A contemplative blue-hour view of the Guesthouse and Reflection Pond at the Japanese Garden in Jurong Lake Gardens, offering breathing room within a dense city (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Singapore’s newest parks point to a subtle but meaningful shift in how green space is imagined. Increasingly, these landscapes are functioning as extensions of our neighbourhoods, transport corridors and everyday life.
From large-scale garden reinventions to smaller community insertions, a new generation of public green spaces is reshaping what it means to live with nature in a high-density city-state.
Here are five parks and landscape projects that reflect this evolving relationship between urban life and green space.
Completed in 2024 with the long-awaited reopening of its Chinese and Japanese Gardens, Jurong Lake Gardens has taken on renewed significance as Singapore’s first national gardens in the heartlands.
A contemplative blue-hour view of the Guesthouse and Reflection Pond at the Japanese Garden in Jurong Lake Gardens, offering breathing room within a dense city
While the wider 90ha landscape offers wetlands, boardwalks and expansive lawns, it is the reimagined Japanese Garden that stands out. Thoughtfully restored with serene bridges, sunken pathways and carefully framed pavilions, it introduces a quieter, more contemplative rhythm within the larger park.
At the Sunken Garden, warm evening light spills across quiet paths and lush greens. The cenote-inspired centrepiece doubles as a rainwater harvesting system. (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Here, design leans less on spectacle and more on atmosphere, inviting slower movement and deeper engagement with space. More than a large-scale destination, Jurong Lake Gardens demonstrates how major public landscapes can balance grandeur with intimacy.
The Water Lily Pavilion at sunset, with still water and fading light casting the Japanese Garden in a moment of calm (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Also in the heartlands, Tampines Boulevard Park feels less like a destination and more like an everyday green spine within a growing residential district.
A sunny green corridor with open lawns, tree-lined paths and a bright tri-coloured children’s cycling track (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Stretching across Tampines Avenue 12 and Tampines Street 62, it integrates play spaces, cycling paths and lawns directly into the rhythms of new-town life. Its significance lies in this accessibility, where residents encounter greenery, sunrise and sunset just beyond their doorsteps.
Residents at the Tampines GreenVerge Build-To-Order project stepping out into greenery that extends from the park directly to the foot of their homes (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Rather than separating nature from housing, it folds green space into daily routines, suggesting that future parks may increasingly function as infrastructure as much as recreation.
Broad stairs lead to a curved, cocoon-like viewing deck, its warm earthy hues drawing the eye amid the verdant grounds where park and residential life meet (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Tucked along the Rail Corridor’s southern stretch, the Buona Vista community node debuted in April 2024 and represents a smaller but equally meaningful direction in urban greening.
At 1.6ha, it prioritises proximity over scale — weaving playgrounds, fitness spaces and ecological features into a transit-adjacent environment.
Cyclists pass through pockets of green space, which connect work, recreation and commute. The community node also features inclusive spaces for play and cultural events. (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Rather than functioning as a major park, it operates as hyperlocal green infrastructure, showing how even compact spaces can strengthen everyday connections between work, commute and nature. It is located between The Metropolis and Elementum, near Buona Vista MRT Station.
Opened in September 2024, Bidadari Park transforms a historically layered site into one of Singapore’s most contemplative new green spaces. Retaining woodland habitats while introducing Alkaff Lake and gentle walking trails, it balances ecological preservation with public use.
A majestic, preserved rain tree stands proudly on a carved-out island in the middle of Alkaff Lake. The lake also plays an important role in preventing flash floods during heavy rainfall. (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
The picturesque lake anchors the vibrant 13ha park, which drew inspiration from the Hundred Acre Wood, the fictional home of Winnie the Pooh.
Bidadari’s identity carries an unusual emotional resonance, where memory, reinvention and biodiversity coexist. It is a clear example of how landscape can acknowledge the past while shaping new forms of urban life.
At Bidadari Park, a preschool class explores the nest-shaped observation deck sitting at the water’s edge — as nature and community life intertwine (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
At HarbourFront, King’s Dock Park offers a distinctly urban interpretation of green space. Built around adaptive waterfront reuse, it transforms former maritime infrastructure into promenades and public leisure space.
Less pastoral than traditional parks, it instead explores how industrial histories can be repurposed into contemporary recreational environments. In land-scarce Singapore, this type of waterfront landscape widens the possibilities of how the public can access and experience nature in a city.
The unique waterfront recreational space at King’s Dock Park combines a tranquil haven with coastal landscaping, cycling links and observation points for city and sea views (Photo: Shiya Creative Studio)
Together, these projects reveal that Singapore’s parks are no longer moving in a single direction. Some reclaim history, while others embed themselves into dense housing estates or transport systems.
What connects them is a broader evolution: green space is becoming less about recreation alone, and more about integration into everyday urban life.
Kevin Siyuan, director of Shiya Creative Studio, is an architectural photographer and short-film director with a background in urban planning.