Safdie told reporters that the apartment complex was his first to be demolished and that he was “completely killed” by the news. We are talking about two houses "Ardmore", built in 1980-1986 near the park of the same name, just half an hour's drive from the location of the future casino designed by the same Moshe Safdie. The second name of the buildings was "Habitat", in honor of the famous complex "Habitat 67", which brought fame to the then very young architect at the 1967 International Exhibition in Montreal. It was the world's first large prefabricated reinforced concrete structure, and Singapore's 17-story towers represent a more compact version.
Each of them has 32 apartments of different sizes, with one-level apartments alternating with two-storey ones, which made it possible to give the facades of buildings a sculptural expressiveness, and to provide each apartment with a spacious terrace. The towers are connected by a common park with swimming pools and courts.
Both the Montreal and Singaporean projects are based on Safdie's thesis, where he developed the idea of interlocking block houses. But if the Canadian building is still one of the most popular residential complexes in Montreal, then the owners of the Singaporean one do not consider it profitable enough. In its place, it is planned to build two residential buildings twice as high. According to Moshe Safdie, if his towers were in New York or Boston, they would still be considered elite housing. In Singapore, with a rapidly growing population and its high density, the main goal of developers is more square meters.
