\n<\/p>\n
Mber, his latest project in Upper Serangoon, grew partly out of what Hu thought Soloha had got wrong.<\/p>\n
The issue was space. Boutique hotels might be aesthetically appealing, but applying the economics of a conservation property to a residential concept could mean carving rooms into sizes that were financially efficient but not necessarily pleasant to live in.<\/p>\n
Hu wanted something different. \u201cAfter Soloha, we realised that we wanted a product whereby the rooms are not too small, but yet you can retain the character of a boutique hotel within a residential setting,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that element is lacking in Singapore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Enter Mber, with 125 units comprising 78 co-living rooms and 47 serviced apartments. \u201cThe room sizes are within 18 to 20 sq m, on average. And to me, that is the minimum livable space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mber stands on the site of the former Lim Tua Tow Market, also known as Gor Kok Jiok, or \u201cfifth milestone\u201d, after this stretch of Upper Serangoon Road. The market served the surrounding community from the 1950s, while neighbouring Teck Chye Terrace dates to 1928.<\/p>\n
Rather than attempting to recreate the old market as a nostalgia exercise, Formwerkz Architects took cues from the area\u2019s shophouse language \u2013 sheltered five-foot ways and ground-floor eateries \u2013 and translated them into a contemporary building. Again, the place dictated the product.<\/p>\n
There is also a practical business logic to the concept. While much of Singapore\u2019s co-living inventory is concentrated in central areas, Hu saw an underserved market in the north-east.<\/p>\n
He pointed to families needing temporary accommodation while their HDB flats undergo the Home Improvement Programme (HIP) or home renovations, as well as expatriates moving to the area for work and families seeking proximity to international schools.<\/p>\n
The potential catchment is changing, too, stretching from Paya Lebar and Punggol Digital District to Seletar, as employment nodes and international schools draw more people to the wider north-east.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re also seeing more foreign nationals relocating to Singapore, to work in the tech companies and MNCs being set up in Punggol. And then there are the mainland Chinese who are coming in because of international schools,\u201d he said. For Hu, these shifts add up to an underserved market.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Mber, his latest project in Upper Serangoon, grew partly out of what Hu thought Soloha had got wrong. The issue was space. Boutique hotels might…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--YOtZG4S_--\/c_crop,h_900,w_1600,x_0,y_150\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/09\/25\/josh-hu-mber-singapore-property.jpg?itok=Bm433Gif","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3120,10033,31010,8266,22,10156],"class_list":["post-89857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-capital","tag-josh","tag-mber","tag-property","tag-singapore","tag-sons","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/89858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}