I know most forumers find it revolting. But, would you consider buying Golden Mile Complex? Whatever it is, can you share your thoughts about it here? The resale price for this LH property is about S$160 - 320 psf depending on its condition and size.
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Built in 1972 by Design Partnership, the Golden Mile Complex at Beach Road was originally known as the Woh Hup Complex. This "city" of layers is a sloping 16-storey mixed-use complex. I370 shops, 500 parking spaces and offices, come together in an agglomeration that is interspersed with naturally ventilated interstitial spaces connecting the various parts together.
The complex was the first here to adopt stepped terracing in order to cut down noise pollution and to reduce the impact of its scale from the busy Nicoll Highway. It affords the apartments and offices an unobstructed panorama of sky and sea and adequate terraces for developing small sun-lit gardens. On the northwest side, the stepped form allows the floor above to shield those below from the high temperatures of midday sun. Passing through the Nicoll Highway, right after the Merdeka Bridge, it is hard to miss the stepped terrace; it looks like a hill cut out diagonally to harness the energies of the sun. A closer look reveals that indeed, each floor does achieve equal amount of sunlight. The original open balconies however, have been altered considerably. A certain sense of chaos now seems to explode from the balconies with an array of ad hoc, add-on roofs of different materials. A place for plants inside an open balcony is reduced to potted shrubs dotting a narrow space, like some outcasts outside the windows.
A totally different scene awaits one at the corridors of the residential units from the 16th storey downwards. Time seems to pause, observing port-hole windows, sauntering along deserted corridors and descending stairways. Entrances of some units can be seen to have 'implanted' figments of their idiosyncratic taste in the form of granite, lion statuettes, and gold trimmings, totally ignoring the original port-hole windows and unpretentious ceramic tile flooring.
Descending the diagonal stairways at northwest side reveals the intentions of the architect. Each descend, which is aligned to shade the floor above from the sunlight, leads to the roof of the podium block - a very wide multi-purpose space bounded with chain-link fencing. Originally designed as a space for recreational and communal use (it still has markings of a badminton court) that allowed mutual surveillance from the apartments above, thus surpassing sense of community/communicability in Corbusier's roof terrace at the Unite d'Habitation. Now this space is desolate. Its ancestry however is traced not to the Unite but to the "vast corridor", a semi-public space of the Japanese Metabolist movement, which were assigned the role of connectors between public and private areas. These experiments included those of Kurokawa and Kikutake on the problems of group dwellings or mass housing in treelike, slablike and layered mass housing were known to the designers of the Golden Mile. Obviously, some form of importation of ideas from Singapore's outside has occurred.
Just below of this vast corridor are offices ranging from law firms to import/export traders. They are set against criss-crossing staircases and corridors. Like a sundial, tall columns and stepped staircases cast shadows during the day in this interconnected space.
The void that penetrates through the building was designed to bring sunlight from the 'vast corridor' to the shopping area below. Because of fire safety requirements, the void is covered by a lightweight angled metal roof, cutting off all natural light to the hustle and bustle of the shopping below. Penetrating this separator, one is in the shopping zone. Once in the shopping arcade, the atmosphere changes drastically. This is now yet another site of importation. The amazing shopping area teems with a life that makes one think one were in Thailand. For the grocery shops, hawker stalls, coffee bars, barbers, to even a supermarket, are largely patronised by the transient Thai workers in Singapore. Even the signages are in Thai. Passing through grocery stores that sell all kinds of meat, vegetables and preserved food and the ever-present smell of lemongrass becomes quite a feast to the senses. Restaurants offering authentic Thai food (probably prepared by Thai cooks) are located right at the front next to travel agents and moneychangers. There are also several major bus companies offering a wide range of bus routes to all parts of Peninsular Malaysia up to northern Thailand. As a site of embarkation to the lands up north, it is also a site of disembarkation for foreign incursions into Singapore from the north. What is foreign serves to disrupt the boundaries of the resident. Identities, cultures in the broader sense are negotiated and sometimes threatened.
But for all the incessant strains of Thai music, and the continuous hum of native Thai; it takes just one ride up the lift through that thin metal layer, to change all that. It is remarkable that, this single architectural element separating the otherwise continuous atrium space potently sets up an acute sense of duality; functionally, experientially and ideologically between the above and the below, the north and the south. Ironically, this segregation of the upper areas from the shopping areas also ensures that the Metabolist dream remains unfulfilled.
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Here's how Golden Mile Complex look like
Here's the current resale prices
Area(Sqm), Price($), Price per sqf, Date of Option
86 300000 $324.08 Oct-05
86 245000 $264.66 Jul-05
204 360000 $163.95 Jun-05
807 1630000 $187.65 Apr-05
204 520000 $236.81 Apr-05
--------- From here ---------
Built in 1972 by Design Partnership, the Golden Mile Complex at Beach Road was originally known as the Woh Hup Complex. This "city" of layers is a sloping 16-storey mixed-use complex. I370 shops, 500 parking spaces and offices, come together in an agglomeration that is interspersed with naturally ventilated interstitial spaces connecting the various parts together.
The complex was the first here to adopt stepped terracing in order to cut down noise pollution and to reduce the impact of its scale from the busy Nicoll Highway. It affords the apartments and offices an unobstructed panorama of sky and sea and adequate terraces for developing small sun-lit gardens. On the northwest side, the stepped form allows the floor above to shield those below from the high temperatures of midday sun. Passing through the Nicoll Highway, right after the Merdeka Bridge, it is hard to miss the stepped terrace; it looks like a hill cut out diagonally to harness the energies of the sun. A closer look reveals that indeed, each floor does achieve equal amount of sunlight. The original open balconies however, have been altered considerably. A certain sense of chaos now seems to explode from the balconies with an array of ad hoc, add-on roofs of different materials. A place for plants inside an open balcony is reduced to potted shrubs dotting a narrow space, like some outcasts outside the windows.
A totally different scene awaits one at the corridors of the residential units from the 16th storey downwards. Time seems to pause, observing port-hole windows, sauntering along deserted corridors and descending stairways. Entrances of some units can be seen to have 'implanted' figments of their idiosyncratic taste in the form of granite, lion statuettes, and gold trimmings, totally ignoring the original port-hole windows and unpretentious ceramic tile flooring.
Descending the diagonal stairways at northwest side reveals the intentions of the architect. Each descend, which is aligned to shade the floor above from the sunlight, leads to the roof of the podium block - a very wide multi-purpose space bounded with chain-link fencing. Originally designed as a space for recreational and communal use (it still has markings of a badminton court) that allowed mutual surveillance from the apartments above, thus surpassing sense of community/communicability in Corbusier's roof terrace at the Unite d'Habitation. Now this space is desolate. Its ancestry however is traced not to the Unite but to the "vast corridor", a semi-public space of the Japanese Metabolist movement, which were assigned the role of connectors between public and private areas. These experiments included those of Kurokawa and Kikutake on the problems of group dwellings or mass housing in treelike, slablike and layered mass housing were known to the designers of the Golden Mile. Obviously, some form of importation of ideas from Singapore's outside has occurred.
Just below of this vast corridor are offices ranging from law firms to import/export traders. They are set against criss-crossing staircases and corridors. Like a sundial, tall columns and stepped staircases cast shadows during the day in this interconnected space.
The void that penetrates through the building was designed to bring sunlight from the 'vast corridor' to the shopping area below. Because of fire safety requirements, the void is covered by a lightweight angled metal roof, cutting off all natural light to the hustle and bustle of the shopping below. Penetrating this separator, one is in the shopping zone. Once in the shopping arcade, the atmosphere changes drastically. This is now yet another site of importation. The amazing shopping area teems with a life that makes one think one were in Thailand. For the grocery shops, hawker stalls, coffee bars, barbers, to even a supermarket, are largely patronised by the transient Thai workers in Singapore. Even the signages are in Thai. Passing through grocery stores that sell all kinds of meat, vegetables and preserved food and the ever-present smell of lemongrass becomes quite a feast to the senses. Restaurants offering authentic Thai food (probably prepared by Thai cooks) are located right at the front next to travel agents and moneychangers. There are also several major bus companies offering a wide range of bus routes to all parts of Peninsular Malaysia up to northern Thailand. As a site of embarkation to the lands up north, it is also a site of disembarkation for foreign incursions into Singapore from the north. What is foreign serves to disrupt the boundaries of the resident. Identities, cultures in the broader sense are negotiated and sometimes threatened.
But for all the incessant strains of Thai music, and the continuous hum of native Thai; it takes just one ride up the lift through that thin metal layer, to change all that. It is remarkable that, this single architectural element separating the otherwise continuous atrium space potently sets up an acute sense of duality; functionally, experientially and ideologically between the above and the below, the north and the south. Ironically, this segregation of the upper areas from the shopping areas also ensures that the Metabolist dream remains unfulfilled.
------------------------------------------------
Here's how Golden Mile Complex look like
Here's the current resale prices
Area(Sqm), Price($), Price per sqf, Date of Option
86 300000 $324.08 Oct-05
86 245000 $264.66 Jul-05
204 360000 $163.95 Jun-05
807 1630000 $187.65 Apr-05
204 520000 $236.81 Apr-05