Architecture
There is much symbolism in the SAFTI MI campus. The Officer Cadet School HQ is described by the architect as being shaped like a cradle, from which officers are born (paraphrased).
SAFTI MI sits on a hill. The locations of each school are metaphors for the career of an SAF officer. The lower reaches house the barracks for Officer Cadets. Advancing up the hill, SAF Advanced Schools are encountered. Finally, at the pinnacle, is the Singapore Command and Staff College.
A prominent feature is the Tower, approximately 60 m tall and visible from many parts of western Singapore. It is a three-sided tower, for the tri-service nature of the SAF. It is served by a lift and a 265 step stairway which symbolises the days a cadet requires to take towards commissioning day. This number should not be taken literally as the various commissioning courses vary in length.
The OCS parade square is 120 m by 170 m in area. It is designed to reduce the heat and glare of the sun. The viewing stands are able to accommodate up to 5000 people.
SAFTI MI was originally intended to be an "open camp" like the United States Military Academy and the United States Naval Academy, prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks, civilians did not need passes nor security checks before entering the complex. The only restricted areas were the offices and living quarters. Since 9/11, armed sentries are now posted at the main entrances, and side entrances have been barricaded with concertina wire. Passes and security checks are now mandatory for all, including military personnel in uniform, in military vehicles.
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Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“I don’t think of form as a kind of architecture. The architecture is the result of the forming. It is the kinesthetic and visual sense of position and wholeness that puts the thing into the realm of art.”
—Roy Lichtenstein (b. 1923)
“For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)