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  • Imagine if this garden behind me was your office lobby.

  • Well, for companies like Facebook and Prudential, it now pretty much is.

  • This is a new development project in Singapore that rethinks

  • the way that urban living and natural habitats can be combined.

  • And it could set the tone for what future buildings might look like.

  • The idea of a mixed-use development is that you can do pretty much anything you

  • need to, in just one area. Which is also a way to minimize carbon footprint.

  • So right now I'm standing in a sky terrace, which is connected to an office building.

  • But behind me you see a residential tower with a swimming pool.

  • Elsewhere you'll find a gym, coffee shop, restaurants and

  • there's even a grocery store in the basement.

  • Marina One is located in Singapore's Central Business District.

  • The $5.1 billion dollar project is a joint venture between the investment

  • arms of Malaysia and Singapore as part of a land-swap deal.

  • Its architect is Christoph Ingenhoven.

  • His architecture firm is responsible for projects like Sydney's 1 Bligh Street

  • and Luxembourg's European Investment Bank.

  • But this is so much more than just a building.

  • This is what's known as Green Heart. It's the nerve center of Marina One.

  • Part of Singapore's vision is to be a city in a garden. What does that mean?

  • It means creating more natural habitats and embedding them into urban living.

  • All in all, there's more than 160,000 plants here in this development.

  • This is one of several sky terraces and there's so much biodiversity here.

  • In fact, I'm told that it's the equivalent of six Olympic-sized swimming pools.

  • This waterfall uses a special technology that prevents water from

  • splashing when it reaches the base. It also has quite a calming effect.

  • Concrete jungle.

  • It appears I'm going against upstream right now.

  • The development is LEED Platinum certified. That means it was designed and

  • constructed in a way that reduces CO2 emissions, water and electricity consumption.

  • The building orientation and facade helps to reduce heat gain and glare inside the offices, by about 20%.

  • And all this greenery also helps reduce heat and improve air quality.

  • I'm told by the developers creating an eco-friendly development better positions

  • Marina One to attract multinational companies, who typically prefer

  • signing leases on environmentally friendly buildings. And it worked.

  • In addition to being Facebook's Asia headquarters, it's also

  • home to the likes of PwC and Swiss private bank Julius Baer.

  • And what building wouldn't be complete these days without a co-working space?

  • Here's the view from Facebook's cafeteria 30 floors from the top.

  • But for employees who don't have a cafeteria in their office,

  • they can choose from a number of food places both in the complex and nearby.

  • It's almost lunchtime. It's about 10 minutes until noon here.

  • So you can see a lot of employees are heading out to go grab lunch.

  • It's kind of a weird sensation being here.

  • You're not quite sure if you're going for a hike or something,

  • or if you have a meeting in 10 minutes. And it's an interesting feeling.

  • Aside from the office and retail space, two of the four towers have been designated as residential units.

  • Between the two towers there's more than 1,000 residential units.

  • And they range in size, this is what a two bedroom looks like.

  • While prices range for both renting and buying, it's certainly not cheap.

  • A two bedroom condo here is listed for sale at $2 million.

  • I'm standing on the 17th floor right now of a balcony of a four bedroom unit.

  • The view?

  • You have the sea over here, and over there you have the iconic Marina Bay Sands.

  • Typically, three bedrooms or four bedroom units in this residential tower

  • will even have their own private elevator entrance.

  • So you simply get out of this elevator. This is your own space and then you go inside.

Imagine if this garden behind me was your office lobby.

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