Exploring the Past, Re-imagining the Future of Singapore’s Historical State Properties
Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets State Property Tours are back—with a focus on adaptive reuse.
Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets
When I first embarked on my collaboration with the Singapore Land Authority on the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of tours back in 2017, I was greatly encouraged by the response that it got.
The first tour involved the then little known former Pasir Panjang ‘A’ Power Station, which proved to be quite a revelation to participants. Visits to other previously closed-off sites followed with the series going on for another two years in 2018 and 2019 before COVID hit. Post-COVID, a smaller scale series was organised in 2023.
Over the years, visits were made to several rather interesting sites including the former Middleton Hospital, 10 View Road, the former Kinloss House, and much misunderstood Old Changi Hospital. These sites featured along with several others in an SLA publication ‘Uncommon Ground: The Places You Know, The Stories You Don’t’, which I also had the pleasure of working on.
I now have good news for followers of the series. A brand-new set of tours is being specially curated for 2025/26, starting with visits to several tenanted spaces with secrets to share. It is hoped that through these visits, participants will gain not just an appreciation of the respective properties’ past lives, but also how buildings can be kept relevant and alive through sensitive adaptive reuse. This is an important and necessary step that will allow Singapore’s many heritage buildings to be retained and appreciated by future generations.
Discovering the Expanded Temasek Shophouse
13 Dec 2025
The first tour in the series will give an exclusive behind the scenes look at and into the newly renovated and expanded Temasek Shophouse, which reopened its doors in September this year following a two-year refurbishment.
(2019 Photograph).
Opened in 2019, the Temasek Shophouse (TSH) initially occupied the conserved 26 to 36 Orchard Road (28 Orchard Road was used as its address). TSH has since expanded with the inclusion of other conserved buildings along the same row and now includes 14 – 20 Orchard Road, 22 – 24 Orchard Road, and the somewhat tiny 38 Orchard Road. All are now interconnected through a ‘spine’ at the buildings’ rear sections.
During the tour participants will be taken through the various spaces including some not normally accessible ones, learn about the history of the buildings, who built them and why, discover some of the ‘secrets’ that the buildings hold and what the motivations were for the restored buildings’ somewhat ‘dulled’ appearances.
The tour is being scheduled for 9 to 11 am on 13 December 2025, a Saturday.
Registration
Registration via Peatix opens on Thu, 4 Dec 2025 at 10 am.
Continuation of the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets Series
Further tours in the series will held from Jan 2026 onwards at a frequency of about once a month. Tours locations will include buildings of the former RAF Seletar, the Danish Seamen’s Church, and former Bukit Timah Fire Station. More information on this will be released in due course.
Adaptive Reuse of the Temasek Shophouse Row
Following careful restoration and transformation, the distinctive building at 28 Orchard Road has embraced adaptive reuse as Temasek Shophouse (TSH) since 2019 – a social impact hub dedicated to building connected communities. The next chapter in its story will be marked in January 2026, as TSH launches its expanded premises to include four adjacent conserved shophouses.
Once home to furniture stores, department stores, education and F&B outlets, the shophouses of 38, 22 (formerly Midfilm House), and 14 Orchard Road (once the Malayan Motors Showroom) have recently undergone meticulous restoration to honour their architectural legacy. The introduction of TSH’s new facilities and initiatives strive to help changemakers grow their capacity and enable the public to engage with social and environmental causes in approachable ways.
It is a prime example of how State properties can be reimagined as spaces to spark good and serve the community, today and into the future.
The Long and Winding Road 
Wonderful!