jurong used to be swamps. we filled up the swamps, built factories, transformed jurong into an industrial town. we created jobs for singaporeans but wealso built jurong lake and the chinese and the japanese gardens. and we've been upgrading jurong overthe years,
Science Centre Singapore, recently as jurong lake district in 2008. jurong lake district comes in two pieces: one piec e is at jurong gateway, here, and one piece is at lakeside. this oneis commercial business,
this one is more residential and also greenery. the gateway has already beentransformed. i sent a drone up to take this picture - auav - and just to orientate you, you can...we arelooking westwards, you can see the mrt line going; this one, you can just see, this is the lakesidemrt station, this one is the jurong east mrt station. this isthe big box. this one is the imm, for shopping. this is westgate,
this is the devan nair institute, opened at may... on may day. this one, not quite completed, is ng teng fong hospital. ng teng fong general hospital. it was supposed to be completed bydecember but unfortunately there are construction delays so the opening is pushed back by about sixmonths. but we're getting there. so you can seethat jurong gateway is already transformed but there should be more to jurong than shopping malls
and industries. jurong also includesthe lakeside, the chinese garden, here, and the japanese garden here. so i visited them in june, on leave, and very beautiful; japanesegarden, serene, peaceful. there's a stone... i think it's a marble bridge, traditionaldesign, links you across to the chinese side, and this is the chineseside with pretty pavilions and pagodas. soit's very nice and yet i felt the last time i was here was nearlythirty years ago and it looks about
the same. and it's also underutilized, quite unlike bishan and ang mo kio park where there are thousands of people every day. this one, very few visitors and i felt we coulddo so much more with the gardens. so i asked the planners to consider tobring it all together to do a more ambitious transformation ofthe whole area. and the planners came back to me and said, yes, we've been thinking along the same lines. here are some interesting ideas - ideas for the garden,
ideas for the living environment, ideasfor the surrounding towns. you know where the japanesegarden is, you know where the chinese garden is, on the west side of the lake there is jurong lake gardens, or jurong lake park, and they are really three differentpieces. but if we bring them all together we can redesign the whole area. you can change the islands, youmight merge them, you can change the shape of the lakewhich is right now a little bit awkward, you can create one beautiful set
of gardens in our heartlands, and that can be jurong lake gardens, and can be something really special. for example, it can be the focal point for a communityin bloom movement. there are many community in bloom groups all over singapore. passionate, enthusiastic, they take great pride in their gardens. they beautify their neighborhoods, they spruce up their environments, they havespice gardens downstairs, fruit gardens, flower beds,
and they submit outstanding entries to thesingapore garden festival. this one, for example, is a little smurfgarden; you can just see the smurfs, and there's a little smurfette down there,learning to walk. this is from previous years but thisyear, i have a picture, this is a winningentry from this year's garden festival which is currently on. this entry is called scent arising. scent, meaning the perfume, the aroma, and is being put upby community groups and schools from southwest district
and it won the npark's community inbloom gardener's cup education award this year. so you cansee the kids are thoroughly enjoying the scent garden. i'm going to visit it this week after completing this ndr and i think youshould go and visit the place too. but this is the sort of thing which youcan do in jurong lake gardens; bring communitygardeners from all over singapore to create and look after show gardens inthe jurong lake gardens. make it the people's garden; bigger
than bishan-ang mo kio park, even perhaps better than bishan-ang mo kio park. next year, nparks will invite design ideas soplease give us your ideas. these are your gardens, we want to hearfrom you. but jurong lake gardens is not just athing in itself, it's like paya lebar airportwhich i told you about last year; you move paya lebar airport, you notonly free up paya lebar, you also enable development all around theeastern part of the island. so similarly with jurong lake gardens, if we do a good job of that
and integrate it with the neighborhood, wecan transform a big part of the western part ofsingapore. what are the things you can do? well, you can connect jurong. this one, by theway, is jurong east mrt station which i showed you just now,just so you can orientate yourself. but what can you do? you can connect upthe gardens to our park connector network island-wide sothat you can walk there from many places. youcan connect it up to our abc waters program up and down the jurong river.
you can have housing around the gardens; there's already housing around it, you cansee the dark orange pieces. we're going to build more, further north, like here. and further south, there are these purple bits which arecurrently industrial plots, further down near pandan reservoir here,and the leases on the industrial plots will run out over the next twenty, thirtyyears and as they run out, we can build housingthere and integrate it into the lake district. i know those of you who are familiar with the area are
thinking, all this sounds good but right now there aretoo many traffic jams. but we're working on it. we areincreasing... improving the capacity of our north-southand east-west lines and we should see improvements in thenorth-south and east-west lines over the next two years. later on we'rebuilding the jurong region line and the cross island line. so you cansee, this is the jurong region line which covers jurong and the cross island line which willcome all the way across here.
it'll take some time but it will come. for the longer term, there are even bolderpossibilities. the aye is now along here. it's really too close to the gardens, itconstricts the gardens. if we can move the aye down south, then you free up space. next to thelake, you can build more lakeside housing. it'll belike living in bishan or ang mo kio along avenue 1 or living in punggol along the waterway. one day, the high speed rail
may come to jurong. i have agreed withprime minister najib to build a high speed rail between singapore and kl and i told pm najib that in singapore, why don't we site the terminus in thejurong lake district. so we're discussing with the malaysians. we haven't settled this yet but if we get a high speed rail terminus in the jurong lake district, then thatwill make jurong truly an exciting gateway to singapore. so we can transform the whole area
and the lake gardens will be the crownof jurong lake district and we will place one jewel in the crown and that is a new science centre. we've got the old science centre somewhere down here on the east of the lake and it has entertained andeducated generations of singaporeans almost 40years including many adults who are kids at heart. it is still popular but just like the gardens, it's great but ithink we need to do better.
so we will build a new science centre and we've found the right spot down here, beautiful place on the north shore nearthe chinese garden mrt station and we flew the drone over to show you thesite. this is the chinese garden mrt station,this is the chinese garden, and this piece of land, this plot, is thesite. so we've got the land, we've got a blankcanvas to create something unique and we can do a completely new conceptfor the science centre to take full advantage of the site andthe context.
we can extend out the centre into thegardens, integrate with the living environment,build something which is fun educational and spectacular and celebrate the ethos of our society, reflect our curiosity about the world,our spirit of scientific inquiry, our quest restlessness to innovate and to improve and i thinkwe will inspire and educate our young people infun and exciting ways and it will be the jewel in jurong.
and by 2020 or thereabouts we'll have itdone!
jurong used to be swamps. we filled up the swamps, built factories, transformed jurong into an industrial town. we created jobs for singaporeans but wealso built jurong lake and the chinese and the japanese gardens. and we've been upgrading jurong overthe years,
Science Centre Singapore, recently as jurong lake district in 2008. jurong lake district comes in two pieces: one piec e is at jurong gateway, here, and one piece is at lakeside. this oneis commercial business,
this one is more residential and also greenery. the gateway has already beentransformed. i sent a drone up to take this picture - auav - and just to orientate you, you can...we arelooking westwards, you can see the mrt line going; this one, you can just see, this is the lakesidemrt station, this one is the jurong east mrt station. this isthe big box. this one is the imm, for shopping. this is westgate,
this is the devan nair institute, opened at may... on may day. this one, not quite completed, is ng teng fong hospital. ng teng fong general hospital. it was supposed to be completed bydecember but unfortunately there are construction delays so the opening is pushed back by about sixmonths. but we're getting there. so you can seethat jurong gateway is already transformed but there should be more to jurong than shopping malls
and industries. jurong also includesthe lakeside, the chinese garden, here, and the japanese garden here. so i visited them in june, on leave, and very beautiful; japanesegarden, serene, peaceful. there's a stone... i think it's a marble bridge, traditionaldesign, links you across to the chinese side, and this is the chineseside with pretty pavilions and pagodas. soit's very nice and yet i felt the last time i was here was nearlythirty years ago and it looks about
the same. and it's also underutilized, quite unlike bishan and ang mo kio park where there are thousands of people every day. this one, very few visitors and i felt we coulddo so much more with the gardens. so i asked the planners to consider tobring it all together to do a more ambitious transformation ofthe whole area. and the planners came back to me and said, yes, we've been thinking along the same lines. here are some interesting ideas - ideas for the garden,
ideas for the living environment, ideasfor the surrounding towns. you know where the japanesegarden is, you know where the chinese garden is, on the west side of the lake there is jurong lake gardens, or jurong lake park, and they are really three differentpieces. but if we bring them all together we can redesign the whole area. you can change the islands, youmight merge them, you can change the shape of the lakewhich is right now a little bit awkward, you can create one beautiful set
of gardens in our heartlands, and that can be jurong lake gardens, and can be something really special. for example, it can be the focal point for a communityin bloom movement. there are many community in bloom groups all over singapore. passionate, enthusiastic, they take great pride in their gardens. they beautify their neighborhoods, they spruce up their environments, they havespice gardens downstairs, fruit gardens, flower beds,
and they submit outstanding entries to thesingapore garden festival. this one, for example, is a little smurfgarden; you can just see the smurfs, and there's a little smurfette down there,learning to walk. this is from previous years but thisyear, i have a picture, this is a winningentry from this year's garden festival which is currently on. this entry is called scent arising. scent, meaning the perfume, the aroma, and is being put upby community groups and schools from southwest district
and it won the npark's community inbloom gardener's cup education award this year. so you cansee the kids are thoroughly enjoying the scent garden. i'm going to visit it this week after completing this ndr and i think youshould go and visit the place too. but this is the sort of thing which youcan do in jurong lake gardens; bring communitygardeners from all over singapore to create and look after show gardens inthe jurong lake gardens. make it the people's garden; bigger
than bishan-ang mo kio park, even perhaps better than bishan-ang mo kio park. next year, nparks will invite design ideas soplease give us your ideas. these are your gardens, we want to hearfrom you. but jurong lake gardens is not just athing in itself, it's like paya lebar airportwhich i told you about last year; you move paya lebar airport, you notonly free up paya lebar, you also enable development all around theeastern part of the island. so similarly with jurong lake gardens, if we do a good job of that
and integrate it with the neighborhood, wecan transform a big part of the western part ofsingapore. what are the things you can do? well, you can connect jurong. this one, by theway, is jurong east mrt station which i showed you just now,just so you can orientate yourself. but what can you do? you can connect upthe gardens to our park connector network island-wide sothat you can walk there from many places. youcan connect it up to our abc waters program up and down the jurong river.
you can have housing around the gardens; there's already housing around it, you cansee the dark orange pieces. we're going to build more, further north, like here. and further south, there are these purple bits which arecurrently industrial plots, further down near pandan reservoir here,and the leases on the industrial plots will run out over the next twenty, thirtyyears and as they run out, we can build housingthere and integrate it into the lake district. i know those of you who are familiar with the area are
thinking, all this sounds good but right now there aretoo many traffic jams. but we're working on it. we areincreasing... improving the capacity of our north-southand east-west lines and we should see improvements in thenorth-south and east-west lines over the next two years. later on we'rebuilding the jurong region line and the cross island line. so you cansee, this is the jurong region line which covers jurong and the cross island line which willcome all the way across here.
it'll take some time but it will come. for the longer term, there are even bolderpossibilities. the aye is now along here. it's really too close to the gardens, itconstricts the gardens. if we can move the aye down south, then you free up space. next to thelake, you can build more lakeside housing. it'll belike living in bishan or ang mo kio along avenue 1 or living in punggol along the waterway. one day, the high speed rail
may come to jurong. i have agreed withprime minister najib to build a high speed rail between singapore and kl and i told pm najib that in singapore, why don't we site the terminus in thejurong lake district. so we're discussing with the malaysians. we haven't settled this yet but if we get a high speed rail terminus in the jurong lake district, then thatwill make jurong truly an exciting gateway to singapore. so we can transform the whole area
and the lake gardens will be the crownof jurong lake district and we will place one jewel in the crown and that is a new science centre. we've got the old science centre somewhere down here on the east of the lake and it has entertained andeducated generations of singaporeans almost 40years including many adults who are kids at heart. it is still popular but just like the gardens, it's great but ithink we need to do better.
so we will build a new science centre and we've found the right spot down here, beautiful place on the north shore nearthe chinese garden mrt station and we flew the drone over to show you thesite. this is the chinese garden mrt station,this is the chinese garden, and this piece of land, this plot, is thesite. so we've got the land, we've got a blankcanvas to create something unique and we can do a completely new conceptfor the science centre to take full advantage of the site andthe context.
we can extend out the centre into thegardens, integrate with the living environment,build something which is fun educational and spectacular and celebrate the ethos of our society, reflect our curiosity about the world,our spirit of scientific inquiry, our quest restlessness to innovate and to improve and i thinkwe will inspire and educate our young people infun and exciting ways and it will be the jewel in jurong.
and by 2020 or thereabouts we'll have itdone!