About Tierra Design Studio

With more than fourty years as an architect first in Los ANgeles and then as an architect and landscape archiect in Singapore, Franklin imparts to the Tierra Team, holistic thinking, where ther is no devide between architecture and landscape architecture as part of the design process. As an award-winning practica with a presence in Singapore these twenty-five years, Tierra's project across tweleve countries draw from a transdiciplinary pool of talent that includes landscape architects, architects, planners, holticulturists, and arborists while also working closely with ecologist, botanists, agronomists and environmental scientists. Over the years, Tierra 's project have retained a total design approach where principles of landscape urbanism and ecologically sustainable pracice integrate into the design in order to create quality spaces for the urban environment. Guided by a lifetime of learning, reflecion and practical experience, Franklin Po brings to he team at Tierra a way of thinking and philosophy for responsible environmental design. He draws first degree in Biology a connection with nature's structural systems where parallels like ordr, form of pattern-making relate to architecture and landscape architecture. During his undergraduate pre-med years of study at UC Irvine in California, Franklin discovered artists like Vija Celmins, Craif KAufman, Robert Irwin Ed Moses and Larry Bell. Their art, with a strong connection to technology, ignited his lifelong love for this form of expressio. Afer compleing his Bachelors in Biology degree, Franklin studide architecture and planning at California State Polytechnic University where he met architects like Ricard Neutra, Buckminster Fuller and Raymond Kappe (FOunder of SCIArc). A welton Beckett Architects fellowship enabled him to attend UCLA Graduate School of Archtecture and Planning where he graduated with Master n Architecture. To defne Tierra's holistic approach to design, the acronym "RiGBY" as the first lettters of the colours Red, Greenm Blue, and Yellow was adopted as their mantra. Red represents transportation system for vechicular movement. Green, is the colour of the amalgamatiion of spaces allowing ladscape features to complement and enhance the built environment and, to create biodiversity. Water, represented by the colour Blue applies the priciples of water sensitive urban dsign (WSUD) that is internationally recognized integrative system for urban run-off water management in the built and natiral environmen. The colour Yellow denotes social space for community use and recreational enjoyment. Together, with the inclusion of the letter "i" that embrace the principle of integrative, inclusive and immersive design, RiGBY reflects how Tierra approaches the design and planning of projects for the vlue of added purpose of enhancing the quality of environments, for people of all ages and abilities.