Discovery Walk at 313@somerset - reimagining an outdoor street as the link to Singapore’s new Live Nation venue.
Discovery Walk is the outdoor F&B street alongside 313@somerset, connecting Orchard Road to the mall and to Somerset MRT.
Process
Pre-Concept
Concept Design
Schematic Design
Detail Design
Tender Documentation
Tender Management
Construction Support
Guideline Package
Post-Completion Review
Studio X was invited by Lendlease to reimagine Discovery Walk, the outdoor alfresco F&B street running alongside 313@somerset on Orchard Road and linking the mall to Somerset MRT. The brief was to remake it as a landmark for all ages, holding its own identity alongside the new Live Nation event venue rising immediately next door.
We were asked to conceptualise without a stated capital budget. Rather than guess at one, we made the budget part of the design.
The street had diagnosable problems, not vague ones: dead spots, degraded finishes, signage lacking impact despite its size, and a canopy that read as municipal rather than human in scale.
(Approach)More than a walkway. A sense of journey, a landmark F&B destination, and a gateway to the venue next door.
Canopy and wall treatments ranged from a single suspended light element, through a kinetic sculpture moving with the wind, to a timber-effect veil wrapping both wall and soffit. The grey wall could become a commissioned mural, changed seasonally or opened as a competition for a local artist, a lightweight trellis, or full cladding with integrated planting.
Tenant control moved from a unified awning line, through a common open canopy, to branded pavilions set to a fixed height and signage position, to shopfronts reworked as operable openings spilling onto a shared landscaped deck. The walkway used colour before it used cost, with transparent elements casting coloured shadows in daylight, before scaling up to lit, interactive archways. Entrances were treated as thresholds rather than doors, with defined portals, setbacks and signage at human height.
Alongside these sat The Village, an affordable kiosk system of carts, stands and kiosks on flexible leases, letting the landlord trial new operators at low risk and give the street a character that changes over time. The scheme was not built and the site remains undeveloped.
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