Having cable and HD means that I hardly ever watch Channel 5. However, this new series about old buildings, Listen to our walls, is reason for me to stomach the free-to-air English station for half an hour every week.

Today’s episode covered mixed use buildings, particularly housing/shopping mixes. The show began with shophouses, covering some of the periods of shophouses in Singapore – never knew there was such a thing as Chinese Baroque. Dr Victor Savage, from NUS, who co-authored the Topynymics book about Singapore street names, gave his insights about shophouses. The segment zoomed in on Ellenborough Building, one of Singapore’s earliest shophouses.

To the young ones, that’s where Clarke Quay MRT and the monstrous Central stand today. Yes, nothing like old photos and archival film juxtaposed against yet another shopping mall to bring out the indignant anti-progress pro-conservation armchair-activist in me.

Dr Savage laments the loss of this shophouse (as well as the name – Central, he points out, has absolutely no link to Ellenborough) but also balances it by pointing out that these issues are never easy to deal with.

The next segment covered People’s Park Complex. I’ve no affinity for the place, so I was surprised that this show managed to get a modicum of response out of me. (And that response was… I think I got my first Atari set there…) By now, it was obvious that the show’s researchers seemed to have put quite a bit of effort into learning about architecture. All three segments of the show attempted to set the stage by highlighting the architectural influences of the buildings’ design. In fact, the latter two segments involved interviews by the architects of the buildings themselves.

The final (actually, not quite final) segment dealt with the love-it-or-hate-it-there’s-no-in-between Golden Mile Complex. The architect seems quite attached to this building, and hopes it doesn’t go the way of the dinosaur. In truth, it is a unique building – it’s a bloody eyesore. Which is why we should keep it. All our high-rises are neat little pigeon holes. Let this one anomaly stand.

The real final segment, if you can call it that, was a short plug for the Marina Bay Sands IR.

Pardon me but, wtf? Okay, I understand this show is supposed to cover contemporary buildings too. Still, that building doesn’t bring to mind mixed use. And it was all of two minutes too. Didn’t see the point – the show would have been complete without this part.

Still, overall a very well researched, narrated (by Timothy Nga) and produced show. Looking forward to the next episode!

Catch Listen to our walls on Tuesdays at 7.30 p.m. on Channel 5.