LETTERS FROM SINGAPORE

Tropical modernism, done properly, in a city that believes design should be good for everyone. Letters From Singapore is about building for heat and greenery: rattan weavers, terrazzo makers and the trades that survived the rebuild, interiors designed around air and shade, and architecture other cities are quietly studying. We look at the Golden Mile Complex, the stepped concrete megastructure once called an eyesore in parliament and now protected as a national monument of its era. Plus the hotels that made the garden city idea real, and the hawker tables worth every minute of the queue.

Each edition carries the city’s palette, taken here from terrazzo chips and Golden Mile concrete; notes on sourcing in the tropics, including what survives the humidity; and a letter to the city at the back.