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Building & Cooling Singapore in an Era of Climate Change

 8 August 2019
 4.00 pm – 5.30 pm. Registration from 3.30pm, seated by 4.00pm 
URA Function Hall
 1 SILA CPD pts, 2 BOA-SIA CPD pts, 1 SIP CPD pts, 1 PEB PDU pts

 

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Resources

Lecture Poster (PDF: 537 KB)
Lecture Slides by Dr Gerhard Schmitt (PDF: 3.1MB)
Lecture Slides by Ms Yan Yan (PDF: 3.1MB)
 

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Lecture Video and Photos

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Synopsis

As global temperatures rise, climate change impacts and resilience measures are of increasing concern to Singapore. This event will explore how the Cooling Singapore research agenda interfaces with the nation’s development plans, highlighting the goals of mitigating the urban heat island (UHI) effect and improving outdoor thermal comfort. The perspectives covered include academia, planning and implementing agencies, and the healthcare sector, who are collectively engaged in built-environment projects ranging from university expansions and HDB towns, to planning for future medical campuses.

Lecture Report

“The trap is everybody thinking it’s either mitigation or adaptation, but the case is that you need both. While climate change is global, the impacts, the vulnerabilities, the risks that we face as a city are local or regional in nature and it is best to adapt to them at that particular scale. The best sort of adaptation policies are when all your different stakeholders, from governments, to businesses, to everybody else who cares about the future climate all align themselves in the same direction.”
- Dr Winston Chow

 

As the world warms up, there is no way for Singaporeans to avoid using air conditioners. But the tropical city-state can also beat the heat with the right mix of actions.

 

Raising air-con temperatures to 25 degrees Celsius, harnessing urban design to protect buildings from the sun and heat as well as district cooling—cooling buildings through the centralised production of chilled water—are just some more efficient ways to better manage rising temperatures, said researchers Dr Gerhard Schmitt and Dr Winston Chow.

 

Speaking on the CLC panel “Building & Cooling Singapore in an Era of Climate Change” in August, the duo from the Cooling Singapore initiative explained how Singapore is facing the “double whammy” of climate change and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, which creates more intense temperatures. UHI is caused by built-up areas, such as the Central Business District, heating up than more rural places because of a variety of urban heat sources such as emissions from vehicles, air-con and building materials.

 

Thus, Singapore has to grapple with the existential question of what kind of city it seeks to be in 2050, said Dr Schmitt, who is the founding director of Singapore-ETH Centre which oversees the Cooling Singapore programme.

 

Fellow panellists and practitioners painted a picture of what this could look like. Adele Tan, the group director (Strategic Planning) at the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), said planners can mitigated UHI by laying out roads and land parcels so that airflow is not impeded by buildings. In addition, the Housing and Development Board ensures public housing is well-ventilated and green, while policies that preserve Singapore’s vision of a “city in a garden” can help ensure its people stay comfortable too.

 

Architect Michael Leong shared his firm’s upcoming project, the Woodlands Health Campus (WHC), which is designed to stay cool in Singapore’s climate. Inspired by the rainforest, the 1,800-bed hospital by SAA Architects is seamlessly integrated into an adjacent park, enabling the plants to absorb heat which would have been reflected into the windows and wards. Blocks are also oriented to the north-south to enable natural ventilation, while all roads are situated underground and lead to basement carparks, in order to create a “park-like” ground level that is free of cars.

 

Leong added that one challenge for such projects is convincing developers that going green does not always equate to being more expensive. “If we [plan green features] at an earlier stage of the project, we are able to become green at a much lower cost,” he said.

 

Other challenges brought up by fellow panellists include the need for a strong political will to take on climate change initiatives, addressing inequalities in getting access to cooling technologies and finding the appropriate solution suitable for the site. For instance, Tan said that planting more trees may not always provide a cool environment, as dense greenery can reduce wind flow and increase humidity.

 

Everyone matters

In talking about climate change, Dr Chow reminded the audience that one cannot ignore the “elephant in the room” — Singapore’s oil and gas industry, with Jurong Island being a massive emitter of greenhouse gases. While it is easy to label the companies in it as “evil polluters” and saying we should “kick them out”, the reality is not so simple, said the associate professor of humanities at the Singapore Management University. Instead, they form an important part of the solution and have a vested interest to get “on board the sustainability train”.

 

“There’s always that criticism that there is corporate greenwashing, but they are taking steps towards increasing research and development in renewable energy,” said Dr Chow. “It is to their interest and their bottom line, because if they don’t do it, other companies will. As a private sector entity, it is to their long-term benefit and their survival.”

 

Other panellists also supported this view, and Dr Schmitt compared the process of achieving a sustainable future to a “moon landing”, where all government agencies and industries must work together. Tan added that Singapore has already reaffirmed its commitment to reduce its emissions in the Paris climate agreement and has imposed a carbon tax.

 

Beyond coming up with solutions and policies, the panellists also spoke about the importance of creating a positive mindset shift and cultural change. One example is the increasing presence of urban rooftop farms. Although they may not reduce the overall UHI effect much as compared to planting trees on the streets to provide shade to passers-by and the road, they can have an enormous “social and cultural impact”, said Leong. He recalls attending a staff meeting at a conference room which was right next to volunteers harvesting cabbage at a rooftop farm.

 

“It sends the message that you can be comfortable in a naturally ventilated space, in passively designed architecture, even if doesn’t translate into real dollars and cents savings,” he said. “That message is very powerful and people realise that you do not need to rely on air conditioning.”

 

This report first appeared in the Sep 2019 Better Cities newsletter. The lecture was also featured in the Straits Times "Experts raise cool ideas to tackle urban heat in S'pore" on 23 Aug 2019.

 

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About the Speakers

 

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