Dezeen Building of the Year — Residential 2024

Residential

Singapore 2024

Vertically Inhabited Landscape

Nexus Tower

"Architecture must metabolize its climate, not fight it."

"Architecture must metabolize its climate, not fight it."

Client

Kaia Development Pte Ltd

Floor Area

38,700 m²

Duration

54 months

Status

Completed

Kaia challenges Singapore's residential tower orthodoxy by treating each floor as a distinct landscape rather than a repeated floor plate. Forty sky villas are staggered in section so no two units share the same orientation or ceiling height. Each villa extends into a deep-cantilevered garden — an inhabited threshold between interior and sky — planted with native species selected for their heat-island-reduction properties.

The structural solution — a concrete core with cantilevering steel transfer plates at every third level — required close collaboration between our computational design team and the contractor's fabrication engineers. The result is a building that appears to defy gravity while meeting Singapore's stringent seismic and wind-load codes. Net-zero energy certification was achieved through a 2,400 m² rooftop photovoltaic array and greywater recycling throughout.

Nexus Tower — Site Photography, 2024

Recognition

Dezeen Building of the Year — Residential 2024

Disciplines

—Architecture

— Structural Design

— Environmental Eng.

— Landscape

ARKTIS

Architecture & Technology Studio

We build structures that stand at the edge of what is technically possible and humanly necessary.

Get in Touch

Press & Media

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Address

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