Blueprint for shaping built environment sector gets a revamp

A pair of residential towers in the Outram area took just 18 months to be built with a Lego-like stacking and assembling process.

It would have taken almost double the time - around 30 months - to be completed if construction had been carried out using traditional methods.

The 56-storey Avenue South Residence, a 99-year leasehold condominium development in Silat Avenue, now holds the title as the world's tallest residential building constructed using the prefabricated prefinished volumetric construction (PPVC) method.

The push to adopt the PPVC method and use of digital technologies are part of a refreshed industry transformation map for the built environment sector launched by National Development Minister Desmond Lee on Tuesday.

By using the PPVC method, manpower productivity at the 1,074-unit Avenue South Residence improved by about 40 per cent, while nearby residents experienced fewer issues such as pollution and noise as the apartment modules were built off-site.

The PPVC method involves precasting 3D modules such as a bathroom and installing fittings at an off-site facility. These modules are then delivered to the site, hoisted and stacked on top of one another, and installed.

For Avenue South Residence, over 3,000 large apartment modules complete with floor tiles, toilet bowls and sinks were built at a Tuas factory before being transported to the construction site to be stacked to form the two 192m-tall blocks.

Mr Lee, who unveiled the industry blueprint at the International Built Environment Week 2022 at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, said construction activity in Singapore has returned close to pre-Covid-19 levels.

Large-scale projects such as Changi Airport Terminal 5, Jurong Lake District, the Greater Southern Waterfront and works on the site of Paya Lebar Air Base present opportunities to explore new ways of working together as well as transforming the built environment sector, he said.

One such way is through an integrated construction park concept, where different construction facilities - such as storage yards and ready-mix concrete batching plants - can be housed together.

For instance, raw materials such as cement, sand and granite can be stored in close proximity and transported to the ready-mix concrete batching plants using a conveyor system instead of vehicles hauling them from different locations across the country.

Singapore's first integrated construction park, located at Jurong Port, will progressively begin operations from the end of this year.

The refreshed blueprint covers the planning and design, construction, and operations and maintenance stages of a building's life cycle. It builds on two previous industry transformation maps launched for the construction sector in 2017 and the facilities management sector in 2018.

To maintain ageing buildings while addressing the challenges of an ageing workforce, the sector has to adopt smart facility management technologies, said Mr Lee.

This includes employing smart sensors that track and optimise the use of resources such as water.

About 80 per cent of public buildings and 40 per cent of private buildings are targeted to adopt smart facility management technologies by 2030.

Mr Lee said the refreshed blueprint will guide the development of the built environment sector in the years to come. "We aim to build a sector that is productive, resilient and contributes to building a more sustainable environment that promotes well-being and combats climate change."