Oasia Hotel Downtown: WOHA and Patricia Urquiola Bring the Garden into the High-Rise
Completed in 2016 in Singapore's Tanjong Pagar district, Oasia Hotel Downtown brings two distinct design practices into a productive conversation. WOHA shaped the architecture; Patricia Urquiola developed the interiors and outdoor living spaces. The project is recognizable from the city by its red, planted envelope, but its more interesting proposition concerns how a tall building can accommodate the everyday pleasures of a garden.
The design unfolds through a sequence of thresholds: between the street and an elevated terrace, a furnished room and a planted edge, a swimming pool and the open sky. These transitions give the project its particular character. Landscape becomes part of the spatial experience of the hotel. [1] [2] [3]
WOHA's elevated grounds
WOHA organized the tower into distinct strata, with sky gardens serving its different uses. The architects describe these communal levels as multiple elevated grounds, providing places to gather and relax within the vertical building. Their large openings give the tower a porous profile and establish gardens as substantial pieces of its plan.
That decision changes the relationship between building height and human scale. A tall hotel can easily make its circulation feel repetitive. Here, a garden introduces another spatial register: an open horizon, a planted foreground and room for social activity. The architecture gives Urquiola settings that already have a strong sense of place, allowing the interiors to participate in a larger sequence. [1]
Urquiola's color and furniture
For the 314-room hotel, Urquiola drew on Singapore's tropical setting and cultural diversity. Her studio identifies bespoke furniture and an extensive color palette as central to the interiors. Sky terraces, restaurants, cocktail bars and gardens occupy the openings within WOHA's structure, extending the idea of a hotel room into a family of shared places.
Color gives a furnished area definition while allowing its edges to remain open to the surrounding space. The furniture also establishes a more immediate scale within the tower's large volumes. Together, color and furniture establish an interior language built around occupation: where someone sits, what they look toward and how one gathering relates to another. [2]
Water as an interior surface
The pool terraces make that collaboration especially clear. The project's tile supplier, AGROB BUCHTAL, documents pools on the 21st and 27th floors, with Chroma tiles used in their design. At the club level, light and dark blue tiles form a chevron pattern; shallow pools sit alongside the main swimming area. Higher up, planting and the tower's screen help define the rooftop setting.
The patterned pool introduces a graphic plane into a space whose other elements include foliage, furniture and distant buildings. Water adds reflection and movement to that composition. It is an example of a detail doing spatial work: the floor of the pool helps give an outdoor room its visual center. [3]
The garden as a room
Oasia is most compelling when considered at these overlapping scales. WOHA establishes the large openings and shared gardens. Urquiola makes their occupation legible through color, furnishings and the treatment of surfaces. Each practice contributes to the relationship between enclosure and exposure.
The room extends beyond its conventional boundaries to include planting, open air and views across the city. A planted edge, a canopy overhead and a group of seats can provide a powerful sense of place even when the skyline remains visible. At Oasia, the garden becomes a recurring room within the tower, giving vertical hospitality a richly varied sequence of spaces. These shared spaces receive the same degree of design attention as the private guestroom, each with its own atmosphere and purpose. [1] [2]
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