Clarke Quay

Clarke Quay was being remade as a night destination, part of a wider revitalisation of Singapore's centre. Will Alsop's tensile enclosures gave the precinct climate control without touching the heritage buildings they sheltered — and LDP found the lighting inside the engineering. The foil print developed for the ETFE membranes works twice: by day it shades against the tropical sun; by night the same surface turns reflector, washing the circulation below in indirect light, no luminaires imposed on the old façades. The move was to let a small proportion of that light leak through the membrane rather than contain it. That leak became the signature — the glow that reads Clarke Quay as a place after dark, and the model other revitalisations have followed since.