Speech by Minister Lawrence Wong at the BCA Awards 2016
May 26, 2016
I am very happy to join you this evening to celebrate the achievements of the built environment sector. This is my first time attending this event, I’ve heard that this is a big event, but walking here and entering the ballroom tonight, I must say, I was struck at the grandness of how big it is. It is really, truly, the most prestigious event for the built environment sector to recognise the achievements of all of you, and I am very happy to have the chance to join you tonight.
Transformation of our Built Environment
Today, Singapore stands out as one of the world’s most liveable cities.
But we know that this has not always been the case.
a. Many years ago, the majority of Singaporeans lived in slums or not such good living conditions.
b. Now, we live in buildings that are safe, are of high quality and which are surrounded by lush greenery.
And what we have achieved over the years is the result of strong partnership between the Government and the industry – which means all of you, our developers, architects, engineers, consultants and contractors. All of you have played a part in building our nation and transforming Singapore. Thank you for making a difference! We should give a round of applause to thank all of you for your contributions.
Upholding Standards in Building Safety and Quality
Our built environment has evolved over the years in response to the challenges we faced. At the start of nation building, the focus was on safety and quality.
And this focus on safety was given a further push around 30 years ago when we had the Hotel New World collapse. I think those of you who were in the industry then would have remembered this incident vividly, and it was poor structural design and construction which were some of the factors identified that led to the collapse.
Since then, we have made tremendous changes to implement more stringent measures to ensure structural safety in our buildings and we have made considerable progress in this area.
Our construction quality, as measured by the industry’s Construction Quality Assessment System, or the CONQUAS score, has improved significantly over time. Just over the last decade, meaning to say between 2005 and 2015, the score has gone up from 80.6 to 88.5. It is just one indicator of the many things we have done to ensure better safety and quality in our buildings. And I think we can be proud of the achievements that we have achieved together over these years.
Our Future Built Environment
Even as we continue to maintain this focus on quality and safety, we should also look ahead to other areas. New trends that are emerging that will shape our built environment sector as well as our city. Tonight I want to share three broad areas, three broad directions, for the future
An Accessible and Connected Built Environment:
First, we must design buildings for all ages and all abilities. I think this is an integral part of what we want to be as an inclusive society.
It is also an important strategy to meet the needs of an ageing population. Our demographics are changing very quickly, our population is ageing and by 2030 proportion of seniors will double, including many of us in this room.
You talk about ramps, gentle sloping ramps, accessible toilets –all sorts of things that will go towards Universal Design. I think these are features that Singapore’s society will need, and all of us will need in the future.
Today, most of these features are already installed or implemented in our public sector infrastructure, including our community clubs, our food centres, libraries and MRT stations. But it still can be better, and certainly in the private sector buildings I think there is also a scope for improvement.
It is one thing to talk about this, but when you are actually using it, I think you will feel the difference. I have the experience because I have entered the stage in my life now where I am taking care of elderly parents who need wheelchairs to move around. If some of you are doing, you will know, as you move around, you will come across all sorts of obstacles along the way, which you never realise was an obstacle before. You will realise how difficult it is to move from point to point. That is when you will say that “I wish the design could have been better”. If you have not experienced that personally, you might want to do so, because then it will change your mind-set and then you will realise how important Universal Design is.
We really should do something to embrace and push for Universal Design across all our buildings. Like I said we have done better over the years but there is still a lot of work that can be done to improve.
For new buildings, certainly Universal Design can be incorporated at the design stage. But for existing buildings, we know that it is more difficult to retrofit, but we should not leave that aside, I think we should also make efforts to retrofit existing buildings.
That is where BCA already has a fund to help you make this change. We have an Accessibility Fund which will help private building owners defray the bulk of the cost for adding accessibility features to existing buildings. I hope the industry will make use of the fund, tap on it, and make retrofit changes that will ensure that all buildings are made accessible eventually.
Besides improving accessibility within the buildings, we also need to look at accessibility between buildings. That is also an important area, it is one thing to say that my building is perfect, everything within the building is okay, but once you come out of the building, you want to go to the building across the street, you have lots of hurdles. We also need to think about accessibility between buildings, how we can have better connections, better sheltered walkways, better footpaths, better barrier-free access between buildings, and linking our buildings to public spaces, including our parks and park connectors. So that is an effort that we are also focused on, and that is why earlier, not too long ago, we announced a new requirement for developers to take into account the needs of pedestrians and cyclists in their developments plans.
That is for new developments, but for existing ones, again it will take some efforts to do some retrofit. We are studying what measures, including what regulatory measures or legislative changes, that may be needed to ensure that developers have the incentive and the motivation, and building owners will also come on board to make these retrofit changes. So that we can have better connections, be it at the elevated level, at the street level, surface level, or underground level. I think these are things we should plan for in our built environment. This is the first thing I want to share, how we can have a more accessible and connected built environment. It is an important strategy for us in shaping our urban landscape going forward.
A Green and Smart Built Environment:
The second strategy is to look at how we can have buildings that are more environmental friendly, that are green, that are eco-friendly.
We know that buildings are a major source of carbon emissions in Singapore. About one quarter of our total emissions, one quarter come from buildings. Be it the air-con we use because we are famous in Singapore for having hot weather but cold buildings. Our air-con temperatures are all set at a very low level. So buildings account for one quarter of total carbon emissions in Singapore, which is a significant proportion, buildings alone. I think that is not sustainable and we should really think of being more environmentally friendly. That means having to cut back on energy usage and carbon emissions from buildings.
That is why we have been making this push for green buildings and having all these different Green Mark certification, to encourage building owners and developers to push for green building features.
Today, about 30 per cent of our buildings have green features. It is not bad, because we have started Green Mark, we have encouraged developers and building owners to make this push, so 30 per cent of our buildings have green features. By green features, I mean features that include being energy and water efficient, being sensitive to their surrounding environments and providing a high quality indoor environment for users.
So 30 per cent, I think we should aim for a much better percentage and we can achieve this. We aim to get 80 per cent of buildings with green features by 2030. That is 14 years from now, I think it is achievable, new buildings again, already we can do it, it is not too difficult for new buildings. For the public sector, we are going to take the lead to push for green buildings in all our public sector infrastructure.
Private sector, I think we can do it for new buildings, but again for the retrofit ones, for the existing ones, you will need some retrofit, and there will again be more effort needed. That is why we have also enhanced our green building schemes to provide more help for existing building owners to manage the initial cost premium for your building efficiency or energy efficiency projects. At the end of the day these projects would pay for themselves because they are cost effective. But you will have to pay for an initial Capex, and we will help you with that.
So please tap on these schemes to retrofit buildings, make them more eco-friendly, make them greener, and at the same time ensure that we have a more sustainable living environment for the future.
I think we can also do a lot with new technology, so we are investing in R&D, we are investing in new ways that we can tap on alternative energies, smart devices, data analytics, all these different things in the built environment sector. We have set aside R&D funds for this, and we hope to work with the industry to pursue new solutions and test-bed new solutions that can help us accelerate our green building goals.
A lot of these things that we talked about, the Government will support, but at the end of the day, it is really about the mind-set. Just like what I have said earlier about Universal Design, if you do not have the mind-set, you can talk about Green Mark, getting certificates, getting awards, all that is fine, but it is really about a mind-set. Same with Universal Design earlier, I think with green buildings we really need to have a mind-set change amongst our built environment sector, all of us in this room – our architects, our designers, our engineers, our developers, our building owners, but also the users of buildings, including the occupants and tenants.
If you can have this mind-set change, then I am sure Singapore can become a leader for green building design in the tropics, and we can make a difference not just for ourselves, but also for the world.
That is the second area – to push for eco-friendly and green building design. And that is again something that I think we should push for, for the future.
A Productive and High-Tech Built Environment:
Finally, we need to push forward with changes to the way we build. Meaning to say how we can be more productive and how we can adopt more hi-tech solutions in the way we build. I think we have already made some improvements in this area, but many of our construction methods are still labour-intensive and time-consuming.
That is a fact. You just have to go to a work site and you will know that we have made improvements, but it is still not sufficient. The reality is we cannot carry on with business the way it has been in the past. We cannot continue to rely heavily on large numbers of foreign workers for our construction sector. It is just not sustainable.
We must accelerate this move towards a more productive and high-tech built environment sector supported by a skilled workforce.
One way to achieve this is to adopt the Design for Manufacturing and Assembly approach, or the DfMA approach. Basically, to think about construction as a way of design and manufacturing, so that it can be more productive and high-tech. With the works being mechanized and done off-site, we can build faster, safer, with a leaner workforce and with less impact to the surrounding environment. That is what we want to achieve.
This new approach to construction is not limited to any particular construction technology or method. Because from time to time, people ask me “why are we so fixated on PPVC”, my answer is PPVC is not the only way. What we are trying to achieve is not just through PPVC – Prefab Prefinished Volumetric Construction, we are not fixated with that. That is one of the options but there are many options you can choose, whether it is Cross Laminated Timber, Structural Steel, there are different technologies that will allow you to do more high-tech, more productive construction. We encourage you to explore these different technologies, and contractors should choose a method that best fits your needs, and the needs of your clients. BCA also has a productivity fund to help push in this direction, and they will support you in your efforts to become more productive and to become more high-tech.
Again, it is another important area of work because by changing the way we build, it will not only help us in the built environment sector, in the outcomes that we see for our buildings and our urban landscape. But it will also create better career opportunities for Singaporeans, it will change perceptions of what this sector is about, and potentially it can attract more young people to join the sector.
So this is our third strategy to shape the built environment sector for the future. We have made some progress in this area, but we must do more, and the Government will want to work with you to drive this change going forward.
BCA Award Recipients
I have outlined three broad directions for the built environment sector in the future, and I am very glad that our BCA award recipients tonight are all at the leading edge in each of the areas I’ve described – whether it is Universal Design, green buildings, or highly productive construction methods. All of our BCA recipients exemplify best in class in each of these areas. I believe we have a record number of recipients for this year’s event – it is the highest in terms of the number of BCA award recipients. Let us give a round of applause to congratulate all the recipients! Well done!
If you look at each of these and you study the examples, we can all have confidence that we are moving in the right direction and we are in a very strong position to do even more.
Take HDB’s SkyVille @ Dawson development in Queenstown for example. The panel awarded HDB, so they are one of the award recipients. It is public housing, but this is new generation public housing project designed to allow residents to live comfortably and age-in-place. We have apartments have windows of lower height so wheelchair users can open them easily. The development has a wide variety of community spaces and multi-generational facilities that are seamlessly linked to each other. They include sky terraces, playgrounds and fitness corners for the whole family. It is a beautifully designed public housing project incorporating all the key features of Universal Design.
Another example is CapitaGreen‘s office building, it is near my workplace so in fact I have been there for an event. It is a beautiful building, the entrances designed to be step-less, they fitted with automatic doors to enable ease of access. There are other features including nursing room for mothers. They have even lowered the height of the concierge counter and programmed lift doors to remain open longer so that it will be convenient for wheelchair users. These are some of the design features that they have incorporated into the building.
I would also like to give a special mention to NTU. NTU is this year’s Green Mark PlatinumStar Champion. This is the highest accolade given by BCA and it is to recognise NTU’s exceptional eco-friendly efforts. In fact NTU has been ramping up efforts to transform itself into one of the most environmentally friendly universities in the world. It has over the years upgraded their air-conditioning system and replaced existing fluorescent lights with energy-efficient LED lighting. It has introduced the use of solar energy for the whole campus. It has done a lot, in fact NTU has over 50 Green Mark Platinum building projects in its campus. I think it is a well-deserved winner of our Green Mark PlatinumStar Champion. Give a big round of applause to NTU. Congratulations!
Conclusion
Finally to sum up, I would say we have done a lot to build Singapore over the last 50 years. But there is still a lot of work that lies ahead of us. I recognise that there are immediate challenges in the real estate sector, in the property market, in our economy.
There are challenges ahead. We know that the challenges are partly due to the external environment, it is more difficult the global economy is slowing. There are challenges also because we are restructuring our economy, and this is a difficult restructuring, and so we have to go through a painful process of making adjustments.
But we can overcome these challenges together, as we have done in the past. We have had similar challenges before, and we can overcome them together, and emerge stronger than before.
In the longer-term, we still have major infrastructure plans to transform our urban landscape. These are major plans all over Singapore. On the northern corridor, on the northern part of Singapore, we have plans for Sembawang, for Woodlands, as a Northern Corridor, we have a rail transit link to Johor, we have a Punggol cluster which will be anchored by our new SIT campus. The whole northern part of Singapore will be transformed. On the eastern front, we are building Terminal 5, we are building Changi air hub, we are moving Paya Lebar airport there. Major development for the east. On the south, we have a Southern Waterfront City, because we are moving the port to the west, so the entire southern waterfront will be freed up. That is three times the size of Marina Bay, that is another potential development there. On the west, we have the port, as I mentioned, in Tuas, we are building Jurong Innovation District and Jurong Lake District next to it which will be our second CBD, and also the site for our high speed rail terminus between KL and Singapore. In the centre, once Paya Lebar airport moves out, we are freeing up land in the centre which is prime land for mixed-use, 800 hectares in size, that is equivalent to half a Jurong industrial estate, one Ang Mo Kio town, and two Tampines regional centres, freed up because we are moving Paya Lebar airport.
North, south, east, west, centre, whole of Singapore there are major plans. We are not doing this overnight, because we will have indigestion if we want to do all this over the next five years. These are long term plans that we have set in place, it will take several terms of government to complete. It is not just five-year plan for this Government, it will take several terms of government to complete.
But the point is this, we are not done building Singapore. There is still a lot that we can do to build our future Singapore. There is a lot of potential to do more, and we need all of you to be involved in this. We need a strong built environment industry that will help us ensure that we build a future Singapore that is better than today.
I hope that we can continue this partnership, continue to work together, to build our future city, and to make tomorrow’s Singapore better than what it is today.
Thank you very much and have a very enjoyable evening.