A 'Gardens by the Bay' in Shanghai
The Shanghai Greenhouse features four main sections including one Clouds Forest, which netizens were quick to point out bore similarities to Gardens by the Bay's own Cloud Forest
Singapore's Gardens by the Bay boasts green and nature-based attractions, including a giant greenhouse filled with various types of plants and flowers, and a towering indoor waterfall.
Well, now there's another attraction outside of Singapore that also fits that description — Shanghai Greenhouse located in the Shanghai Expo Culture Park.
In fact, the features within the Shanghai Greenhouse appear so strikingly similar to that at Gardens by the Bay that a TikTok clip highlighting this likeness has gone viral, with some netizens from Singapore branding the Shanghai attraction a "copycat".
Singapore's Lau Pa Sat, Indonesia
A food centre similar to Singapore's famous Lau Pa Sat is set to open in Indonesia. The food centre will reportedly have over 50 stalls and its own Satay Street, when it is ready in 2025.
The food centre is part of a mixed development named "Rukan Lau Pa Sat" situated in the up-and-coming Pantai Indah Kapuk (PIK2) township. PIK2 has been dubbed "The New Jakarta City" and is located in the northern part of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta. It is a joint venture between property developer Agung Sedayu Group and Salim Group, Indonesia's biggest conglomerate.
Agung Sedayu Group will be recreating Lau Pa Sat's colonial-themed architecture and orange roofing for the food centre in PIK2. Stalls at the food centre will mostly serve Indonesian cuisine, as well as food from the region, The Straits Times (ST) reported. There will also be different types of sate from different parts of Indonesia because people love to "have satay and chill", Agung Sedayu Group chief executive Steven Kusumo told ST.
The "Raffles City" of Chongqing, China
Raffles City Chongqing, designed by renowned architect Moshe Safdie, is developed by Singapore’s own CapitaLand, whose president and group CEO calls it the “largest and most complex integrated development” ever undertaken by the real estate company by far. The project will hold a shopping mall, residences, offices and a hotel.
Complicated, indeed. The megastructure consists of four 250m-tall skyscrapers topped with a 300m-long curved horizontal sky bridge, which will feature an outdoor patio with see-through glass flooring as a viewing deck. The enclosed structure — longer than Singapore’s tallest building laid on its side — will also have swimming pools, sky gardens, and dining facilities.
If all this sounds familiar, it should be. Raffles City Chongqing is what happens when someone one-ups Marina Bay Sands by taking the original concept wholesale and adding more parts to it. CapitaLand’s description about their development says nothing about the similarities to MBS but noted that Safdie drew inspiration from Chongqing’s “thousand years of waterway transportation culture” to create “an image of powerful sails upon the river”. To be fair, Safdie did design MBS after all, so he’s at liberty to replicate the same thing somewhere else. The construction is expected to be completed by the middle of 2018 and will open in phases next year.
The "Singapore" of Medan, Indonesia
A video of a neighbourhood in Indonesia has made the rounds lately due to some unusual features, including a merlion and Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantries.
The residential area is called the “Singapore of Medan” and can be seen in this video from 2020. Singaporeans will definitely find some familiar sights. Whoever thought of the neighbourhood’s design must be a huge fan of the Little Red Dot.
The developer of the residence is CitraLand Gama City (which explains the CLGC on the gantry), and it will occupy 211.57 hectares of land, including a shopping district called—you guessed it, Orchard Road. In response, Singaporean netizens appear to be having a lot of fun with the “Singapore of Medan.”
