TPOD

When I look back these past forty years, first as an architect in Los Angeles and then as an architect and landscape architect in Singapore, I consider how fortunate I was to return to the country of my birth in 1993.

Lee Kuan Yew’s vision for Singapore to become “The City in a Garden” as part of his nation building mandate coincided not only with my personal belief about integrative design and the preservation of biodiversity, but also with my joining Tierra in 1995; a small landscape firm. Little did I realise then that this was the beginning of a journey of opportunities I could never have imagined and for which I remain grateful. Tierra has had great support from many people for twenty-five years – from clients who value what we achieve for their projects, to our talented partners, and colleagues of like-minded designers in allied fields who provide collaborative expertise to make Tierra what it is today.

For me, the greatest challenge are the effects of global warming and how as designers we must own responsibility for more thoughtful solutions to environmental design. At Tierra, we have devised a set of principles that we call RIGBY which incorporates practical, sustainable and resilient design strategies into all of our projects. For our multi-disciplinary team of Architects, Landscape Architects and Planners at Tierra, this is our commitment and responsibility with every project that we undertake.