S’poreans’ dreams for nation’s future go on show
SINGAPORE — Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats float in the sky, while drones deliver fresh vegetables and herbs to homes, and driverless cars rule the roads.
These are some of ideas dreamt up by Singaporeans in response to a call for ideas for the Republic’s next chapter, which will be on display at the Future of Us exhibition.
The exhibition, which opens next Tuesday (Dec 1), caps off a year of Golden Jubilee celebrations. It has drawn keen response, with nearly 85 per cent of the tickets for December snapped up after they became available on Nov 1 on the exhibition website. Close to 200,000 tickets will be made available for advance booking every month till March, but walk-ins are also allowed, though these visitors may have to wait if the exhibition is full. Admission is free.
Spanning 6,000sqm at Gardens By The Bay, the exhibition has six zones spread over two outdoor spaces and four domes, on which videos will be projected to create an immersive experience.
The exhibition organising committee hopes the ideas on display will inspire the public. Said Mr Gene Tan, the exhibition’s creative director at a media preview today (Nov 24): “We hope every Singaporean who visits (the exhibition) will be inspired to start thinking, sharing and even get actively involved in the future.. to write the next chapter of the Singapore story together.”
For instance, in the Home Tomorrow dome, visitors are invited to explore possibilities for the living environments of the future, featuring smart design and technology. The exhibit introduces concepts like green cities and self-powered HDB towns, where waste is sucked down from homes via automated vacuum tubes into underground collection centres to be converted into biofuel for cooking, taking the idea of pneumatic waste systems being built in new HDB towns a step further.
In another scenario, a senior citizen who has fallen down at home can get a virtual caregiver to rate her pain level, with the smart clothing she is wearing transmitting information on her condition to the virtual caregiver. Meanwhile, a real caregiver would have been alerted to come down to assess and treat her injuries using tools like a portable scanner and an instant spray-on cast.
Finally, visitors enter a dome meant to resemble a galaxy strewn with constellations, where they are invited to pen down their wishes and watch as their dreams “float” up to the sky and form constantly changing “word clouds”.
More than 100 public, private and people sector organisations were consulted for ideas by the organising committee, and nearly 15,000 wishes were selected to be displayed as quotes around the exhibition, or incorporated into the exhibits. The cost of the holding the exhibition was not revealed.
The Future of Us exhibition will be officially launched by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong this Sunday, and is set to run till March 8, 2016.
The organisers hope to reach about 700,000 visitors during its run. Tickets for January will be made available on the exhibition website (http://www.thefutureofus.sg/) on Dec 1.
