Speech by Minister Lawrence Wong at Singapore Universal Design Week 2016
Jul 27, 2016
I am very happy to join you this morning at the third Singapore Universal Design Week. This is the third time that we are having a dedicated event for Universal Design, or UD, and I am glad to see such a good turn out, so many industry and stakeholder participants, as well as guests who have come here from abroad, just to give this an additional push.
Why UD matters
Those of us who are taking care of elderly parents or grandparents will have personally experienced the importance of UD in our daily lives. If you are moving somebody around in a wheelchair, you know of how these little things matter tremendously. When we are young and able-bodied, we may not think that things like ramps or accessible toilets are that important. But as we get older, we understand the importance of these features.
For Singapore, this is particularly important as we are one of the world’s fastest ageing populations. Today, one in eight Singaporeans is 65 years old and above. In 15 years’ time by 2030, the figure will double to one in four. So you look around the room, I think many of us will be in that category. It’s the baby boomers, because we had a big population boom after the war, like in all countries. So the baby boomer generation who are retiring, that will be the one that will contribute to this very rapidly ageing in our society.
The elderly is important and we need Universal Design for them, but Universal Design is not just for the elderly, or it’s not also just for those who are less mobile. Universal Design is really about Design for Everyone – it’s about being inclusive and embracing the needs of everyone in society. It is about designing buildings for people of all ages and all abilities to enjoy. It is about providing accessible and inclusive spaces where people can spend quality time with one another. And even in events like this, you can see all the small features that we can add on stage with ramps, with grab bars, for people to come up. Small little things that you can do for buildings, for event spaces, for activities, that will allow everyone to participate.
From barrier-free accessibility to UD
We started this journey towards Universal Design back in 1990 – so it has been a 25-year journey since we started. Then, we put in place our first legislation to make our built environment barrier-free. It has been 25 years and we have made considerable progress since then.
Initially, when we started out, the focus was on removing obstacles to enable wheelchair access. That was perhaps the lower hanging fruit at that time and we have started with that as an emphasis.
Progressively over the years, we have raised the bar to make our buildings and infrastructure more accessible and more inclusive. That is what we have done with each revision of the Accessibility Code. Every time we updated the Code, we raise our standards and we enhance our provisions, and we have done that over the years.
I believe BCA has also been active in engaging stakeholders like all of you to encourage more people to come on board this UD journey. The UD Mark certification was introduced in 2012 to recognise projects that go the extra mile in making the buildings more inclusive and more accessible.
Today, if you look around us, we are not by any standards close to some of the countries that are at the frontier of this. But I think if you look around us, many public places, many buildings, places you go to like your shopping centres, your hawker centres and eating places, some of them already have family-friendly provisions, be it ramps or nursing rooms. It is common to see multi-generation families with both elderly parents and young children together, and families with people with special needs, all able to come together, enjoying their outings together because these provisions are in place.
Many of the newer developments have also embraced UD and some have even pushed the boundaries of UD – they have gone even further than what is provided for in the Accessibility Code. You have newer public housing estates, newer HDB flats and the parks are specially designed to allow residents to live comfortably together and foster greater social inclusion. The homes in some of these new buildings feature flexible floor plans to enable easy customisation for changing needs. There are operable windows that are lowered to allow access by wheelchair users. And a good example is the newly developed Marine Cove at East Coast Park which offers many family-friendly facilities including toilets and shower facilities tailored to young children, as well as a playground with inclusive play equipment to encourage children of different abilities to interact and play together.
Promoting the adoption of UD
I think overall we have done not too badly in the 25 years that we have started since legislation was introduced in 1990. We have made progress and you can see the changes visibly in our physical landscape when you walk around. But we need to continue this momentum and we need to do better, particularly given our changing demographics, given societal trends.
Today, we are pleased to launch a new Universal Design Guide for Public Places. The Guide is an initiative under the national ‘Action Plan for Successful Ageing’ and will serve as a useful industry reference for highlighting UD considerations and practical measures that can be easily implemented in public places. This refers to places like your MRT stations, your town parks, or even your hawker centres.
To raise awareness and to broaden our outreach, BCA will be bringing this UD exhibition to the heartlands as well in the upcoming months. This will give the public a better appreciation of UD, because a lot of these things as I said, you may not always be conscious of it. We need to get people to start realising the importance of UD, and to understand how simple design interventions can really make such a difference and help users improve accessibility.
UD, a lot of it is about mind-sets, and this mind-set must also be inculcated from young, and that is why last year, BCA launched a UD programme for primary school students. We are starting at that age so that they grow up understanding the importance of design, and how good design can be inclusive, can facilitate and enhance accessibility for people of ages, people of all abilities. This programme for primary school children was very well received, and so, BCA is expanding the programme this year. It has already put together a specially fitted UD vehicle which will travel to over 120 primary schools to increase awareness on how UD can impact the daily lives of users. This will be going around different schools and will allow the kids to come on board the bus, they can touch and feel and see, and experience for themselves how simple design enhancements can make a huge difference to the experiences of people of different ages, of different abilities.
BCA is also working with the Ministry of Social and Family Development, or MSF, on a joint UD Mark for Family-Friendly Businesses, this will introduced towards the end of the year. This new scheme will expand on the scope of the current UD Mark and will go beyond just looking at the building facilities, to also consider the business and service aspects. In other words, we are not just looking at the building infrastructure, but also at the business – whether it is pursuing family-friendly strategies, facilities and service touch points. We want to see that in a holistic way that the business is helping users to provide them with greater convenience and comfort for their families.
City Square Mall is a good example of how businesses are going the extra mile to be family-friendly and inclusive. For example, it has upgraded its outdoor playground to include a wheelchair accessible merry-go-round and it also has inclusive swings for younger children. It probably makes business sense for the mall to do this, but at the same time it has also done it in a way that is family-friendly. This is also a point we want to make, that many of these enhancements may cost a bit more, but they can also be viable and they may well make business sense, so it will be a win-win partnership for both Government and the business sector. We hope that more businesses will follow City Square Mall’s example to create such quality experiences for more families in Singapore.
Accelerating accessibility upgrading in private sector buildings
With all the requirements that we have in place today with the Accessibility Code, I think we are doing well for new buildings. Because for new buildings the requirements will require developers, architects, planners to start thinking about designing, putting in place UD features from the start. If you do it right from the start, there may be some incremental cost, but it’s not going to be too much, and the requirements are there. For new buildings, new infrastructure, we already can make a difference, and you can progressively see more of these buildings taking shape in our landscape.
But there are still many, many older buildings which are not accessible, and this is the larger stock of existing buildings which are still not accessible. Many of them were built before 1990, and this is even before we put in place legislation for barrier-free access. These are the older buildings and these are the larger stock of buildings that we have in Singapore, and we have to do something for this. If we just focus on new buildings then it will take more than a hundred years, frankly, for us to change, and we don’t have that kind of luxury of time. We have to do something for the existing stock of buildings as well.
The public sector will take the lead for state buildings, for public buildings, we will take the lead. We have already been doing so, progressively retrofit and upgrade, and make sure that all public sector buildings are brought up to scratch and meet UD standards.
We also need to do more for private sector buildings. About one in four existing commercial and institutional buildings are still not accessible today. This poses a tremendous ‘last mile’ problem in facilitating seamless travel. You can go from building to building, and some of the new buildings will be okay, but if between you have an old building, then again there will be a blockage and it will be difficult to provide that seamless connectivity.
We need to accelerate the progress of our accessibility improvements for our existing infrastructure and for existing buildings.
That’s why BCA plans to do more in this area. Specifically, BCA will require existing commercial and institutional buildings to provide basic accessibility when they carry out addition and alteration works. So each time they do A&A works, BCA will require these buildings to provide basic accessibility. This means that building owners need to minimally provide a barrier-free building entry, accessibility on the level of entry and an accessible washroom as a minimal requirement. Building owners feel free to do more, but this is the minimum requirement that BCA will impose. The new rules will kick in some time next year and BCA will release more details when it’s ready.
BCA is not just going to impose rules and requirements, BCA will also provide a helping hand, so that we all work together at this in partnership. BCA will also continue to help building owners who wish to upgrade and retrofit their existing buildings with more support.
Earlier, BCA had launched an Accessibility Fund which supports building owners who wish to upgrade their existing buildings with essential accessibility and UD features with some financial support. The Fund was supposed to expire early next year, so there is still time to apply, but given the new requirements and given this push, we will do three things to enhance the Fund.
First, we will extend the Fund for a further five years to March 2022. You don’t have to rush to apply. Originally, by March next year it was supposed to expire, so you don’t have to rush, there is another five more years but please don’t delay your projects just because there is more time.
Second, we will expand the scope of coverage of the Fund -more types of UD features will be funded, including those for visually and hearing impaired persons, like braille signage and hearing loops. The scope of usage of the Fund will be broadened so that we will support more UD features as well.
Thirdly, because we are broadening the usage of the Fund, some of the people who have used the Fund and tapped on the Fund previously may not have benefitted. In many Government schemes today we avoid double-dipping, you apply once that’s it, you cannot apply again. But since we are broadening the scope of the Fund, we will now allow past beneficiaries of the Fund to apply a second time. In this case you can apply a second time, and building owners can tap on the Fund twice for each development, to a maximum cap of $300,000.
Conclusion
So these are some of the enhancements we are making to the Accessibility Fund, so aside from additional requirements and standards, we will also provide support to the extent possible to building owners, so that we can all move forward in this journey together.
The Government is committed to working with all stakeholders in our progress towards Universal Design. I hope this gathering of minds will motivate more industry firms, professionals and organisations to join us in this very important collaborative effort. Together we can inspire more innovative and creative UD solutions to meet the needs of all users.
Going forward, we have many infrastructure projects planned for our future. There is a pipeline of projects that we already know about, and it’s a pipeline that goes well beyond five years, because there are many things we are doing to transform and to improve our physical landscape – both for economic and social needs.
There are projects upcoming, and we must pay attention to each and every project, each and every new building, each and every new infrastructure that we put in place. If we start from the beginning then it is easier to get it right, rather than to do something and then retrofit later, which will always be more costly. If we do it right from the start, then we can progressively make island-wide improvements over the next 10, 20, 30 years to a more age-friendly, a more accessible and a more inclusive environment.
On that note, I wish you all a fruitful and productive time at this Universal Design Week, and I thank all of you for your support in this very important venture. Thank you very much.