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Planning for Punggol Eco town; Real Estate
Topic Started: 25 Nov 2014, 02:47 AM (57 Views)
Suzanne Ng
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This article presents the plans for the Punggol Eco-Town and eco-modernisation developed by Singapore's Public Housing Authority, Housing and Development Board's Building Research Institute as a model for the future development of next generation of eco-friendly homes and sustainable new towns in a dense urban environment setting in Singapore.
Keywords
sustainability, pinnacle, prefabrication, eco-precinct, eco-town, waterway, laboratory, eco-modernisation
1. Introduction
Jump to section
1. Introduction
2 HDB Building Research Institute
3 Eco-modernisation
4 HDB's demo eco-precinct –...
5 Punggol eco-town
6 High density living – the Pinnacle@Duxton
7 Concluding Remarks
8 HDB's online infoweb references
Singapore is a small island city state, densely populated, with scarcely any natural resources and an open economy. With no natural hinterland, Singapore imports most of the resources it needs, including food, water and energy needs. All the elements of a functioning city state – homes, offices, factories, power plants, parks, roads, reservoirs, airports – have to be located within 710 sq km. To remain competitive, Singapore has to continue its economic growth while supporting a growing population that can sustain its economy. At the same time, Singapore needs to ensure that its people have a clean, green and comfortable environment to live in. These challenges will put a strain on its resources. Singapore has to find ways to sustain development in Singapore without compromising on its economic growth.
As the public housing authority of Singapore, the Housing & Development Board (HDB) plays a key role in meeting that need. The HDB is responsible for the development of Singapore's public housing and meeting the housing aspiration of Singaporeans. Today, more than 80% of Singaporeans lives in 900,000 HDB flats across the island, with 95% of them owning their own homes.
In Singapore, public housing has always been synonymous with affordable housing and a quality living environment. Since its formation in 1960, HDB has committed itself in promoting and achieving environmental, economic and social sustainability for its towns as well as its estates. Beyond providing a physical shelter that our residents call home, HDB seeks to create vibrant and sustainable homes by providing a built environment of a high standard, enhancing the economic value of HDB flats, and building active and cohesive communities within its towns and estates. Its housing policies promote home ownership and social cohesion. Comprehensive town planning and the emphasis on the continual upkeep and upgrading of the flats have also successfully transformed the housing landscape for Singapore to meet the changing aspirations of its people.
2 HDB Building Research Institute
Jump to section
1. Introduction
2 HDB Building Research Institute
3 Eco-modernisation
4 HDB's demo eco-precinct –...
5 Punggol eco-town
6 High density living – the Pinnacle@Duxton
7 Concluding Remarks
8 HDB's online infoweb references
The HDB Building Research Institute (HDB BRI) was established on 1 September 2009 to consolidate HDB's research and development efforts into a single division. The formation of HDB BRI is a significant milestone in HDB's 50 years of history. It signifies HDB's priority and commitment in R&D efforts to spearhead technology and bring about innovative, cost effective and productive solutions for public housing.
HDB recognises the importance and the need for a research setup to support its building activities and its role as a developer for public housing. To enhance effectiveness in its R&D efforts, a framework has been developed to guide HDB BRI towards its vision ‘To be a global leader in housing research, innovations and solutions for a sustainable living environment’. The framework comprises the following three key thrusts:
Enhancing the built environment and optimising maintenance for existing estates.
Advancing technologies and setting new benchmarks for sustainability in new developments.
Building competencies and transferring ‘Know-How’ to the industry.
2.1 Thrust 1: enhancing the built environment and optimising maintenance for existing estates
The first thrust focuses on existing buildings and its built environment. For the past 50 years, HDB has been building public housing in fulfilling its role of housing a nation. To date, we have developed a total of 23 towns and close to 1 million flats. To maintain these housing estates, Town Councils spend about S$700 million annually in both cyclical and routine maintenance. The rising maintenance and utilities costs incurred by the Town Councils in managing HDB estates have been a major concern.
To address Town Councils' concerns over rising maintenance cost, an eco-modernisation framework has been put in place to drive the key initiatives in improving our design by seeking better solutions and more durable building materials to enhance the built environment, optimise energy efficiency and reduce maintenance cost for existing estates in the next phase.
2.2 Thrust 2: advancing technologies and setting new benchmarks for sustainability in new developments
The second thrust will focus on implementation of sustainable and innovative solutions in new developments. HDB BRI will spearhead new technologies, develop cost cutting and productive solutions and upgrade design standards and materials to respond to higher quality and environmental challenges in new estates.
2.3 Thrust 3: building competencies and transferring ‘know-how’ to the industry
Over the years, through its R&D efforts, HDB has developed and patented several innovative products and solutions. There is a need to protect and ‘monetise’ our intellectual property rights (IPRs), and to export these under the ‘made in Singapore’ brand name. The Centre of Excellence for Business and Management looks into developing plans and roadmaps to commercialise HDB's in-house IPRs and know-how. The BRI will proactively look for opportunities to share its knowledge in building technology and R&D achievements with the private sector in Singapore. In addition, the institute will provide customisation of solutions and consultancy services to help introduce in-house developed innovations, solutions and systems to both local and international private projects. It will leverage on various government initiatives to share our know-how overseas and internationalise the R&D services.
2.4 HDB BRI laboratories
HDB BRI also capitalises on the existing stock of public housing as ‘living laboratories’ and is augmented by the research facilities in the HDB Centre of Building Research (CBR) located at Woodlands, in the northern sector of Singapore, to test-bed new technologies and implement new initiatives to improve the living environment of our HDB estates. The laboratories can be broadly classified into three categories, and there are several flagship R&D projects under each of these laboratories.
Master Laboratory at the CBR incubates new technologies and showcases our sustainable housing efforts. Its research blueprint is as shown in Figure 1.
Under the research blueprint, there are six clusters of research expertise in HDB BRI. These six clusters are Greenery, Energy/Solar, Living Environment, Climatic Studies, Technology/Material and Knowledge Management. These research clusters form the backbone for all the strategic studies, innovations, applied research and knowledge solutions. At the HDB CBR, prototypes and test bedding are conducted to ensure that the new technologies are mature and suitable for larger scale implementation at the Live-in and Integrated Laboratory.
Integrated Laboratories refer to new development where urban solution can be integrated right from design stage to provide sustainable and innovative solutions for new developments and
Live-in Laboratories refer to the existing estates where new and feasible solutions can be test-bedded to enhance the existing built environment.


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Figure 1. Research blueprint of HDB BRI.


With the research structure and framework in place, it will facilitate HDB BRI to deliver on its four desired research outcomes of enhanced sustainability, maintainability, productivity and cost-effectiveness.
3 Eco-modernisation
Jump to section
1. Introduction
2 HDB Building Research Institute
3 Eco-modernisation
4 HDB's demo eco-precinct –...
5 Punggol eco-town
6 High density living – the Pinnacle@Duxton
7 Concluding Remarks
8 HDB's online infoweb references
The approach in greening our existing towns requires a different approach. The fittings and fixtures that were installed in our existing flats would not meet the environmental targets of today's standards. Rejuvenation becomes increasingly important to ensure the sustainability of these existing towns, not only in response to changing demographics and maintaining the quality of the living environment, but also to ensure that they do not over-consume resources because of inefficiency and technology inferiority. This requires the existing stock of flats to be converted from ‘Grey to Green’. To this effect, HDB will be modernising its stock of more than 900,000 residential flats to become more environmentally friendly.
The eco-modernisation programme was initiated with the objective to look into enhancing existing HDB precincts with eco-friendly features, including the introduction of energy-efficient solutions, and technologies to reduce maintenance cost. A pilot study was conducted in 2008 where a series of energy efficient measures were introduced to two existing precincts in Serangoon and Wellington. A 30% reduction in energy consumption was achieved. This showed the untapped potential on how HDB estates can reduce their energy consumption through the efficiency drive ‘Energy SAVE’ programme, which was launched in 2008, to reduce energy usage for the common areas of the existing estates.
In tandem with the eco-modernisation programme, HDB worked with the Town Councils to conduct a 5-year re-lamping exercise, involving the replacement of existing lamps to a more energy efficient T5 and high-power compact fluorescent lamp (HPCFL). This simple move translates into an annual savings of $18 million in energy cost.
The eco-modernisation programme will thus form a key component in creating a Live-in Laboratory where new eco-friendly solutions can be retrofitted into existing estates that can achieve both environmental sustainability and cost-effective maintenance. Technologies such as light-emitting diode (LED) lighting for general lighting at HDB common areas, energy regenerative lift systems and thermal insulating paints are examples that can be introduced into our existing towns. Apart from hard aspects of engineering, HDB BRI also explores more natural and softer means of enhancing the living environment. The introduction of modular extensive and vertical greenery solutions enables our estates to achieve both an aesthetically pleasing environment and one that has a lower ambient temperature overall when compared with an estate that has not implemented such green solutions.
Besides the measures to reduce energy consumption, HDB BRI is actively looking at generation of clean and renewable energy to meet energy demands. There are plans to install solar photovoltaics in 30 existing precincts over the next 4 years, starting with four precincts in the first quarter of 2010. The combined efforts of eco-modernisation and clean and renewable energy such as solar power generation will enable HDB to move closer towards its goal of achieving net zero-energy usage in the common areas of our estate.
4 HDB's demo eco-precinct – Treelodge@Punggol
Jump to section
1. Introduction
2 HDB Building Research Institute
3 Eco-modernisation
4 HDB's demo eco-precinct –...
5 Punggol eco-town
6 High density living – the Pinnacle@Duxton
7 Concluding Remarks
8 HDB's online infoweb references
Unveiled in March 2007, HDB unveiled its plans to develop its first eco-precinct, Treelodge@Punggol (see Figure 2), which exemplifies the sum of our efforts towards environmental sustainability. With eco-friendly features that embrace nature and adopting green technologies, the precinct aims to create a green living environment, increasing awareness towards environment sustainability.


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Figure 2. Architectural Perspective of Eco-Precinct ‘Tree Lodge@Punggol’.


The project comprises seven residential building blocks with a podium car park that enables a generous provision of green spaces at the precinct level. All the residential blocks were wind-tunnel tested and are generally located in a North–South orientation, with windows facing the North–South direction and insulated gable end walls facing the East–West direction. Well-ventilated corridors with railings and void decks at the first storey maximise cross ventilation for the block. This passive design approach minimises heat gain into the flats, allowing residents to enjoy a cool and airy environment. Intensified greenery also helps in cooling down the surrounding ambient temperature, while beautifying and enhancing the living environment.
HDB also introduced many eco-friendly features through its research and development efforts into the project. Some of the eco-features are listed in Table 1. These various features collectively help to create a new eco-conscious group of residents and allow the community to experience a distinctive eco-lifestyle by promoting green and healthy living in a more sustainable environment.
Data table
Table 1. List of eco-friendly features in the Eco Precinct ‘Tree Lodge@Punggol’.
5 Punggol eco-town
Jump to section
1. Introduction
2 HDB Building Research Institute
3 Eco-modernisation
4 HDB's demo eco-precinct –...
5 Punggol eco-town
6 High density living – the Pinnacle@Duxton
7 Concluding Remarks
8 HDB's online infoweb references
In the development of the next generation of eco-friendly homes, a high-signature eco-town will be developed in Punggol within the east-west corridor along the Punggol Waterway, to create ‘Green Living by the Waters’. The Punggol eco-town (see Figure 3) will serve as an Integrated Laboratory for HDB to develop and test-bed sustainable and innovative solutions.


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Figure 3. Punggol eco-town – key development will be the Punggol waterway to provide waterfront living and activities.


Punggol new town was first announced in 1996, with the town given the term ‘Punggol 21’, to highlight the new planning concepts adopted for the town in the new millennium. Some of these concepts include developing the town with smaller and more intimate estates with common greens, a wide range of high-quality housing, an integrated transportation system and a continuous waterfront promenade. The development of Punggol was further enhanced in 2007 when it was earmarked as one of the three towns to be developed under the Remaking Our Heartlands (ROH) programme.
One of the key strategies to realise Punggol under the ROH programme is the introduction of a new waterway traversing through the town. This opportunity for a waterway arose from plans to dam up the two rivers bordering the town, i.e., Sungei Serangoon and Sungei Punggol, to form freshwater reservoirs. A landscaped waterway that meanders through Punggol would be constructed to balance the waters at the two new reservoirs, and this waterway greatly reinforced Punggol's vision as a waterfront town. The waterway also creates opportunities for HDB to provide waterfront residential living along this 4.2-km East-West corridor in Punggol with the theme of ‘Green Living by the Waters’.
Acting as a ‘Green and Blue spine’ across Punggol Town that links the reservoirs, the waterway and its promenades will provide the key vehicular-free East-West connectivity through the town, with social communal spaces integrated seamlessly along the waterway to provide new waterfront enjoyment for residents. The presence of a major waterway provides HDB with the opportunity to offer new forms of waterfront housing.
Leveraging on the waterway, HDB will position Punggol as a new-generation eco-town to strengthen its efforts to enhance the overall sustainability of its estates and towns. It will be a development that improves the quality of life and the environment through bold and effective green technologies, physical planning and design, and creating an eco-friendly culture in the community.
The development of Punggol into an eco-town will be executed through a three-pronged integrated approach.
5.1 Planning and design
The planning and design of HDB towns and developments is also a key to creating a sustainable development. By tailoring suitable planning and design concepts, and implementing them according to the local conditions and context, the impact on energy usage and other environmental aspects can be significant. In promoting the concept of ‘Green Living by the Waters’ in Punggol, more environmentally friendly buildings will be built by tapping on the elements of nature, such as sun, rain and wind, to aid in the future planning and design of Punggol Town. HDB will also aim for higher green mark (GM) ratings, i.e., GM Gold, Gold+, Platinum, for new developments along the waterway. Punggol residents will be encouraged to opt for clean commuting, e.g., bicycles, electric vehicles, car-sharing services through physical provisions like cycling paths, charging stations at car parks and designated spaces for car-sharing services in the estates. This will result in an implementable Masterplan, which will set the blueprint for the future plans for Punggol eco-town.
5.2 Urban solutions
Considering the scale of the development planned for Punggol eco-town, HDB BRI will be well positioned to carry out large-scale experimentation and test-bedding of emerging green technologies and urban solutions, thereby creating ‘integrated laboratories’ for urban solutions in the estate. Such test-bedding efforts will not only build up local technical capabilities and expertise for these emerging technologies but also lower the implementation costs due to the economies of scale that can be achieved in the Punggol estate.
HDB will be working with various government agencies and business partners to carry-out large-scale test-bedding of new green technologies and urban solutions in areas such as:
energy management
water management
resource and waste management
maintenance optimisation.
Eventually, HDB hopes to lower the implementation cost of these solutions and to replicate them to other developments across the island once these solutions have been tested and proven to be feasible and cost effective.
5.3 People
A green living lifestyle goes beyond the provision of eco-friendly features, but lifestyle changes. The involvement of the community is a key towards developing an environmentally sustainable living environment. People have an important role to play in supporting environmental sustainability. There is a need to engage, educate and enable residents to go green. HDB will work closely with the Constituency Advisers, local Town Councils and Grassroots Leaders to engage, educate and encourage residents to go green. Outreach and educational programmes will be organised so that residents of Punggol will be more aware of Punggol's unique natural environment, the specialised planning and design concepts aimed at minimising impact on the environment, and what the residents can do to contribute to the environment. This will help instill a sense of commitment from the residents in realising the vision for Punggol as an eco-town for the Tropics.
6 High density living – the Pinnacle@Duxton
Jump to section
1. Introduction
2 HDB Building Research Institute
3 Eco-modernisation
4 HDB's demo eco-precinct –...
5 Punggol eco-town
6 High density living – the Pinnacle@Duxton
7 Concluding Remarks
8 HDB's online infoweb references
With limited land resource and a projected population increase, public housing developments will have to be built at ever higher densities and greater building heights. A landmark example of this densification of the living environment can only be aptly epitomised by the recently completed 50-storey Pinnacle@Duxton project (see Figure 4), which showcases the next generation of HDB living. The Duxton architecture marks a new peak in HDB and Singapore's architecture incorporating high rise greeneries.


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Figure 4. Architectural perspective of ‘Pinnacle@Duxton’ – Singapore's first 50-storey Public Housing Project.


Born out of the first international design competition for public housing, the Pinnacle (Da Shi Ling in Han Yu Pin Yin) is a super high-rise, high-density, re-development housing project situated near the business centre of the city. It replaces two 10-storey rental blocks, which were one of the earliest blocks built by HDB, with seven blocks of 50-storey apartments. This is part of an estate renewal strategy to rejuvenate the area and attract new households into the city.
With a plot ratio yield of 9.28 hectares, this translates to a gross floor area of 233,657 square metres, yielding 1848 units. This housing density is more than three times that of current public housing new towns in Singapore. With a vast increase in the housing density in a small irregular plot of land of 2.5 hectares, much thought has also been put into greening the surroundings as part of HDB's efforts to provide environmentally friendly housing. Existing mature rain trees around the perimeter of the site were conserved and integrated into the landscaped areas.
To create additional space, two new strips of park weave through the buildings to reclaim new ground from the air. The Skybridge create an additional space of almost one hectare. This is a 40% increase in available communal space. The two levels of Skybridges connecting all seven blocks at the 26th storey and the 50th storey are filled with numerous recreation facilities, such as fitness corners, jogging track, outdoor gym, children playground, sensory gardens, viewing platforms and communal spaces for people to enjoy and interact. The Pinnacle@Duxton is possibly the first in the world with two unique Skybridges in its design. The Skybridges create possibly the longest continuous Sky Gardens in the world, offering panoramic views of the city skyline.
Technical advancements have also allowed HDB to build better quality flats and soar higher into the skies. Innovation in the adoption of prefabrication technology has made it possible to develop the Pinnacle@Duxton. The employment of pre-fabrication technologies has enabled HDB to accelerate the construction cycle for faster construction, while achieving better quality. The incorporation of the two levels of sky-bridges connecting all seven blocks at the 26th and 50th storeys also pose great challenges in the design, fabrication and installation of the buildings and skybridges, especially when each skybridge can weigh up to an equivalent weight of a jumbo jet.
7 Concluding Remarks
Jump to section
1. Introduction
2 HDB Building Research Institute
3 Eco-modernisation
4 HDB's demo eco-precinct –...
5 Punggol eco-town
6 High density living – the Pinnacle@Duxton
7 Concluding Remarks
8 HDB's online infoweb references
As Singapore continues to attract investments and talents to become a world-class city, we recognise the growing importance to minimise the impact of growth on the environment and to use resources efficiently. The formation of the HDB BRI is timely as it is positioned to meet the challenges ahead by bringing tomorrow's solution to today's problems. The ‘Integrated and Living Laboratories’ in the Eco-Town@Punggol and eco-modernisation of existing HDB towns will give us the opportunity to test-bed new ideas and technologies in sustainable development, integrating urban solutions, such as energy conservation and renewable energy, enhanced greenery and blue waters and building technologies, to create a sustainable and green living environment for our residents.
This model has enabled the island state with a small land area to house 5 million people in an environmentally sustainable yet dense urban setting. This also allow for the densification of the living environment without compromising on the quality of life and the living environment by allowing green spaces and bio-diversity to thrive in an ever continually evolving urban environment.

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