Hospitality · Sentosa Island, Singapore

Harry’s Island

An extraordinary island imagined. An international collection of architecture brought together as one world.

THE PROJECT

A closer look.

Setting: Sentosa Island, Singapore
Our work: Site research, location photography, architectural modelling and integrated resort visualisation
Proposal: 2006 Sentosa integrated resort competition
Concept developer: Eighth Wonder, led by Mark Advent
Architecture: Contributions from architects around the world
Status: Unbuilt competition proposal

Harry’s Island was Eighth Wonder’s spectacular proposal for an integrated resort on Sentosa Island, Singapore, led by Mark Advent. Presented in 2006, it imagined a destination shaped by the adventures of a fictional traveller, Hurricane Harry O’Brien. Architecture, landscape and entertainment became parts of the same larger story.

A monumental caldera formed the centrepiece: a dramatic ring of rock, greenery and cascading water around a resort environment. Beyond it, highly stylised buildings, sculptural forms and planted terraces gave each part of the island its own identity. The ambition was a place that could reward exploration at every turn.

Stephen Bell’s task was to assemble and build the architecture in 3D from contributions by architects around the world, then bring those separate ideas together as Harry’s Island. Each building needed to retain its individual character while finding its place within a coherent island-wide environment. The work required attention to scale, connections, terrain and the views that would explain the proposal as a whole.

Time spent on site in Singapore provided the grounding for that imaginative world. Stephen gathered details, reference material and location photography, building an understanding of Sentosa and its surroundings that informed the visualisation and large composite views. The finished images move between the sweep of the island and the experience of its individual spaces.

The proposal attracted enthusiastic public support and remains a particularly memorable project for Stephen. Singapore ultimately selected the Genting International and Star Cruises proposal on 8 December 2006, and Harry’s Island was not built. These images preserve the scale and character of an exceptional concept, and the work of making many architectural voices read as one destination.

Contemporary coverage of Eighth Wonder’s proposal, October–November 2006

Singapore Ministry of Law: competition decision, 8 December 2006