KiÄtŜaŇ's BlÖg: Vertical Climb & Visit to The Pinnacle at Duxton

(At the entrance of The Pinnacle & the steps up)

(View of the towers from outside)

Today, I visited the 50th storey sky garden with my classmate, WR at The Pinnacle @ Duxton. It is not a normal visit by just taking the lift up to the 50 storey sky garden, but we had a 50 storey vertical climb up for the visit. Haha. We were doing it as a form a training for the upcoming National Vertical Marathon (NVM) that we are participating on next Sunday, 23 May 2010.

As a brief introduction, The Pinnacle @ Duxton is an ironic HDB project which set apart from the usual HDB project as it is the first 50 storey (156m in ht) high rise HDB flat in Singapore consisting of 7 Towers with steel sky bridges linking all towers at 26th and 50th storey that offer the panoramic view of Singapore city area. It was built along Cantonment Road at the site where the first 10 storey HDB rental flats used to be. The construction started in April 2005 and was completed in Dec 2009 and the total project cost is S$279 million.

More information can be found in the links below.

http://www.pinnacleduxton.com.sg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinnacle@Duxton

http://www.h88.com.sg/article/Architecture+Feature+-+The+Pinnacle@Duxton/

My other blog post on Pinnacle earlier on

http://kiatsans.blogspot.com/2009/05/pinnacle-at-duxton-2-world-records.html

(Architectural design competition of this project)

We met at 11+am at Outram Park MRT Station, brought a drink and walk to The Pinnacle @ Duxton along Cantonment Road. We took some photos outside and proceeded to Tower 1G Level 1 (At the end of the question mark - you should know the 7 towers form a "question mark") to make a $5 payment at the using our EZ link card for the visit to the 50th storey sty garden and bridges.

(Kiosk for making the $5 payment at Tower 1G Level 1 using EZ link card before proceeding to 50th sty sky bridge)

Instead of having the fast way of taking the lift up to 50th storey, we climb up the staircase starting from Level 1 till 50th storey. Some people reading this article may think that we are crazy, but they are actually doing some training for the NVM next Sunday.

During the climb up, I noticed that each flight of stair is quite short and there were not much obstacles in front of us except for 1 bicycle and 1 abandoned cardboard. In addition to that, the oxygen level is still high as there are only the 2 of us doing the climb up. In the end, we reached 50th storey in around 7 minutes. It is considered as normal timing for us as elite runners may probably do it in 3 to 4 minutes as they run up the stair.

(Photo taking at 50th sty sky garden after the climb up. haha)

After we reached 50th storey, we rested for a while and hydrated ourselves with H-TWO-O drink which we bought before the climb. After some rest, we tapped our EZ-link card at the gantry to proceed inside the sky garden and sky bridges. The scenery up there was nice and we walked around to all the 7 blocks via the sky bridges and took some photos along the way. Too bad when we were up at the sky garden, it was around noon time and there was no wind at all, so it was quite hot. :(

(Opening hours of the 50th sty sky garden & sky bridge)

(View at the 50th sty sky garden & sky bridge)

After about 30 minutes of walking and photo shots, we left the 50th storey sky garden and asked the security guide outside the gantry whether we were allowed to visit the 26th storey sky bridges as well, but we were told that it is only accessible for the residents living there as it serves as a refuge floor to evacuate residents during a fire emergency

While we were waiting for the lift down to the tower, we noticed a signboard listing all the “No No No” rules at the sky garden. Take a look yourself. Haha. After leaving Pinnacle, we proceeded to Maxwell Food Centre to have our lunch before going back home.