From a quiet neighborhood in the 1980s, Buona Vista is today a thriving suburb that boasts bioscience, technology and media research hubs, the Asia campus of French business school Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), and an up-and-coming Asia headquarters for pharmaceutical giant GSK, all while maintaining a link to nature and heritage through the historical Rail Corridor.

Singapore youths at this year’s CUBE, or Challenge for the Urban and Built Environment, were given the challenge of developing the Buona Vista node as a vibrant business and lifestyle gateway with dynamic community spaces.

Organised by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), CUBE serves as a crucible to catalyse interest among Singapore’s tertiary students in the complexities of urban planning and design.

APRIL has been a proud Platinum Sponsor of CUBE since 2014, supporting the Challenge and its engagement with bright young creative minds. The winners of the 2015 competition got to go on a 3-day, 2-night field trip to Kerinci, the heart of APRIL’s pulp and paper operations. About 90 minutes by flight from Singapore, Kerinci’s inhabitants were once predominantly fishermen and illegal loggers.

Today, Kerinci has grown into a town of more than 100,000 inhabitants whose residents enjoy greatly improved connectivity with 11,000 kilometres of newly-paved roads, an airport, as well as two shipping ports that deliver pulp, paper and oil palm products to the rest of the world.

Besides the grand prize, participants also get to sketch, ideate and prototype their concepts on PaperOne, APRIL’s flagship brand.

One of the winning teams from the 2015 edition of CUBE—students from Catholic Junior College— visited Kerinci at the end of November, so stay tuned for pictures, and an interview with them.