This photograph was uploaded on Facebook by one Sua (Editor: Name removed on request). It shows a void deck, supposedly at Queenstown, which has several metal railings erected in it.

With those railings in place, it does prevent the space for being used for activities commonly associated with void decks — kids playing sports, a venue for weddings or wakes, or just a convenient straightforward path for residents to walk through.

Perhaps the incredulity of this structure is best described by Sua:

"The void deck is an informal, but very important, space for many Singaporeans living in public housing. It is a place where kids can kick a ball around, families can play badminton without needing to book a court, for weddings, for funerals. For the elderly, it is a space to socialise. For low-income households, this is the few free spaces that their kids can enjoy some sports... yet over the weekend, the town council decided to erect these metal bars that serve no practical purposes other than to prevent such organic uses of space from happening. These space, originally filled with so much potential for use and creativity, is now effectively transformed into a dead space. To whoever thought of this: shame on you. It is a bad solution to a non-problem and a waste of taxpayers' money. You are essentially using our funds to deprive us of a space we can use, and have been using. This is on top of the multiple CCTVs installed all around the void deck. And it's not only the void deck of my block, but a number of blocks in the estate. I guess Queenstown is now a parkour wonderland."

We are unable to figure out which group of people could possibly benefit from these.

Our only guess is that maybe some of residents, perhaps the elderly, in the estate were hit by bicycles or electric scooters speeding through the void deck and these railings were erected to prevent a recurrence.

What we can predict is that skaters and parkour practitioners will have something new to learn tricks off of; or kids, being kids, will use the railings to play "the floor is lava".

Edit on Feb. 23, 5:50pm: A comment left on the Mothership.sg post has said that this void deck is located at 143 Mei Ling Street:

Top photo via

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