office,
they can choose from a number of food places both in the complex and nearby.
It’s almost lunchtime. It’s about 10 minutes until noon here.
So you can see a lot of employees are heading out to go grab lunch.
It’s kind of a weird sensation being here.
You’re not quite sure if you’re going for a hike or something,
or if you have a meeting in 10 minutes. And it’s an interesting feeling.
Aside from the office and retail space, two of the four towers have been designated as residential units.
Between the two towers there’s more than 1,000 residential units.
And they range in size, this is what a two bedroom looks like.
While prices range for both renting and buying, it’s certainly not cheap.
A two bedroom condo here is listed for sale at $2 million.
I’m standing on the 17th floor right now of a balcony of a four bedroom unit.
The view?
You have the sea over here, and over there you have the iconic Marina Bay Sands.
Typically, three bedrooms or four bedroom units in this residential tower
will even have their own private elevator entrance.
So you simply get out of this elevator. This is your own space and then you go inside.