ABSTRACT
This chapter studies and discusses the trends of place-making by older people living in high-rise, high-density public housing estates in Singapore. Over the years, these long-time residents have re-established their lifestyles in highly contested urban spaces. Some have brought over traditional practices such as communal living, gardening, and farming from their village past. Others have created new spatial practices to suit their social needs by appropriating their surrounding environments. Through investigating these cases, this chapter reveals how these creative elders have overcome standardisation and spatial constraints and have developed alternative strategies through the processes of “reactive appropriation” and “creative reclamation”. In fact, they have strengthened the sense of place and ownership by continuing traditions, adding variety and ruggedness, and reintroducing the value of the so-called kampung spirit in an otherwise homogeneous modern urban landscape.
