RATIONALE

As the world's busiest port, handling over 20% of the shipping containers throughout the world, Singapore's port and the containers that pass through it make up a critical aspect of Singapore's history, economy and its connection to the rest of the globe. Over this last period of globalization, Singapore's port and its shipping containers have made the world and the global economy a much smaller place.

Over the past few decades, the world has developed a growing awareness of some serious issues that confront the planet such as pollution, environmental degradation, scarcity of raw materials and the depletion of energy supplies. As a result, we are beginning to recognize the need to live with a much smaller environmental footprint. This new reality will ask us to reevaluate how we approach global commerce, how we use resources and how we can best recycle and re-use what we already have.

Our garden design acknowledges how even the world's largest shipping container destination may soon be shaped by change and other forces beyond anyone's control. When we are faced with change, we have the ability to choose how we will adapt to meet the demands of a new reality. A smaller, greener world economy may demand that we find ways to re-use and repurpose what we already have as it may be too costly and energy intensive to import or manufacture new items.

Shipping containers are commonplace in Singapore and old and discarded containers have often been used in usually very rudimentary ways to provide storage, shelter and crude work spaces. Eventually, it may be possible or even necessary to use shipping containers in more meaningful and longer lasting fashions. Our garden uses a children's playhouse fabricated from a used shipping container as a way of illustrating how such a common industrial item can be given a use, a different purpose and a complete re-birth as a piece of infrastructure in a modern and changing world.

The old, abandoned containers sit opposite the newly repurposed shipping container illustrating this stark contrast of what will happen if we do not change to meet the demands of the future. In the end, nothing is permanent except for natures' beauty, persistence and ability to reclaim anything that we will leave behind.