Two penetrating views from the International Green Building Conference in Singapore this month: One from UK designer Thomas Heatherwick, the most entertaining of the speakers who talked about his approach to green design and his Singapore project the Learning Hub. And Jessica Cheam – Straits Times and Eco-business.com – who has “witnessed the rather remarkable growth” of the sector and the journey Singapore has made from relative obscurity to international recognition for its leadership in green building development, particularly for the tropics. Read More

By Jessica Cheam  in eco business.com  (16 September 2013)

Event Coverage / International Green Building Conference 2013

Increased transparency a boost to green building movement Increased transparency a boost to green building movement. The Building and Construction Authority’s move to require owners to voluntarily disclose their building performance is a step in the right direction and a long time coming

Having covered the green building industry in Singapore for years, I have witnessed the rather remarkable growth of the sector and the journey it has made from relative obscurity in this area to the international recognition Singapore has won for its leadership in green building development, particularly for the tropics.

One criticism I often hear, though, is despite the impressive rate of adoption of green building technologies and certifications, there is just not enough information sharing and public disclosure about the performance of such green buildings, even in the public sector.

Many green buildings may achieve high ratings under the Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA’s)  flagship Green Mark scheme, which rates buildings for its sustainability performance, but users of such buildings are none the wiser about its energy efficiency

Industry professionals also say the information on the performance of the building is not publicly available, making it hard to determine whether such buildings achieve the energy efficiency rating it professes on paper – and whether this performance is kept up over the years.

On Friday at the BCA Breakfast Talk for CEOs held at the International Green Building Conference, the BCA took steps to address this when it gave the industry a peek into its new third green building masterplan.

Among other initiatives, it will soon introduce voluntary disclosure of a building’s energy performance. This means that building owners will start making such information publicly available; the BCA will be naming the top 20 per cent of energy efficient buildings with the consent of building owners and at a later stage, will encourage owners to display building energy certificates in their lobby or foyer areas.

This is an encouraging move and a long time coming.

Enabling visitors to see such energy performance certificates, along with the Green Mark rating, in public areas will help to raise public awareness about the importance of green buildings in helping Singapore mitigate its carbon footprint and raising productivity and general well-being of its occupants.

In one separate session that I attended at the conference, a researcher had mentioned that although the BCA’s Green Mark scheme is well known and established within the industry, for the general public, the link between identifying a green building and the Green Mark scheme remains weak.

Enabling visitors to see such energy performance certificates, along with the Green Mark rating, in public areas will certainly go in some way to address this issue. It will also help to raise public awareness about the importance of green buildings in helping Singapore mitigate its carbon footprint and raising productivity and general well-being of its occupants.

At the breakfast talk, which I moderated, industry leaders spent a good part of the morning discussing the ‘value of green to corporations’.

The growth of green buildings in Singapore – from a mere 17 buildings in 2006 to more than 1,600 today comprising 20 per cent of Singapore’s built-up space – has been spectacular. The country has a target to green 80 per cent of its buildings by 2030. That it is on track to achieve this target is testament to the fact that companies here do realise the ‘value of green’ not just to its own operations, but also to their clients and the wider community.

Rod Leaver, chief executive officer for Lend Lease Asia set out the case for change for the industry. The benefits of green buildings include:

•Marketability

•Cost savings

•Talent retention

•High occupancy rates

•Reduced liability risks

Netapp vice president and general manager for Asean, Scott Morris, also shared how the firm’s sustainability efforts have enabled it to rank number 6 on Fortune magazine’s 2013 “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, and this has greatly enhanced its talent retention rates.

Its commitment to green its data centres by developing solutions that reduce the amount of resources used while keeping costs low for its clients have won them a ranking in Forbes’ “World’s Most Innovative Companies” list, which, guess what – enables them to win more business.

You could call sustainability a virtuous cycle.

The panel also had a spirited discussion about BCA’s latest efforts to name the best performers.

Why not also name the bottom 20 per cent? I asked BCA. Such an approach would surely motivate the laggards of the industry to get their house in order.

In response, BCA chief executive John Keung said it would take the “carrot” approach first, by recognising the leaders in the hope of encouraging the others to follow suit. He assured the 250-strong audience: “BCA always takes a consultative approach with any of its new initiatives” but he also did not rule out that such a display of a building’s performance may be made mandatory in the future.

Mandatory disclosure is a matter of time if Singapore is serious about greening its dense, built-up infrastructure.

The Singapore public sector should show some leadership and also make it mandatory for all public buildings to do so.  It is taxpayers’ money that funds the construction and maintenance of these buildings after all.

In my opinion, such a move is a matter of time if Singapore is serious about greening its dense, built-up infrastructure. Public buildings in the United Kingdom, for example, are already required to display such certificates. The Singapore public sector should show some leadership and also make it mandatory for all public buildings to do so.  It is taxpayers’ money that funds the construction and maintenance of these buildings after all.

Chief executive officer and executive director of Keppel REIT Management, Ng Hsueh Ling, expressed some anxiety about naming the worse-off performers. “There are serious repercussions for building owners when such a move is taken. For example, the air quality in a building could be not bad at all, but just not as good as the best in the industry,” she pointed out. So companies should not be unnecessarily penalised in such rankings, she added.

I agree that such concerns must be addressed, and in general, an atmosphere of encouragement in the industry is preferred over naming and shaming. But requiring buildings to display their energy performance can hardly be considered the latter – numbers are hard facts upon which the public and industry can determine and judge for themselves.

It’s similar to how listed companies are required to disclose their financial information and shareholders and anaylsts can judge whether their numbers hold up against their peers according to their unique conditions and business strategies.

After all, transparency has always been a big driver of openness and accountability within industries. I do not doubt that increased transparency in the industry will only serve to spur the local green building movement to greater heights in the years ahead.

Source: www.eco-business.com and www. www.sgbw.com.sg

UK designer Thomas Heatherwick was one of the most entertaining speakers at International Green Building Conference this year and talked about the Learning Hub, one of remarkable, green designs for a technology education building under construction at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore.

Here’s more information on the man and the project which first appeared in Dezeen Magazine:

Learning Hub by Heatherwick

Resembling a cluster of elongated bee hives, the Learning Hub at Nanyang Technology University explores new ways of teaching at a time when computers and the internet are challenging the rationale of learning institutions.

“Before, the university was the place you would come to because it had the computers, or the university was the place that you would come to because it had the books,” said Heatherwick, explaining the concept of the building in a keynote speech at World Architecture Festival in Singapore last year. “And now, you can just stay in your bedroom with your [iPhone] and get your PhD and deal with the different professors – and so what is the purpose of a university building anymore?”

In response, the university wanted to dissolve the traditional relationship between the tutor and the student, to encourage a new kind of collaborative studying. “They no longer want the model of a master at the front of the class,” said Heatherwick in his lecture. “[That] is something that they want to move away from completely.”

The building consists of several 8-storey towers containing stacks of tutorial rooms, but avoids using traditional circulation and room layouts. The rooms are corner-less, to dissolve the standard classroom hierarchy where the tutor is at the front and the students all face towards him or her.

Instead of corridors, each level features open galleries where students can circulate and meet. And instead of a conventional entrance, the building is porous at ground level, meaning people can approach and enter from any direction.

“So the building has no one door, it’s all porous,” said Heatherwick. “You can just walk into one big shared space that links the whole thing together.”

Nanyang Technology University was masterplanned by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange in the 1980s and features buildings set in lush gardens. Heatherwick’s design reflects this by placing plants and trees on the roof and on some of the circulation levels.

Heatherwick studio has won a competition to design a Learning Hub for a university in Singapore. The hub will be part of a £360 million scheme which Nanyang Technological University is undertaking, and is the first redevelopment of its campus’ in twenty years.

It was clear to us that since the advent of the internet and low cost computers that there has been a distinct shift in how students approach educational facilities. University buildings have ceased to be the only site where students are able to source educational texts, and have become unappealing spaces with endless corridors, no natural daylight and only hints of other people’s presence.

The studio’s approach was to redefine the aspiration of a university building, and to once again make it an essential part of the tertiary education experience. Within this new context the purpose of a university is to foster togetherness and sociability, so that students can meet their fellow entrepreneurs, scientists or colleagues in a space that encourages collaboration.

The hub’s form is dictated by its function, and brings together 55 tutorial rooms into a structure without conventional corridors, which have traditionally created social separation and isolation. The learning hub has no one door, it is porous. Students can enter from 360 degrees around into a large central space which links all the separate towers together. Each tower is made up of a stack of classrooms which build up gradually, with gardens on selected floors.

Another inspiration for the hub was a wish to break down the traditional square forward-facing classrooms with a clear front and hierarchy, and move to a corner-less space, where teachers and students mix on a more equal basis.

In this model, students work together around shared tables, with teacher as facilitator and partner in the voyage of learning, rather than ‘master’ executing a top-down model of pedagogy.

Each of these tutorial rooms faces the large shared central space, allowing students to continually feel connected to all the other activities going on in the building.

In 2013 the learning hub was awarded the BCA Green Mark Platinum Award for sustainability by the Singaporean government. The award is a benchmarking scheme which incorporates internationally recognised best practices in environmental design and performance.

Source: www.dezeen.com/2013/07/19/heatherwick-learning-hub-nanyang-university/ and www.heatherwick.com/