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A walk in the park
Ms Wong is passionate about her work and constantly taps into her overseas experience.
PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
MS ELLEN Wong is able to follow her dream, thanks to the National Parks Board (NParks).
The 25-year-old was a double mathematics and science student in junior college and the easy choice would have been to enrol in an engineering or science-related course in university.
But she wanted to do something totally different.
She studied the range of scholarships available to her and was drawn to the one offered by NParks, which would give her the opportunity to pursue a degree in landscape architecture at Australia's University of Melbourne.
Her family and friends were worried that the vast change in disciplines would make it difficult for her to cope. However, Ms Wong stuck to her guns.
She says: "You know how they say it's easier to teach someone who knows nothing than someone who knows a little of something? I thought it was my chance to do something that would be fun, interesting and offer job variety after graduation."
Indeed, her first semester was particularly challenging. Ms Wong admits: "I couldn't draw at all! What took my course mates an hour to prepare took much longer for me."
"So to get myself up to speed, I would examine landscape photographs and drawings in my free time, observing angles and proportions to understand what made a picture work."
As she progressed, her confidence level grew, and she began seeking out even more opportunities to improve herself. She even applied for an exchange programme with Cornell University in the United States. With the full support of NParks, she studied there for a year.
"That was an extremely rewarding decision," she says. "I enrolled in many courses that required travel to overseas sites. I was involved in school design projects in Jerusalem, Toronto and New York. I gained immense hands-on experience, and it was valuable exposure to be able to see how things were done in various cities across the world."
Back in Singapore and after more than a year as a landscape architect with NParks, Ms Wong describes these experiences as crucial in being able to excel in her career.
She says: "People think our job is just about planting trees, but that's such a simplistic way of looking at things."
"What we do is develop open spaces into parks by taking into consideration factors as varied as the lifestyle of the community, surrounding architecture and purpose of the park. Parks are not standalone entities. We have to think about creating spaces for outdoor entertainment and even consider things like incorporating cafés and restaurants into the park area."
Ms Wong notes that the trend of developing entertainment areas within parks is just starting to catch on in Singapore. She says: "I think it's a great way of getting more people outdoors. Our weather is not the most pleasant, but with cafés and air-conditioned places that offer respite, more people would be open to the idea."
Passionate about her work, she constantly tries to tap into her overseas experiences. The Chicago's Millennium Park is a good example of well-utilised park space, she says, as "it has a good mix of an entertainment area, quiet spots, and other unique park features".
So far, Ms Wong has worked on several projects for the NParks, including overseas ones such as developing the masterplan for the Tianjin Eco-valley in China. She is also involved in an ongoing project in Bedok Reservoir Park, which is modelled after the iconic Berlin Wall that fell in 1989.
She is looking forward to contributing fresh ideas. She says: "The development of parks has evolved over the years. Sometimes, you can take a trend which you see overseas and apply it back here.
"Singapore has many more wide spaces than people imagine. We do have many hectares of open greens, and our job as landscape architects is to ensure they are utilised well."