engineering

Marine Parade Community Building

Marine Parade Community Building is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Marine Parade Community Building rather than just read about it. In short: Marine Parade Community Building (Chinese: 马林百列社区综合大厦; pinyin: Mǎlín Bǎiliè shèqū zōnghé dàshà) was a community centre located at 278 Marine Parade Road, Singapore. Opened on 6 March 2000, it housed the formerly separate Marine Parade Community Centre and Marine Parade Public Library, as well as a performing arts group, The Necessary Stage.

Key takeaways

Marine Parade Community Building belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Marine Parade Community Building to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Marine Parade Community Building from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Marine Parade Community Building (Chinese: 马林百列社区综合大厦; pinyin: Mǎlín Bǎiliè shèqū zōnghé dàshà) was a community centre located at 278 Marine Parade Road, Singapore. Opened on 6 March 2000, it housed the formerly separate Marine Parade Community Centre and Marine Parade Public Library, as well as a performing arts group, The Necessary Stage. Designed by William Lim Associates, one of the distinguishing features of the postmodern building was the mural cladding called Texturefulness of Life, which was the largest piece of installation art in Singapore. The building was demolished in 2023 and is being rebuilt.

History The building sat on reclaimed land first occupied by the Marine Parade Community Centre, which was built in the early 1980s and later renamed to Marine Parade Community Club. In March 1995, the People's Association (PA) announced plans to spend S$9.56 million to upgrade 54 community centres and clubs that were over ten years old, adding facilities such as lifts, dance studios, karaoke rooms and multi-purpose air-conditioned activity rooms, to make community centres more user-friendly, with open concept offices and reception areas. In June 1995, then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong asked PA to study the idea of having community centres share their premises with other civil users such as libraries, government offices and commercial developments. Goh, who is also a Member of Parliament (MP) for Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency (GRC), suggested combining the Marine Parade Community Club, which was slated for upgrading, with the National Library branch in Marine Parade, in a six-storey building with three floors for the community club and three for the library. In June 1996, Wong Kan Seng, PA's deputy chairman, announced that due to the scarcity of land in Singapore, eight of the redeveloped community centres, including Marine Parade Community Club, would be located with other civil users. As 30% of the upgrading cost had to be paid by the community club, several fundraising activities were carried out for the redevelopment. These activities, which included music concerts, golf tournaments and cyclethons, raised a total of S$6 million. The old club building was demolished in 1997 and construction of the Marine Parade Community Building began the same year. SAL Construction was the project's main contractor. Built at a cost of S$30 million, the new building was completed in January 2000, and was open to the public on 6 March that year. It was officially opened by Goh on 28 May that year.

Demolition and new building In 2018, plans were shown to Goh, then-an advisor for the Marine Parade Grassroots Organisation, for a renovation of the building. The building was later scheduled for demolition in 2022, despite calls from the community for it to be preserved. Some argued that the building's mural wall was "iconic" and should "at least be retained and restored". Despite this, the building was closed on 22 June 2022 and was entirely demolished by 2023. A new community building for Marine Parade was planned to be completed by 2025, but was later expected to be finished by early 2026 in a statement from MP for Marine Parade GRC Tan See Leng in April 2025. The new building would feature a self-help area – offering courses on cooking, dance, and music – and multiple eateries. The new building would also link to the Marine Parade MRT station to increase connectivity and house the Marine Parade Public Library.

Facilities

The Marine Parade Community Building housed the Marine Parade Community Club, the Marine Parade Community Library, and a professional theatre company, The Necessary Stage. It also originally had an al fresco Starbucks café on the ground floor.

Marine Parade Community Club Opened on 6 March 2000, the Marine Parade Community Club was equipped with a glass-walled gymnasium overlooking part of the East Coast Parkway, a covered basketball court on the rooftop, and an air-conditioned sports hall. There was also a 263-seat theatrette, a roof terrace for gatherings, and music, study, and activity rooms.

Marine Parade Public Library

Opened on 10 November 1978, the Marine Parade Community Library was originally located at the town centre of Marine Parade Housing Estate before it shifted to its new premises at the community building. The library is Singapore's second-oldest public library and the only one built on reclaimed land. It started moving in stages to the community building in April 2000, and was officially opened by Goh Chok Tong on 28 May that year. The Marine Parade Community Library is the first public library in Singapore to be housed together with a community club and an arts group. The library's old premises was renovated for an NTUC FairPrice supermarket. The library is spread over four floors of the Marine Parade Community Building, with a floor area of 3,500 square metres (37,675 square feet). As one of the first neighbourhood libraries, the library's entire second floor is its children's book section, featuring murals, trivia, and multimedia tools. The library had more than 150,000 books and 2,500 videos available for loan. There was a café on the ground floor, and the library was fitted with numerous couches and benches for the public's use. Other facilities include multimedia stations, do-it-yourself service stations, and music posts equipped with headphones. It was closed in 2022, in conjunction with the building's scheduled renovation. A 24-hour book dispenser, managed by the National Library Board, was set up to serve the residents during this time.

The Necessary Stage

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Marine Parade Community Building

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Marine Parade Community Building claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Marine Parade Community Building before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Marine Parade Community Building ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Marine Parade Community Building

In research: Marine Parade Community Building appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Marine Parade Community Building in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Marine Parade Community Building is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century architecture in Singapore, Buildings and structures completed in 2000, Buildings and structures demolished in 2023, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Marine Parade Community Building outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Marine Parade Community Building in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Marine Parade Community Building means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Marine Parade Community Building out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Marine Parade Community Building in simple terms?

Why does Marine Parade Community Building matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Marine Parade Community Building?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Marine Parade Community Building.