The Pinnacle@Duxton

The Pinnacle@Duxton is the world's tallest public housing complex — seven 50-storey towers connected by sky gardens on the 26th and 50th floors — and visiting its rooftop skybridge gives you both the best panoramic view in Singapore and an education in the country's most remarkable achievement: public housing that 80% of the population actually wants to live in.

The 50th-floor sky garden is open to visitors for S$6 (paid via an EZ-Link card at the entrance), and the view from 156 metres is extraordinary — a full 360-degree panorama that takes in the port, Sentosa, Marina Bay Sands, the CBD skyline, and the HDB estates stretching to the horizon. On a clear day, you can see the Indonesian islands of Batam and Bintan across the strait. The view is arguably better than Marina Bay Sands' SkyPark because it includes Marina Bay Sands in the panorama rather than being on top of it.

Singapore's public housing story is genuinely remarkable — in 1960, when the country became self-governing, 70% of the population lived in slums and squatter settlements. By the 1990s, over 85% lived in HDB (Housing Development Board) flats. The Pinnacle, completed in 2009, represents the pinnacle (literally) of this programme — architecturally ambitious public housing in a prime location that was designed to prove that social housing could be beautiful, not just functional. Standing on the 50th floor of a government housing block, looking out at one of the richest cities in the world, is a perspective on urban planning that no other city offers.