History

The Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) was a government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

 organisation set up in 1927 by the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 colonial government in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

 in response to the housing needs of the population of Singapore. At that time, many people resided in overcrowded

Overpopulation

Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...

 shophouse

Shophouse

A shophouse is a vernacular architectural building type that is commonly seen in areas such as urban Southeast Asia. This hybrid building form characterises the historical centres of most towns and cities in the region.- Design and features :...

s and squatter

Squatting

Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....

 settlement

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

s, resulting in widespread disease

Disease

A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...

 and lack of hygiene

Hygiene

Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...

 and sanitation

Sanitation

Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...

. Often, over 200 people would live in one shophouse. This also generated massive civil unrest and crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

.

The SIT was formed with the recruitment of Captain Edwin Percy Richards as deputy chairman. The SIT was composed of profession

Profession

A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain....

al architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

s and contractor

General contractor

A general contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and communication of information to involved parties throughout the course of a building project.-Description:...

s to resolve this large social problem, with the goal of building affordable public housing

Public housing

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...

 for the common population of Singapore.

Projects

One of its earliest projects was the Tiong Bahru housing estate, which is regarded as the first public housing estate of Singapore. However, SIT managed to build only 23,000 housing units in 32 years, unable to find an effective solution to the lack of housing as the population grew faster than it built housing units.

Singapore's first satellite new town, Queenstown, was initiated by SIT in the 1950s but has been developed mostly by HDB.

Replacement by HDB

It was eventually dissolved and replaced by the Housing and Development Board (HDB), which in contrast managed to build 110,000 housing units within less than a third of that time. On the other hand, flats built by HDB then are almost identical in their two-dimensional “matchbox” style; This is in contrast with the aesthetic art deco theme undertaken by SIT.