Dulux Study Tour 2026

Dulux Study Tour - Days 3 and 4

By Callum Senjov

From humid Singapore to a damp-to-crisp Parisian spring day (and a few confused clothing choices), our study tour shifted continents but not its core lesson: well-planned infrastructure can be a powerful catalyst for civic life.

In the Thursday morning drizzle, we cycled along the canals from Oscar Niemeyer’s French Communist Party Headquarters to Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette and Jean Nouvel’s Philharmonie de Paris, moving safely and swiftly along some of the hundreds of kilometres of new bike lanes and through various urban greening projects delivered under former Mayor Anne Hidalgo. At the Boulevard Périphérique, we visited Stade Jules Ladoumègue – a spatially and materially rich sports hall designed by Jean Peccoux (with LVL before it was cool) – and the neighbouring Centre Sportif Jules Ladoumègue, by Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes – a programmatically rich piece of sport and transport infrastructure.

With the expansion of the light rail, the Paris Transport Authority (RAPT) required a new stabling and maintenance yard – now subject to a policy that new transport projects must give back to the community. Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes topped this 200‑metre tube of utilitarian infrastructure with a public level containing football fields and gardens, accessed from street level by a civic-scale stair. An indoor tennis court building lines the western edge and creates a buffer from the noise and pollution of the périphérique, while student housing forms the eastern face – the repetitive plan belied by expressive balcony facades that create an active frontage to the light rail stop. It’s a compelling example of what can be achieved through the collaboration of various government agencies, proving that the operational requirements of transport infrastructure don't have to be the end of good ideas. Infrastructure is a catalyst for broader public benefit in the 19th arrondissement.

Singapore’s rail system is famously integrated, with government housing mandated to be within a 10‑minute walk of a mass rapid transit (MRT) or light rail transit (LRT) station. As a result, many of the stations are embedded in community or commercial buildings. Yet, 50 kilometres of elevated rail across the country has left underutilised space at ground level. For DP Architects, a 500-metre stretch of this banal utility zone at the One Punggol project posed the question: "Yes, and?" with their proposal for Punggol Green turning this undercroft into a covered walkway and a sequence of play and workout spaces for children, teens and the elderly.

Despite Singapore’s usual planning synergies, different asset owners initially struggled to look beyond their own operational needs – from pylon inspections to utility access – removing design opportunities from consideration. The resulting focus on ground plane colour and texture leaves a well-used space for the residents of neighbouring dense apartment towers. As a first‑of‑its‑kind project in the city-state, Punggol Green offers a precedent for extending this initial 50-metre stretch along the entire network – with the hope for deeper buy-in from agencies and a willingness to push what is possible when the next project is not "the first".

Stade and Centre Sportif Jules Ladoumègue, and Punggol Green show how infrastructure can be leveraged for wider public benefit when agencies are pushed to look beyond their core remit. In Australia, transport‑oriented development is gaining momentum but often falters through weak masterplanning, competing interests and limited political will. As government‑funded projects continue to occupy prime land, it will be critical that they integrate high‑quality community spaces over and around infrastructure, unlocking housing density and long‑term value capture.