Twenty Years, Twenty Millimetres

Twenty years ago, I was in polytechnic spending a great deal of time climbing.

During the pandemic, Movement First built climbing walls in people’s homes.

In March 2026, a wall we built opened to the public at Temasek Shophouse.

Written this way, it sounds as though I had planned the whole progression. I had not. When we started Movement First in 2013, we sold fitness equipment. We learnt sourcing because we needed products. Then warehousing, because the products had to go somewhere. Delivery and installation followed. Later came custom fabrication, followed by the need to work properly with architects, engineers and contractors. None of this happened in one clever leap. Each new problem forced us to learn the next part.

Jeremy Ko wearing a hard hat during the Temasek Shophouse site works — One of many site visits before the wall was ready.

Temasek Shophouse outdoor site before the playwall was constructed — The site before the playwall and finished landscape.

The Temasek Shophouse playwall brought most of those parts together in one small area of ground.

I thought the interesting problem would be the wall

The brief was very good. Children would climb through a mural about solar energy, restored waterways, biodiversity and mangroves. There would be fish, otters and herons, together with interactive panels they could turn and touch.

Environmental playwall concept drawing in front of the prepared climbing surface

The environmental story was worked into the climbing and interactive zones.

I thought our main job would be to fit the climbing route into the artwork without making it look like a school worksheet. Instead, I spent much of the project thinking about the concrete below the wall, the tree beside it, the rubber in front of it and the old building behind it. Temasek Shophouse held the idea for the community space. Surbana Jurong’s architects coordinated the wall with the conserved building and landscape. Landscape Engineering Pte Ltd (LEPL) built the ground around us. Our engineer dealt with stability. The PE and CPSI had to be satisfied before anyone could use it. It was the first time I saw so clearly that the difficult part of custom work often sits between the scopes. The wall touched the rubber. The rubber touched the pavement. The pavement met the tree roots. Every answer moved somebody else’s drawing.

We got one assumption wrong

The tree’s protection zone gave us about 400 mm of concrete depth on one side and 600 mm outside it. We had understood the support beneath the wall as being closer to continuous concrete. The landscape was actually built on individual stumps. We had misunderstood it.

Reinforced concrete footing being prepared beside the Temasek Shophouse wall — The interesting problem turned out to be below the wall.

Individual concrete stumps and landscape frame beside the old tree — The landscape used individual stumps rather than one continuous slab.

There was little value in spending another week arguing over which drawing had made that misunderstanding possible. Our engineer needed to recalculate the wall against tipping using the support condition that existed on site. So that was what we did. I think this is a more useful measure of experience than pretending mistakes stop happening. They do not. The difference is whether you notice what the mistake affects, admit it early enough and bring in the person qualified to resolve it.

Sometimes the correct answer is “not yet”

The concrete bases were cast on 24 November 2025. At three days, the Grade 50 cubes averaged about 38 MPa. To most people, including me, 38 MPa sounds strong. The problem was that our anchors did not depend on whether the concrete sounded strong. They depended on the assumptions accepted by the engineer. The programme wanted the wall installed. LEPL had a site to finish and an opening date to meet. We were responsible for the steel and anchors. The tempting answer was to look at the cube result and keep moving.

I did not need to say no. I needed to say, “Not yet. Show us the engineering basis first.”

That conversation was uncomfortable, but it was not uncooperative. If an anchor failed later, it would not matter which company had been trying hardest to meet the programme. Asking for proper acceptance protected LEPL, the engineer and us.

This project made one distinction very clear to me: being helpful is not the same as agreeing immediately. Sometimes the useful answer is “not yet”.

After all that, we were short by 20 mm

The drawings showed enough clearance. The site did not. Our new steel was straight. The 1928 shophouse wall beside it leaned slightly. Once everything was installed, the tightest clear distance came to about 1,800–1,810 mm against the required 1,830 mm. After the calculations, tree roots and concrete discussions, we were short by roughly the width of a finger. It was almost funny. The team extended the EPDM edge by about 30 mm. The physical work was simple. Somebody still had to measure the actual wall, find the problem and refuse to call 1,810 mm close enough. The final installation received PE endorsement and passed its CPSI inspection. The playwall opened on 14 March 2026.

The nicest part was not technical

The finished wall used 100 mm of EPDM for a 1.5 m Critical Fall Height requirement. Its highest handhold was kept at 1.5 m because of the overhead awning. The plywood, Weatherbond and Aqua Bodelac finish, anchors and structure all had to be worked through before handover. None of those details became my favourite part of the project.

Community participant painting part of the Temasek Shophouse mural — The community painting session gave people a reason to care that the wall was there.

Child using an interactive panel on the finished environmental playwall — The calculations mattered because a child would eventually use the wall.

Temasek Shophouse invited persons living with dementia and their care partners to paint part of the mural. Nur Iman and Chris Chew brought the environmental story together, and a small forget-me-not flower was included for the participants to find when they returned with their families. We had spent months measuring and calculating so that children could use the wall safely. The community painting gave people a reason to care that it was there.

What changed between 2013 and now

Movement First has not become an architectural or engineering company, and I do not want us to pretend otherwise. What changed is that we now know more of the questions.

We know when a catalogue detail no longer applies. We know that the architect, landscape contractor, engineer and safety inspector sometimes need to look at the same 300 mm of ground. We know that an impressive test number can still require a qualified person’s acceptance. We also know that the drawing is not the final measurement.

Temasek Shophouse conserved building and outdoor community garden

The completed outdoor community space at Temasek Shophouse.

Most of that knowledge accumulated through site meetings, mistakes and projects that were more difficult than expected. It does not photograph particularly well. Twenty years after I started climbing, I was no longer thinking only about the route on the wall. I was thinking about everything that needed to happen before a child could climb it safely. That is probably the clearest description of how my work has changed.

Completed Temasek Shophouse environmental playwall beside the mature tree and conserved building

The finished wall beside the tree that shaped so many of its details.

The full project case study, including the design, engineering and construction process, is available on the Movement First website.