In a hyper-modern city like Singapore, progress often looks like new skylines, efficient systems, and clean lines. however, this constant state of renewal creates a quiet risk: forgetting. Heritage, in this context, isn’t just about saving shophouses or showcasing nostalgia. It’s about remembering the layers of life and meaning that made these streets worth walking in the first place.

Crafting heritage tours and walks is based on the perception of heritage as an active discipline, rather than a relic kept in a glass case. It is knowledge to be walked through, questioned, reinterpreted. Architecture, planning, trade, rituals, even smells – they carry a shared DNA. Preserving them is not just about memory. It’s about design. How do we design a city and a world that feels lived in, not just looked at? How do we ensure the places we build tomorrow still speak to the voices of yesterday?

Projects are developed in collaboration with government agencies like the National Heritage Board, Ministry of Education, urban planning firms, and corporate clients. They are committed with clear objectives: to foster deeper civic engagement, to promote cultural literacy, and to cultivate a sense of place-based identity that informs decision-making in urban, educational, and organisational contexts.

From a client’s perspective, the results expected often fall into three categories. First, the enhancement of public awareness: ensuring that participants leave with a stronger appreciation of local heritage and its relevance today. Second, behavioural impact: encouraging stakeholders to engage more thoughtfully with the built environment or to integrate heritage considerations into planning, education, or branding strategies. And third, reputational value: supporting the client’s public mission or corporate social responsibility goals by aligning with meaningful, community-focused initiatives.

These stakeholders often come with a topic or district in mind and they seek a collaboration to deepen the narrative: to identify stories not immediately visible and reframe familiar ones. For example, a school might want a history walk. But instead of simply recounting known events, I ask: what does this neighbourhood teach us about resilience? What urban design lessons lie beneath its layout? That deeper reframing allows me to fulfil the brief while delivering more long-term educational value.

Take Chinatown for example. It is a district often reduced to its Chinese identity and stories of early Chinese immigrants.  It’s fast becoming more tourist-oriented, and with that comes a different kind of energy: one that’s vibrant, yes, but also at risk of flattening the rich, lived layers of the district. That’s why I believe in creating experiences that strike a balance: speaking to visitors without diluting what makes this place meaningful to those who call it home.

In many ways, heritage work teaches patience, long-term thinking, and listening. It shows you that change is not about wiping the slate clean. It’s about layering with care

Here, the work needs to focus on a deeper look: two projects helped me bring these layers to life.

The first is Chinatown Originals, a National Heritage Board initiative I worked on. It wasn’t just about walking past old shops. It was an experience around five longstanding businesses still rooted in the district. At Tong Heng, participants discovered how a Cantonese pastry shop rebranded for younger audiences while keeping its heritage recipes unchanged. At Chop Wah On, they were struck by a century-old ointment brand that continues to thrive purely through word of mouth and generational trust – a form of marketing few businesses can claim today.

To me, this wasn’t just about buying local. It was about seeing values. Participants left not just with appreciation, but with inspiration: understanding how tradition evolves without losing soul.

The second was with the Ministry of Education. I reimagined a heritage trail for teachers and students, shifting away from the usual focus on only looking at Chinese heritage to reveal the district’s multi-religious and multicultural layers. We looked at Sri Mariamman Temple right in the heart of Chinatown and unveiled how streets like Pagoda Street and Temple Street were named after this Hindu landmark, not Chinese ones. At Thian Hock Keng Temple, I invited participants to notice that the painted door eunuchs that didn’t look Chinese at all: the spotted beards and darker complexions. Why? Scholars believe they reflect the multi-cultural and multi-racial character of Singapore society then. These revelations reframe diversity not as a modern buzzword, but a lived fact of our historical landscape. At Duxton Plain Park, participants see a modern green space. When they learn it was once part of a railway line, the space transforms. It gains meaning. They start to wonder: what else have I missed?

In working with tourists and visitors, I am approaching the walks with the intent of unveiling aspects of the place that may have been unseen.In fact, one of the most common feedback after a tour is: “I walk past this place every week and had no idea.”

The approach layers architecture, planning history, business stories, community rituals and overlooked symbols into one narrative arc, yet, it’s done through discovery, not delivery. It is important that people relate what they see and experience everyday to what it tells us about the past. This makes history stick.

This is interesting, considering that the audience that participate to these tours is overwhelmingly local.

In the past year, about 70 tours have been conducted across eight curated themes, reaching about 1,750 participants. One of the most sought-after tour is where we trace Stamford Canal and observe it’s impact on urban planning and history. It is a refreshing tour that you cannot experience anywhere else – close to 500 participants have taken that walk. About 95 percent of tour participants are Singapore citizens or residents who walk these streets daily, who live among these shifting landscapes, and who deserve to see their environment not as a backdrop but as a story they’re part of. It’s about equipping locals with the language and lens to appreciate their own surroundings, not just as places to pass through, but as places to care for and make sense of. Locals come for different reasons. Some are reconnecting with childhood neighborhoods. Others are curious to explore a place they thought they already knew.

The remaining are tourists who usually discover the itineraries through word of mouth or online content. They are often fascinated by how condensed, layered and hybrid Singapore is.

Both groups have in common is a hunger for meaning. They don’t just want a timeline of events. They want context. They want to understand why the city is the way it is, and where their place might be within that story.

This shapes the way we measure what we do. Numbers matter. Attendance figures, social shares, engagement rates: these are important, especially when reporting to stakeholders. But they’re not the whole story.

The most lasting impact is often slow. It shows up in the email someone sends weeks later, saying they brought their parents back to the same spot. Or in a teacher who redesigns their lesson plan because of a single walk. You can’t always measure that immediately.

We need to stop pretending every form of success can be made visible in a chart. Impact sometimes means giving people a language to describe what they’ve always felt but didn’t know how to articulate. That can’t be gamified.

I do my best to track impact through feedback, follow-up actions, and qualitative shifts.

However, to see differently, we need to make room and accept what is unseen: the shift in mindset, the changed way of walking through a familiar street. That is harder to count, but often more powerful.