d+a | Issue 120 • 2021

65 I n the eastern end of Singapore, some five kilometres away from Changi Airport, rises a new building that stands out yet blends in. This remarkable piece of architecture has been likened by a leading travel magazine to something Norman Foster or Zaha Hadid would have done. In fact, it is by a boutique-sized Italian studio, Mercurio Design Lab (MDL), in collaboration with project architect AM Architects. Dusit Thani Laguna Singapore, formerly known as the Laguna Golf and Country Club, is sited within two championship golf courses with no less than four lakes, greens with undulations that resemble a moonscape, and clusters of sculpted sand bunkers. It was this charged image that inspired MDL to design the project, which contains a hotel and new clubhouse. THE STRENGTH OF A LINE The most unique feature is no doubt its roof, which reflects the silhouette of its surrounds, giving it that all-important contextuality that is so often missing in architecture projects. “Its story can be told with a single pencil stroke, a simple line that rises from one end and falls on the other, serving as a simple yet powerful image for the building,” says Massimo Mercurio, MDL’s CEO and Managing Director. “I take pride in our studio being able to craft this because the design managed to fulfil many important architectural principles within a powerfully simple, geometrical yet fluid description. “It thrusts up out of the landscape, sweeping up from the ground to create a shelter for the hotel, before surging on to cover the existing clubhouse.” The swooping roof doubles up as the body of the building, giving it an edgy and contemporary architecture that MDL is increasingly known for. 01