Singapore’s latest green hotel is awe-inspiring
The hotel
Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore
The unique design that is the Pan-Pacific Orchard tower – the columns also host fire escape stairs.
Check-in
In the densely-populated, sustainability-minded city state of Singapore, these days it’s a case of what goes down, must go up. That means, when you build a tower (which is the obvious and dominant nature of construction here) you don’t leave the life-giving vegetation at ground level but take it with you, floor by floor. It’s a philosophy that Singapore’s stewards have planted in the imaginations of its architects and planners as it strives to become one of the planet’s greenest places, something exemplified by this recently opened, horticulturally minded high-rise, the 347-room Pan Pacific Orchard hotel.
The look
Multiple terraces and cool pools bring the outside in to the Pan Pacific Orchard.
Biophilic bliss on a grand scale. The hotel – close to the Orchard Road shopping strip with its bland wall-to-wall malls – is the latest project of WOHA, the Singapore-Australian architectural firm. It’s been behind most of Singapore distinctive, tropical green hotels, beginning with its decade-old Parkroyal Collection Pickering conception, also part of the parent eco-minded Pan Pacific group. WOHA’s newest green hotel is divided into a quartet of nature-zones: Forest, Garden, Cloud and Beach, each with massive open-air, cut-out-like voids allowing in air, light, nature and the abundant tropical rain that keeps – along with an elaborate reticulation system – all the vegetation green and growing. Elsewhere, solar voltaic rooftop panels help power Pan Pacific Orchard while those massive foliage-wrapped columns exist not only for structural support but to also contain and conceal the hotel’s fire escape.
The room
A Premier Balcony King room.
The hotel’s most coveted suites are surely those on the resort-like Beach Terrace level with direct swim-out access to the huge pool, a rare treat at an urban hotel. Not at all enviously, I’ve scored an attractive upper-level, 30-square-metre Premier Balcony King with views of the lush Garden Terrace zone below as well as the surrounding and not terribly exciting city skyline. There’s a sizeable, bonus balcony enclosed by electronic blinds. But during my stay the weather is too steamy to spend too much time out on the balcony (if there was an al fresco ceiling fan I must have missed it). Oh well, it’s the thought that counts and a hell of a lot of thought has otherwise gone into this establishment’s innovative design.
Food + drink
The hotel’s Mosella Restaurant.
Unusually for a Singaporean five-star, there’s merely one, albeit excellent and smartly designed restaurant – the Mediterranean-cum-Peruvian (go figure) Mosella, and the one cool “destination bar”, Florette, which overlooks the aptly named Garden Terrace. For a full and affordable spectrum of Singapore dining head to the subterranean hawker-style food court at the nearby ION Orchard retail mall with its staggering gamut of authentic and affordable Asian cuisines.
Out + about
Maintain the green-thumb theme with a visit to Singapore’s showpiece UNESCO World Heritage-listed Botanic Gardens dating to the mid-19th century. It is far less-known and hyped than the much younger Gardens by the Bay. Home to the world’s largest orchid display, this 24-hectare vintage urban green lung is best visited early in the morning, before the humidity well and truly hits and when you’ll be joined less by fellow tourists and more by fitness-minded Singaporeans and expats.
The verdict
Do yourself, and most importantly the world, a favour by booking a room at these striking, latest Singaporean, green-minded lodgings.
Essentials
From $400 a night. Accessible rooms available for guests with special needs. 10 Claymore Road, Singapore. Ph: +65 6991 6888 See panpacific.com; singaporeair.com
The writer stayed as a guest of Pan Pacific Orchard and Singapore Airlines
Our rating out of five
★★★★½
Highlight
The semi-outdoor Forest Terrace check-in set-up allows guests to gain an initial awe-inducing impression of the hotel and its grandiose greenery.
Lowlight
The semi-outdoor check-in can be a rather hot and sweaty process when Singapore is at its hot and sweaty worst.
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