d+a | Issue 124 • 2022

/ OFFICE / 40 ST JAMES POWER STATION HAS BEEN SENSITIVELY RESTORED AND REFURBISHED BY W ARCHITECTS, IN CLOSE COLLABORATION WITH STUDIO LAPIS. FULLY RECHARGED STORY LOW SHI PING / PHOTOGRAPHY EDWARD HENDRICKS T he last time I was at St James Power Station was in the noughties, when it was still an entertainment complex. I remember being vaguely aware I was entering a historical building, but once inside, the interiors were disorientating with its partitions, low lighting and loud, pulsating music – in short, they were completely divorced from the architecture. Earlier this year, more than a decade later, I was invited to see how it had been restored and adapted to become an office by W Architects, in close collaboration with conservation specialist Studio Lapis. Multi-national tech company Dyson eventually took on the tenancy and moved in, after deciding the building would become its global headquarters. As I step through a narrow glass door that serves as the entrance, I am floored by the transformation that had taken place. An atrium opens up immediately after, soaring four storeys high to the roof 01-02. St James Power Station today stands proudly along Sentosa Gateway, visible in all directions thanks to a clarified foreground to emphasise the presence of the monument. where the original trusses arranged in a geometrical pattern are visible. A pair of steel stanchions stand like sentinels flanking the reception, so pristinely restored I can easily read the name of the company that manufactured it, Lanarkshire Steel Of Scotland. Daylight streams in through large fenestrations on the right, illuminating the interiors, especially the white oak engineered timber-wrapped edges of the floor slabs that make up each level of the office. In contrast to its past life cloaked in mystery and disorder, the current iteration is like a friendly open book fresh off the printing press. STORIED PAST First completed in 1927, St James Power Station was responsible for powering the Colonial Town of Singapore and some of its suburbs for almost 50 years, before it was decommissioned in 1976. 01 02