Building for Memory: How Yio Chu Kang’s Dementia-Friendly Community Club Signals Singapore’s Future

by | Nov 16, 2025 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

A Milestone in Age-Inclusive Design

On November 16, 2025, the reopened Yio Chu Kang Community Club marked more than just the completion of a delayed renovation project. It represented a watershed moment in Singapore’s evolving response to one of its most pressing demographic challenges: the rapid aging of its population and the corresponding rise in dementia cases. With over 40% of Yio Chu Kang’s residents aged 50 and above, this community has become both a testing ground and a blueprint for how Singapore must reimagine its built environment for a super-aged society.

The Dementia-Friendly Design: Innovation in Wayfinding

Color-Coded Navigation System

The cornerstone of the community club’s dementia-friendly infrastructure lies in its sophisticated yet intuitive wayfinding system. Each level of the building is assigned a distinct color that appears consistently throughout lift lobbies, directional signage, and facility markers. This color-coding system leverages an important principle in dementia care: people with cognitive impairment often retain visual and associative memory longer than verbal or sequential memory.

The genius of this approach lies in its simplicity. Rather than requiring residents to remember floor numbers or read complex signage, they can rely on color recognition—a more primitive and resilient cognitive function. A resident visiting the second floor repeatedly will begin to associate “green” with their destination, creating a visual memory that persists even as other cognitive functions decline.

The Fruit Icon System: Bridging Indoor and Outdoor Navigation

Perhaps even more innovative is the integration of fruit symbols throughout the community club and the broader neighborhood. Each of the 10 zones in Yio Chu Kang has been assigned a unique fruit icon and corresponding color. These symbols appear not just within the community club but across all HDB blocks, on wayfinding murals, and on block facades throughout the town.

This creates a seamless navigational language that extends beyond the four walls of the community club. A resident who learns to associate their home block with a “pineapple” icon can use this same visual cue when navigating through the community club or returning home from activities elsewhere in the neighborhood.

The real-world impact of this system is illustrated powerfully in the story of Madam Ng Ah Lan’s mother. Five years ago, when her mother—who has dementia—became disoriented after attending a session at the active aging center, she was able to remember the color and fruit icon of her block. This visual memory, combined with the vigilance of a neighbor, enabled her safe return home. It’s a testament to how thoughtful design can provide a safety net for vulnerable residents while preserving their independence and dignity.

Multi-Sensory Directional Cues

The first-floor mural represents another layer of the wayfinding strategy. It combines directional arrows, amenity icons, and the fruit symbols in a single visual reference point. This multi-sensory approach recognizes that different residents will respond to different types of cues. Some may better recognize pictorial representations of facilities (a fork and knife for dining areas, a book for the library), while others may respond more strongly to directional arrows or color coding.

By providing multiple types of information simultaneously, the design accommodates varying levels of cognitive function and different stages of dementia progression.

Beyond Accessibility: Universal Design Principles

Physical Infrastructure Enhancements

While the dementia-friendly features capture attention, the renovation also incorporated broader accessibility improvements that benefit all residents, particularly those with mobility challenges:

  • Sheltered community space: The replacement of the open-air courtyard with a covered area ensures that programs can proceed regardless of weather, removing a barrier to consistent participation
  • Barrier-free access ramps: These enable wheelchair users and those with mobility aids to navigate the facility independently
  • Strategically placed handrails: Positioned throughout the facility to provide support where needed most
  • Sheltered drop-off point: Located at the rear of the building, this feature acknowledges that many elderly residents depend on family members or transport services

These improvements reflect a philosophy of universal design—creating environments that work for the broadest possible range of users without requiring special adaptation.

Expanded Community Space

The 60% increase in the facility’s size is significant not merely for the additional square footage, but for what it enables. Larger community spaces allow for more simultaneous programs, reducing scheduling conflicts and increasing access. They also provide room for emerging needs that may not have been anticipated in the original design.

The expansion was driven by resident feedback, demonstrating the importance of participatory design processes. When communities have agency in shaping their shared spaces, the results better reflect actual needs rather than assumed ones.

Singapore’s Demographic Imperative: The Context for Change

The Super-Aged Society Threshold

Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s remarks at the opening ceremony highlighted a sobering reality: Singapore will cross the threshold to become a super-aged society by 2026, with more than one in five residents aged 65 and older. Yio Chu Kang has already reached this milestone, making it not an outlier but a preview of Singapore’s imminent future.

This demographic shift is not gradual—it is rapid and transformative. Consider that in 1970, only 3.4% of Singapore’s population was aged 65 and above. By 2030, that figure is projected to reach 25%. This represents one of the fastest aging rates in the world, compressed into just six decades.

The Dementia Time Bomb

With aging comes a corresponding increase in age-related conditions, particularly dementia. Current estimates suggest that approximately 1 in 10 people aged 60 and above in Singapore has dementia, with numbers projected to triple from 82,000 in 2020 to nearly 240,000 by 2050.

These are not merely statistics—they represent individuals who will need to navigate physical environments, maintain social connections, and preserve independence for as long as possible. The question is not whether Singapore’s infrastructure must adapt, but how quickly and comprehensively it can do so.

Economic and Social Implications

The economic burden of dementia care is substantial. Family caregivers often reduce work hours or leave employment entirely to provide care. Healthcare costs escalate as the condition progresses. Social isolation becomes a risk both for those with dementia and their caregivers.

Dementia-friendly infrastructure represents a form of preventive intervention. By enabling people with early to moderate dementia to navigate their communities safely and independently, these design features can:

  • Delay institutionalization
  • Reduce caregiver burden
  • Maintain social engagement and cognitive stimulation
  • Preserve quality of life
  • Reduce the risk of incidents like wandering or getting lost

The return on investment, while difficult to quantify precisely, extends far beyond the construction costs.

A Five-Year Masterplan: Town-Wide Transformation

Collaborative Implementation

The dementia-friendly transformation of Yio Chu Kang didn’t happen in isolation. As MP Yip Hon Weng noted, the effort required coordination among multiple stakeholders:

  • Town council (for maintenance and ongoing management)
  • Housing and Development Board (for building modifications)
  • Ministry of National Development (for policy and funding support)
  • Centre for Liveable Cities (for urban planning expertise)
  • Singapore University of Technology and Design researchers (for evidence-based design principles)

This multi-agency collaboration represents an important model for how Singapore can tackle complex challenges that don’t fit neatly within single ministry portfolios. The involvement of academic researchers also ensures that design decisions are grounded in scientific understanding of dementia and cognitive function.

Consistency Across the Built Environment

The true power of Yio Chu Kang’s approach lies in its consistency. The fruit icons and color schemes don’t exist only in the community club—they’re integrated throughout all HDB blocks in the town. This creates a navigational language that becomes familiar through repetition and reinforcement.

For someone with dementia, encountering the same visual cues consistently across different locations strengthens memory formation and recall. The brain begins to recognize patterns: “Pineapple means home. Green means the second floor. The book icon means the library.” Over time, these associations become automatic, requiring less conscious cognitive effort.

Scaling Up: From Pilot to Blueprint

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Yio Chu Kang’s transformation is its potential for replication. MP Yip Hon Weng mentioned the creation of a dementia-friendly neighborhood guide—a roadmap compiled from resident feedback and implementation lessons that can inform similar efforts in other HDB towns.

Singapore’s public housing model, with its relatively standardized building designs and centralized management through HDB, creates unique opportunities for systematic rollout of such features. Unlike cities where housing is predominantly private and fragmented, Singapore can implement consistent design standards across large swathes of its residential areas relatively efficiently.

The question is one of prioritization and resources. Should Singapore focus first on towns that have already become super-aged, like Yio Chu Kang? Or should it take a preventive approach, implementing these features before communities age significantly? The answer likely involves both strategies—retrofitting where need is most acute while building dementia-friendly design into new developments from the start.

Broader Implications for Singapore’s Urban Planning

Rethinking “Age-Friendly” Infrastructure

Yio Chu Kang’s example challenges Singapore to think more expansively about what “age-friendly” infrastructure means. Traditional approaches have focused primarily on physical accessibility—ramps, handrails, and elevators. While these remain important, they address only one dimension of aging.

Cognitive accessibility—designing environments that accommodate changing cognitive function—represents a newer frontier. It requires different expertise, drawing from fields like cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and gerontology, not just architecture and civil engineering.

Integration with Smart Nation Initiatives

Singapore’s Smart Nation vision emphasizes using technology to improve lives and create opportunities. There’s potential synergy between dementia-friendly infrastructure and digital innovation:

  • Wearable devices could alert caregivers if someone with dementia wanders beyond familiar zones
  • QR codes on wayfinding markers could provide audio navigation assistance
  • Mobile apps could help caregivers locate family members within the neighborhood
  • AI-powered cameras could detect when someone appears confused or lost and alert community volunteers

The key is ensuring that technological solutions complement rather than replace human-centered design and community support networks.

Community Building Through Design

The renovated community club explicitly aims to “empower residents to take the lead in organizing ground-up activities.” This reflects an understanding that dementia-friendly communities aren’t just about infrastructure—they’re about fostering social connections and mutual support.

Physical design can facilitate these connections. The sheltered community space creates a natural gathering point. The expanded facility can host more programs, bringing diverse groups together. Shared navigation systems create common reference points for conversation and orientation.

In a super-aged society, building social capital becomes as important as building physical infrastructure. Neighbors who know each other are more likely to notice when something is amiss—like Madam Ng’s neighbor who recognized her mother wandering and helped her home.

Challenges and Limitations

The Delay Factor

The community club’s reopening came approximately two years after its original 2023 deadline, with pandemic disruptions cited as the cause. This delay, while understandable, highlights a challenge in addressing urgent demographic changes: infrastructure projects move slowly while populations age rapidly.

Singapore will need to find ways to accelerate implementation without compromising quality. This might involve:

  • Prefabricated modular components for wayfinding systems
  • Standardized design templates that can be rapidly customized for different neighborhoods
  • Parallel rather than sequential project timelines across multiple locations

Keeping Pace with Progressive Dementia

Dementia-friendly design accommodates early to moderate stages of the condition most effectively. As dementia progresses to advanced stages, even the best environmental cues may lose effectiveness. This underscores that infrastructure improvements, while valuable, are not a complete solution. They must be complemented by:

  • Home care support services
  • Day care and respite programs
  • Eventually, residential care facilities
  • Caregiver training and support

Balancing Aesthetics and Function

There’s a tension between creating obvious, high-contrast wayfinding cues that work for people with dementia and maintaining aesthetic appeal for the broader community. Some residents might find brightly colored floor-coding or large fruit icons visually jarring or infantilizing.

Yio Chu Kang appears to have struck this balance reasonably well by integrating the fruit icons into artistic murals rather than presenting them as purely functional signage. As Singapore scales this approach, careful attention to design quality will be essential to maintaining community buy-in.

Lessons for Other Nations

Singapore’s experience offers valuable insights for other rapidly aging societies, particularly in Asia:

The Advantage of Centralized Housing

Singapore’s public housing model, with roughly 80% of residents living in HDB flats, enables systematic implementation of design standards. Nations with more fragmented or privatized housing markets will need different strategies, perhaps focusing on incentives or regulations to encourage private developers to adopt dementia-friendly features.

The Importance of Early Planning

Yio Chu Kang’s five-year masterplan, announced in 2021, demonstrates the value of anticipating demographic shifts rather than merely reacting to them. Other nations would benefit from similar forward planning, identifying neighborhoods likely to age rapidly and beginning infrastructure adaptations before crises emerge.

Community Engagement as Foundation

The emphasis on resident feedback in shaping both the community club renovation and the broader dementia-friendly neighborhood guide reflects a participatory approach that builds community ownership. Imposed solutions, however well-intentioned, rarely work as well as those developed in partnership with the people who will use them.

Looking Forward: The Next Frontiers

Beyond Physical Infrastructure

As Yio Chu Kang completes its physical transformation, attention will likely shift to programming and services:

  • Dementia awareness training for community volunteers and service staff
  • Support groups for caregivers who often experience stress, isolation, and burnout
  • Intergenerational programs that combat ageism while providing practical support
  • Memory cafés where people with dementia and their caregivers can socialize in supportive environments

Research and Evaluation

Singapore should invest in rigorous evaluation of Yio Chu Kang’s dementia-friendly features:

  • Do they measurably reduce incidents of people with dementia getting lost?
  • Do they enable people to maintain independence longer?
  • How do they affect caregiver stress levels?
  • What is the cost-effectiveness compared to other interventions?

Such evidence will be invaluable in refining the approach and making the case for investment in other communities.

Integration with Healthcare Systems

Currently, dementia-friendly infrastructure exists somewhat separately from healthcare delivery. Greater integration could amplify benefits:

  • General practitioners could “prescribe” community programs as interventions
  • Community clubs could host health screenings and early detection programs
  • Data from community spaces could inform care planning (with appropriate privacy protections)

Regional Leadership

Singapore has an opportunity to establish itself as a regional leader in dementia-friendly urban design. By documenting its experiences, sharing its dementia-friendly neighborhood guide, and hosting study visits for urban planners from other nations, Singapore can multiply the impact of its innovations.

Conclusion: A Test Case for Singapore’s Future

The reopening of Yio Chu Kang Community Club on November 16, 2025, is ultimately about more than one renovated building in one neighborhood. It represents a fundamental question: Can Singapore successfully adapt its physical and social infrastructure to support a rapidly aging population with dignity, independence, and quality of life?

The early signs are promising. The thoughtful integration of dementia-friendly design principles, the multi-stakeholder collaboration, the town-wide consistency, and the explicit plan for scaling up all suggest a serious, systematic approach to a serious, systematic challenge.

Yet the test is far from over. Yio Chu Kang is, in Senior Minister Lee’s words, “among the oldest parts” of Singapore. But by 2026, the entire nation will be a super-aged society. The question is whether Singapore can replicate and adapt Yio Chu Kang’s successes quickly enough and comprehensively enough to meet this demographic wave.

The stakes are high. Done well, dementia-friendly infrastructure can preserve independence, maintain dignity, strengthen communities, and reduce the human and economic costs of dementia care. Done poorly or too slowly, Singapore risks a growing crisis of isolated elders, overwhelmed caregivers, and preventable tragedies.

Madam Ng’s story—of her mother remembering a fruit icon and color when everything else was confusing, of a neighbor who noticed and helped, of a safe return home—offers a glimpse of what’s possible. It’s a small moment, but it encapsulates what Singapore is working toward: a society where aging doesn’t mean isolation, where cognitive challenges don’t erase identity, and where the built environment supports rather than hinders those who navigate it.

In a rapidly aging world, many nations will be watching Singapore’s experiment in Yio Chu Kang and beyond. The lessons learned—both successes and setbacks—will resonate far beyond this small town in northern Singapore. They will help shape how societies worldwide adapt to one of the most profound demographic transformations in human history.

The renovation of a community club might seem a modest achievement. But in the context of Singapore’s demographic future, it represents something far more significant: a tangible commitment to ensuring that no one is left behind as the nation ages, and that the infrastructure of community life evolves to embrace all its members, regardless of the challenges they face.

The Pineapple House

Part One: The Wandering

Ah Mah’s hands trembled as she pushed open the glass door of the Active Ageing Centre. The afternoon sun was bright—too bright—and for a moment she stood blinking on the threshold, trying to remember which way was home.

The tai chi class had been good. She remembered that much. The instructor’s voice, gentle and patient: “Breathe in. Raise your arms like the crane. Breathe out.” Her body had remembered the movements even when the instructor’s name slipped away mid-sentence, dissolving like sugar in water.

But now, standing outside, everything looked the same. Grey blocks stretching upward. Windows catching the light. Which one was hers?

“Auntie, you okay?” A young woman with a baby strapped to her chest paused beside her.

“I’m fine, fine,” Ah Mah said automatically, waving her hand. The woman nodded and walked on. Ah Mah watched her disappear around a corner, then turned the opposite direction. That felt right. Maybe.

The afternoon heat pressed down on her shoulders. Her canvas shoes made soft sounds on the pavement. She passed the playground where children shouted and laughed, their voices bright as birds. She passed the provision shop with its baskets of vegetables spilling onto the five-foot way. The uncle inside called out a greeting but she hurried past, embarrassed that she couldn’t remember his name.

At the next block, she stopped. This wasn’t right. The corridor looked wrong. Too narrow. The potted plants on the landing were different—orchids instead of bougainvillea. Or had there been bougainvillea? She couldn’t remember anymore.

Panic rose in her chest, cold despite the heat. Her daughter Ah Lan’s voice echoed in her mind: “Ma, you cannot go out alone. Wait for me to come with you.” But Ah Lan worked so hard already, always tired, always rushing between the restaurant and home. Ah Mah didn’t want to be a burden.

She walked faster now, her breathing shallow. Block after block, corridor after corridor, each one both familiar and strange. An old fear crept over her—the fear of becoming lost in a world that used to make perfect sense, of watching her own mind betray her piece by piece.

Then she saw it.

On the side of a building, painted large and cheerful: a pineapple. Yellow and green, with a crown of spiky leaves. And around it, a border of yellow paint.

Her racing heart slowed. The pineapple. Yellow. Her hands stopped shaking.

She couldn’t remember her address. Couldn’t remember the block number or the floor. But she knew the pineapple. The pineapple meant home.

With renewed purpose, she walked toward the yellow building. In the void deck, she paused again. There were lift lobbies on either side. Which one?

“Auntie Lim?”

She turned. A middle-aged woman with shopping bags was watching her with concern. Mrs… Mrs… the name wouldn’t come. But the face was familiar. This woman lived in the yellow block. The pineapple block.

“Auntie Lim, you looking for your flat? Come, I bring you.”

Relief flooded through her. She followed the woman to the right lift lobby—also painted yellow, she noticed now—and watched as the woman pressed the button marked with a green circle.

“Green floor, right?” the woman said kindly.

Green. Yes. Yellow building, green floor. The pineapple house.

When the lift doors opened, Ah Mah knew the way. Third door from the lift, the one with the wooden wind chime her son-in-law had hung last year. Or was it two years ago?

Her daughter opened the door before she could knock, her face tight with worry.

“Ma! Where did you go? I came home and you weren’t—” Ah Lan stopped, seeing the neighbor. “Mrs. Tan. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“No need to thank. I found her downstairs, looking a bit confused. But she remembered the pineapple, so I knew she lived in our block.”

After Mrs. Tan left, Ah Lan helped her mother to the sofa, brought her water, held her hand without scolding. But Ah Mah could see the worry in her daughter’s eyes, the way she pressed her lips together to keep from crying.

“I’m sorry,” Ah Mah whispered. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s not your fault, Ma.” Ah Lan’s voice cracked. “I just… I’m scared something will happen to you. What if you can’t find your way home next time? What if no one notices?”

Ah Mah looked at her daughter’s face—still young, but creased with care and exhaustion. She thought of the pineapple painted on the building, bright as sunshine. The yellow and green that had pulled her home when everything else was fog.

“The pineapple,” she said. “I remembered the pineapple.”

Part Two: The Building

Five years later, Ah Lan stood in the void deck of the newly renovated Yio Chu Kang Community Club, watching her mother examine the mural on the wall.

The mural was beautiful—a map of the entire neighborhood rendered in cheerful colors. Each zone had its own fruit icon and color. The pineapple zone was yellow. The apple zone was red. The orange zone was, naturally, orange. Arrows pointed in different directions, and small icons showed where the library was, where the hawker centre stood, where the bus stops waited.

“This is good,” Ah Mah said, tracing the pineapple with one finger. “Easy to remember.”

Ah Lan blinked back unexpected tears. Her mother’s dementia had progressed in the past five years. Some days were better than others. She could no longer be left alone for long periods. She sometimes forgot Ah Lan’s name, calling her “girl” instead, though her face always lit up when she saw her daughter.

But she still remembered the pineapple.

“Come, Ma,” Ah Lan said gently. “Let’s go see the rest of the center.”

They took the lift to the second floor—the green floor, marked with green paint in the lobby and green signs on the walls. Her mother smiled at the green, recognizing something familiar.

The culinary studio was new, all gleaming counters and modern equipment. A cooking class was in session, seniors learning to make kueh together under the guidance of a patient instructor. The sheltered community space was filled with light, even though rain drummed on the roof outside. Two men played chess while a group of aunties practiced line dancing to old Mandarin pop songs.

“Ah Lan?”

She turned. MP Yip Hon Weng was walking toward them, accompanied by an older man in a dark suit. It took her a moment to recognize him—Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Her heart jumped. She’d voted for the PAP all her life, but she’d never expected to meet SM Lee in person.

“Mr. Yip mentioned you during the planning process,” SM Lee said, shaking her hand warmly before turning to her mother. “And you must be Madam Lim. I hear you’re the reason we have pineapples all over Yio Chu Kang.”

Ah Mah looked confused, then pleased when Ah Lan squeezed her hand.

“My mother got lost five years ago,” Ah Lan explained, her voice steady despite the emotion rising in her throat. “She has dementia. But she remembered the pineapple painted on our block—the color too. A neighbor found her and brought her home. When Mr. Yip’s team asked for feedback about the estate, I told them that story.”

SM Lee nodded thoughtfully. “And now the whole town uses the same system. So if someone gets disoriented, there are visual cues everywhere to help them find their way.” He looked at Ah Mah. “Your memory helped build something for everyone.”

After the officials moved on, Ah Lan and her mother sat in the community space, watching the rain through the high windows. A young couple passed by, the man pushing a stroller while reading something on his phone. An elderly uncle practiced his erhu in the corner, the notes floating through the air like silk ribbons.

“You remember that day, Ma?” Ah Lan asked softly. “When you got lost after tai chi?”

Ah Mah was quiet for a long moment. Her face shifted through expressions—confusion, fear, then something clearing like clouds after rain.

“I was scared,” she said finally. “Everything was mixed up. But the pineapple… the pineapple was real. Yellow and clear. Like a friend waving at me.” She paused. “You were very worried.”

“I was terrified,” Ah Lan admitted. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“But you didn’t.” Ah Mah patted her daughter’s hand. “The pineapple brought me home.”

Part Three: The Neighbor

Mrs. Tan was watering her plants when she heard the commotion in the corridor. She set down her watering can and stepped outside.

Auntie Lim was standing by the lift lobby, looking distressed. Her daughter—what was her name? Ah Lan, that’s right—was nowhere to be seen.

“Auntie Lim? You okay?”

The older woman turned to her, relief washing over her face. “Ah girl, you know which one is my house? I forget already.”

Mrs. Tan smiled gently. This happened sometimes now. The dementia was getting worse; everyone in the block knew. But Ah Lan was a good daughter—she’d arranged for a helper to be with her mother most days. The helper must have stepped out for a moment.

“Come, Auntie. I bring you home. You see the green?” Mrs. Tan pointed to the green-painted lift lobby. “Your house is on the green floor. And look—” She pointed to the pineapple symbol on the wall sign. “Pineapple block, green floor. Like always.”

Recognition flickered in Auntie Lim’s eyes. “Green. Yes. And pineapple.” She smiled, some of the anxiety leaving her face.

Mrs. Tan walked with her down the corridor. “Third door, right? The one with the wind chime?”

“Wind chime,” Auntie Lim repeated, pleased. The sound of it seemed to orient her. “My son-in-law put it up.”

When they reached the door, the helper answered, apologetic. “Sorry, sorry! I was in the toilet. Auntie walked out so fast!”

“It’s okay,” Mrs. Tan said. “She didn’t go far. Just to the lift lobby.”

As she walked back to her own flat, Mrs. Tan thought about how the neighborhood had changed. The colors and fruit symbols were everywhere now—not just on buildings, but on the bus stops, on the signs at the market, even on the new benches they’d installed in the park. At first, she’d thought it looked a bit childish, like they were living in a kindergarten.

But she understood now. She’d seen Auntie Lim’s face when she spotted the green and the pineapple—the way something clicked back into place, the fear receding. She’d heard stories from other neighbors too. Uncle Chen, who’d helped an elderly man find his way back to the orange zone. Auntie Goh, who’d spotted someone’s grandmother sitting confused on a bench and had called the police, describing her location by the fruit symbol on the nearby building.

The system worked. Not because it was sophisticated, but because it was simple. Simple enough to remember even when everything else was slipping away. And consistent enough that everyone in the community learned the language—young and old, healthy and struggling.

Mrs. Tan watered the last of her plants, then went inside to start preparing dinner. Through her window, she could see the pineapple painted on the opposite block, bright yellow against the grey concrete. Five years ago, it had just been decoration. Now it was something more—a promise that this community would help its own find their way home.

Part Four: The Opening

On the day of the official opening, Ah Lan pushed her mother’s wheelchair through the crowded community club. Ah Mah was having a bad day—she’d woken up confused and tired, not quite certain where she was. But she’d wanted to come, insisted on it with the stubbornness that still surfaced even through the fog of dementia.

“The pineapple house,” she’d said. “We’re going to the pineapple house.”

The renovated center was filled with people. Residents, grassroots volunteers, officials in white shirts. Someone had set up a refreshment table with curry puffs and sugarcane juice. Children ran through the corridors despite their parents’ scoldings, excited by the newness of it all.

Ah Lan found a quiet corner where her mother could see everything without being overwhelmed by the crowd. From here, they could watch SM Lee and MP Yip touring the facility, pausing to speak with residents, examining the new features.

A young journalist approached them, notepad in hand. “Excuse me, are you Mrs. Ng? Mr. Yip mentioned you might be here. Could I ask you a few questions about the dementia-friendly features?”

Ah Lan hesitated, glancing at her mother. But Ah Mah was watching the crowd with interest, humming softly to herself.

“My mother got lost five years ago,” Ah Lan began, then told the story once more—the tai chi class, the wandering, the pineapple that brought her home.

The journalist scribbled notes. “And these features—the colors, the symbols—do they really make a difference?”

Ah Lan looked at her mother. At 77, Ah Mah was smaller than she used to be, more fragile. Her hands sometimes shook. She forgot names, dates, sometimes entire years of her life. She could no longer cook the dishes she’d once made with such pride, couldn’t manage the route to the market she’d walked for decades.

But every time they came home, she brightened at the sight of the pineapple. Every time they took the lift, she relaxed when she saw the green. These small visual anchors helped her navigate a world that was increasingly strange to her.

“They make all the difference,” Ah Lan said quietly. “They let her keep some independence. Some dignity. That matters more than people realize.”

The journalist thanked her and moved on. Ah Lan sat beside her mother’s wheelchair, watching the celebration around them. In a few years, maybe sooner, the dementia would progress beyond what these features could help. There would come a day when even the pineapple couldn’t guide her mother home.

But today wasn’t that day.

“Look, Ma,” she said, pointing to the mural on the wall. “See the pineapple? That’s our zone.”

Ah Mah leaned forward, squinting at the mural. Her face brightened. “Yellow,” she said. “The pineapple is yellow. Like sunshine.”

“Like sunshine,” Ah Lan agreed, taking her mother’s hand.

Around them, the community club hummed with life. Seniors signed up for exercise classes. Young parents explored the childcare facilities. Volunteers discussed programs they wanted to organize. And on every wall, at every turn, the wayfinding cues offered their quiet guidance—arrows and colors and friendly fruit symbols, telling everyone: You belong here. We’ll help you find your way.

Through the window, Ah Lan could see more blocks in the distance, each marked with its own fruit and color. The whole neighborhood speaking the same visual language, creating a web of memory and recognition that caught people before they fell too far.

It wasn’t a cure. It didn’t stop the progression of her mother’s illness. But it bought time—precious time for independence, for dignity, for moments like this one.

Her mother squeezed her hand. “This is a good place,” Ah Mah said. “A good place to grow old.”

Ah Lan felt tears prick her eyes. “Yes, Ma,” she whispered. “It is.”

Outside, the afternoon sun painted the pineapple on the building in shades of gold. Inside, the community gathered to celebrate not just a renovated building, but a promise—that in this place, in this town, no one would face aging alone. That the built environment would adapt to hold them, guide them, bring them home.

And in a wheelchair in the corner, an elderly woman with dementia hummed softly to herself, content in the knowledge that somewhere in this bustling, complex world, there was a yellow pineapple waiting to show her the way.

Epilogue

Ten years later, the dementia-friendly features of Yio Chu Kang would become standard in new developments across Singapore. The pineapple, the colors, the careful wayfinding—these would spread through the island like seeds carried on the wind.

Urban planners from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would visit to study the system. Academic papers would be written. The dementia-friendly neighborhood guide would be translated into multiple languages.

But long before all that, before the policies and the studies and the international recognition, there was just a grandmother who got lost after tai chi, and a pineapple that brought her home.

Sometimes the most profound changes begin with the smallest moments of care.