60 years of Our Singapore Housing

The design of flats built during the first Five-Year Plan(1960-65) were simple and functional in order to build as many homes for a growing population that resulted from a baby boom with more than 50,000 babies born each year. These flats were fitted with basic amenities like piped water and electricity. Most of the flats were built in slab blocks with the units accessible by a common corridor with more than 10 units on each level of the block.

Whampoa Estate started as early as 1961 when the earliest flats were built at Jalan Bahagia and Jalan Tenteram in St Michael's Estate under HDB. During the last years of SIT flats built in the late 1950s around the vicinity, the rare 2-storey SIT terraces houses were built along Jalan Mamor and Jalan Bahagia in which they are still standing today even after 60 years. When the flats at St Michael's Estate were newly built, some of the residents were rehoused in these units after the Bukit Ho Swee Fire outbreak. Most of them lived in 1-room emergency flats and 2-room rental flats as the government aimed to give them a roof over their heads in times of housing shortage. By 1962, most of the fire victims were given their own houses to live in. 1-room emergency flats, 1961 Balcony for drying laundry at the back of the flats, 1961 A rear view of a block of 2-room flats St Michael's Estate Market, 1961 10-storey flats at Jalan Tenteram under construction, 19...