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Kartini Omar is group director of parks development and Jurong Lake Gardens at the National Parks Board of Singapore (NParks). Her work involves the development of parks and green corridors across Singapore.  She has a passion and keen eye for plants and greenery that she developed while working at NParks’ plant nursery. She also co-authored 1001 Garden Plants in Singapore, which aims to increase knowledge of and interest in plants, as well as seed a gardening culture in Singapore. 

This interview was conducted in June as part of a series designed to celebrate park visionaries and share inspiring and practical insights into their perspectives, challenges, and advice. Follow the series to learn from developers, planners, and other leaders creating innovative parks.

Kartini Omar is group director of parks development and Jurong Lake Gardens at the National Parks Board of Singapor. (NParks)

UL: Parks can mean different things to different people depending on their experiences. How do you define a park?

Omar: To me, a park is firstly and simply a green space that people can go to either individually or with family and friends to reap the positive effects of nature.  It’s a place for respite as well as activities that improve health and quality of life.  More than 80 percent of Singaporeans live in high rise buildings, so parks are extremely important as communal spaces that provide access to nature and its benefits.

We have “therapeutic gardens” that are specially designed to facilitate visitors’ interaction with nature and provide mental health benefits. We are doing therapeutic horticulture to improve cognitive functions and help with conditions like dementia, depression, and anxiety.  Our greening work includes efforts to restore and enhance habitats, connect parks via green corridors, and integrate nature into our urban landscape. These initiatives result in a healthier ecosystem, cooler urban temperatures, and rich biodiversity.  We are implementing more natural landscapes and involving the community in various greening initiatives, like an island-wide tree planting movement.

What has been your personal journey as a park planner and what specific skills and knowledge do you bring to the position?

I started my career in a plant nursery. I was exposed to the great diversity of plants and was able to source new and interesting plants to add vibrancy to the landscape. After 20 years working in the nursery, it was a natural progression for me to work in parks. I spent my first five years in operations and management, and then moved to park development.  Over time the department’s focus has shifted from needing to green Singapore as quickly as possible to now providing ecological diversity through the planting of flowering trees and shrubs and the development of a Park Connector Network.  We also encourage new real estate developments to build green roofs and walls in their projects and engage the community in greening efforts.

I understand that Singapore is doing research on the effects of greenery on people and the community. Can you expand on some of the findings you have discovered?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more people visited our green spaces than ever, and [the pandemic] impacted the way that people live in densely populated cities. NParks has been conducting multiple research projects to quantify the benefits of greenery on Singaporeans, with the aim of optimizing the benefits that parks and green spaces bring to health and mental well-being. A study was done between May and July 2021.  We worked with the Mind Science Centre of the National University Health System to study people’s mental resilience. Over 5,700 participants were actively engaged in weekly gardening.  Across all age groups there was evidence that participants showed higher mental resilience than those in the general community. Another study showed how therapeutic horticulture benefits seniors by significantly reducing anxiety and improving cognitive function and sleep patterns.

For preschoolers, it has been found that using natural elements as play materials is beneficial for children’s development. NParks has thus developed “nature playgardens.” The playgarden at Lakeside Garden of Jurong Lake Gardens provides opportunities for children to imagine and mimic the actions of animals that inhabit a swamp forest.  Initially there was a concern that the children wouldn’t welcome such spontaneous play, but they intuitively knew how to interact, and the play was much more imaginative than what occurs in prescribed activities.

The agency is involved in so many projects, from active parks to natural areas, to biophilic projects and park connectors. Can you describe one that you think has been most impactful?

We are developing a third national garden away from the city core, in the heartlands, and it is important because it has transformed a historically industrial area into an attractive, livable community. It’s called Jurong Lake Gardens (JLG) and is a 90-hectare (222.4 acre) project that won a 2021 ULI Award for Excellence.  The project brings nature back into the urban environment by restoring a freshwater swamp forest habitat that once stood on the site. The first phase, Lakeside Garden, was completed in 2019 and the second phase of development is in progress.

The project involved extensive citizen engagement within the local Jurong community as well throughout the island with roving exhibitions. There were suggestions to keep the serenity and tranquility of the space while others asked for more vibrancy with active programming. Thus, we designed the garden with a green canvas that consists of a variety of vegetation types to provide habitats for biodiversity.  We balanced the need for both tranquility and vibrancy by incorporating an activity layer with the more active zone in the north, moving towards a more passive nature zone in the south.  The garden is only 30 minutes away from the city and is easily accessible by the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system.

Social equity is a critical responsibility of every public park and recreation agency because safe and easy access to parks is a right, not a privilege.  How do you handle social equity in your parks?

Singapore is fortunate that it had a founding Prime Minister who had the foresight and vision in the early nation building process to develop a Garden City that would provide access to greenery to all. What Singapore has achieved today is a result of many decades of work. It’s a process of sustained and dedicated efforts, not something that happens by chance. Today, we continue to stand by the original vision to evolve into a “City in Nature,” a concept that is part of the nation’s sustainable development agenda.  To provide access to greenery for all ages and backgrounds, and from all social conditions, is a social leveler.  In Singapore, planning and development is not just a whole-of- government effort; we actively work to bring the community into the process so that everyone has a sense of ownership in the outcome.

The pandemic has had a positive impact on parks and gardens.  Most other public amenities and facilities like malls and cinemas were closed except for the parks, which remained open throughout the pandemic.  Some residents had never seen the need to visit parks, but the constraints of the pandemic led them to seek respite in the outdoors.  During the pandemic we did a survey that found more than 50 percent of people visited parks they had never explored before.

All park projects have constraints on funding and resources, particularly in competition with other city priorities.  What would you do if you had access to unlimited funds for park development?  

There will always be budget constraints for park development due to competing needs for transport, health, housing, and other services.  If we had unlimited funds, we could implement solutions to provide more park connectors and landscaped areas with even more lush greenery and multi-tiered planting using cantilevering, decking, elevated paths, or other means.  We would also like to do more as a living laboratory for new construction methods, materials and technologies that would shorten onsite construction periods, and reduce manpower needs, material waste, and our carbon footprint.

You have had so much success in greening Singapore. What is a difficult challenge you face in implementing the green plan?

Our continuing efforts to implement the island-wide Park Connector Network are getting increasingly more challenging.  The competing needs for roads, drainage systems and other services and amenities often require us to spend time and effort to consult multiple parties and seek alternative routes.  We have a Park Connector Network that aims to have every resident within a 10-minute walk to a park—we now have 370 kilometers (230 miles) of park connectors and want to achieve 500 kilometers (310.7 miles) by 2030.

Building the park connectors requires perseverance and continuous engagement with the community. There are some compromises on how and where the connectors are built but we generally manage to proceed with the projects because people have come to understand and appreciate the benefits that the park connectors bring to Singaporeans.

What advice would you give to ULI members working to develop parks in their communities?  

Making a city greener and more natural requires sustained and dedicated effort and awareness.  It is not something that can be taken for granted.  There is a need to establish a clear underlying vision, with objectives and goals to be achieved, and develop defined strategies to achieve the desired outcomes.

In the Singapore context, there is a whole-of-government effort to put in place policies to support the greening program, with sustained political will to ensure that the community will have access to quality green spaces for benefits to their health and well-being.

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