I have been staying in Yishun since i was six years old and most part of it was spent at my parents' place until i got my own flat about four years ago. My parents' apartment faces Malaysia and before the primary school was built, we could see Malaysia and sometimes, the fireworks during festive periods like Chinese New Year.
Many memories were made at the green patch in front; during the windy season, we would bring down our kites and fly them way higher than the surrounding housing blocks. The space was also occasionally used for religious activities like funerals, temple ceremonies etc.
In early 2010, there was a sudden hive of activity at the field and before we knew it, hoarding was put up with the greenery slowly decimated into the mess above.
Temporary container offices were built shortly with large boulders brought in.
In Singapore, major construction works are required to put up a board outside the site that would indicate information like project title, reference number, developer, architect, builder, and expected date of completion.
Project Title: Proposed new erection of public development comprising 1 block of 15-storey residential building (total 392 units) with open carpark, community facilities and ESS (short for electrical substation).
15-storey block?!?! That would literally mean my parents' block would be blocked by this taller block right smack in front us! p.s. that's quite a number of blocks.
Expected date of completion was supposed to be the first quarter of 2012; hm.... can a block of flat be completed in less than two years?! That's insanely fast right? Not to mention that Singapore is fraught with extreme weather changes which would bring thunderstorm all of sudden when it was all bright or sunny just ten minutes ago!
In less than six months, the first floor was already being built.
Before 2011 kicked in, the builder had already completed about nine floors! My parents' main worry was whether this would hinder the strong wind that the flat was fortunate to receive for the past 20 over years.
I always wonder how they manage to build the cranes so high up. Maybe a civil engineer would care to comment? And i super respect the crane operators; it would have been unimaginably scary for people with a phobia for height.
Finally, the 15th floor was about to be completed. It's already the first quarter of 2012 and while i still found speed-to-build amazing; i doubt they could handover to Housing Development Board (HDB) within one or two months.
At about the same time, the existing block next door was undergoing the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) which aims to provide greater convenience for residents on each floor of the older housing blocks. p.s. a bit of background, the lifts in the older blocks would only stop every 5-6 floors and this proves to be a problem with an ageing population.
Colours were up yet the space in front, likely the open car park, was still in its beginning stage of construction. As it doesn't involve much building, i guess it wouldn't take too long.
This was November 2011; the carpark was already operational although the flats in the block remained unoccupied. From my understanding, the block would consist of 1 or 2-room rental flats.
Life was finally injected to the block at the end of 2012. This post took a long time as i kind of forgot to blog about it until i was organising the 158,000 photographs took over the years!
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