Swimming pool starter blocks at Mount Pleasant Old Police Academy converted to seats at new HDB BTO estate

The new Mount Pleasant housing estate will incorporate repurposed structures of the Old Police Academy (OPA), the Housing & Development Board (HDB) shared in its masterplan.

The OPA, which occupied the Mount Pleasant site for 76 years from 1929, has been gradually dismantled to make way for 6,000 new flats over four BTO projects.

Among the structures to be taken apart and retained is starter blocks of the iconic swimming pool.

The Olympic-sized pool was launched in 1977 by then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to serve as a training facility for police officers at the OPA.

It also became a recreational space that hosted swimming meets and community events that brought officers, their families, and the community together.

Memories at the pool

A former police officer for 39 years, Lee Chee Chiew, 67, was part of an OPA workgroup consulted on the project to conserve the academy's heritage at Mount Pleasant.

Lee trained often at the OPA. He learnt his swimming and life saving skills as a police officer at its swimming pool while undergoing a nine-month Officer Cadet Training in 1977, he told Mothership.

One of the workgroup's recommendations to HDB was to retain and modify the poolside starter blocks for leisure and community use, he shared.

Here's what the starter blocks at the pool looked like during the 2010s.

Reused as seating

Following detailed inspections and assessments, HDB announced that six of the swimming pool starter blocks will be conserved and reused as seating at the drop-off porch of Mount Pleasant Crest, the first BTO project of the estate.

Their extraction required careful and controlled dismantling to prevent damage.

First, a demolition machine was used to break the concrete around each block, and the exposed reinforcement around the base was removed.

The blocks were then secured with lifting straps and protective padding before being lifted by an excavator.

Repurposing the Old Drill Shed

Another recommendation by the OPA workgroup was to retain parts of the Old Drill Shed (ODS), which began construction near the Mount Pleasant Road gate in 1927.

According to Lee, the ODS was a training site for almost all National Police Cadet Corps (NPCC) cadets, police national service full-time officers, regular police officer trainees, and volunteer special constabulary officer trainees at the time. This included Lee himself during the 1970s.

They would go through drills, individual physical proficiency tests (IPPTs) IPPTs, and sports such as boxing there.

HDB shared that the ODS had much conservation potential based on its architectural design and intricate steel framework.

Thus, HDB identified several trusses and columns for retention, and plans to reuse them in the Mount Pleasant Crest precinct pavilion.

To dismantle these parts, workers methodically removed connection bolts between the roof trusses and supporting columns, while using a lorry crane to keep them under tension to prevent damage.

The ODS structures and the swimming pool blocks will undergo comprehensive treatment processes to ensure long-term durability and structural integrity.

Here's an artist's impression of the pavilion, which will include the ODS's signature pitched roof with ridge and slatted ventilation openings.

Other blocks conserved

Additionally, part of the former OPA parade square will be retained as a community space, while four blocks will be converted into facilities.

Block 1 of the OPA will be converted into a heritage gallery for the Singapore Police Force (SPF) — another recommendation from the OPA workgroup, Lee told Mothership.

Block 1, which used to house the Director of the Police Academy's office, featured a huge police crest, the Singapore national flag, and the SPF flag at the front.

"Most of our graduation group photographs at the closing of respective training programmes and courses were also taken in front of that block," Lee recalled.

He and other former officers in the workgroup thus suggested using this significant site to display police heritage pictures, old photos, and historical exhibits.

Lee described HDB's efforts to repurpose parts of the OPA in Mount Pleasant as "a very challenging and meaningful special project".

He hopes that it will guide ongoing and future efforts to develop a heritage impact assessment framework in Singapore.

Another former police officer involved in the workgroup, Chua Song Heng, 62, told Mothership that he felt the heritage elements would be thoughtfully embedded in the new estate, based on the visualisations.

"Each [element] has been blended into new structures, but are still immediately recognisable to anyone who had spent time in OPA," he said.

Top images from Singapore Police Force and HDB