SINGAPORE — It is Singapore’s secret Eden, a miniature village called Kampong Buangkok that is hidden in trees among the massed apartment blocks, where a fresh breeze rustles the coconut palms and tropical birds whoop and whistle.

With just 28 houses in an area the size of three football fields, it is Singapore’s last rural hamlet, a forgotten straggler in the rush to modernize this high-rise, high-tech city-state. But apparently not for much longer. Kampong Buangkok is designated by the government for demolition and redevelopment, possibly in the near future. When it is gone, one of the world’s most extreme national makeovers will be complete.

Kampong is a local word for village and also defines a traditional rural way of life that Singapore has left behind.

“The big overhaul began in the early 1960s,” said Rodolph de Koninck, a professor of geography at the University of Montreal and one of the authors of “Singapore: An Atlas of Perpetual Territorial Transformation,” which graphically charts a half-century of change.