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SINGAPORE (The Straits Times / ANN): The Housing Board’s Future of Life (HDB) will see smart accessories that give homeowners the option to monitor their energy consumption and control smart appliances, and also directional signage with larger fonts and pictorial symbols.
This is to ensure that smart and sustainable living keeps up with Singapore’s aging population, said Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat.
He added that a people-centered approach that anticipates the physical, social and mental well-being of residents is central to HDB’s plan to improve the living environment, even as it realizes Singapore’s vision of becoming a smart nation. .
At an HDB webinar on Thursday (October 15), Heng presented a new plan that will guide the design and planning of HDB’s cities and apartments for the next decade, both in new public housing developments and in existing cities.
Called “Design for Life,” HDB’s new roadmap is based on three pillars: Live Well, which improves the health and well-being of residents through the built environment; Live Smart, which incorporates smart and sustainable technologies; and Live Connected, which focuses on community participation in the configuration of public spaces.
Heng said the roadmap is timely as the Covid-19 pandemic has made Singaporeans see their home in a new light as more people work from home.
“For many, home has become a sanctuary from the pandemic. For some, home is increasingly a space to work. For all, home is the place where we bond with our loved ones,” Heng said.
The above roadmap was introduced in 2011 and implemented in cities such as Punggol and Bidadari.
An upcoming housing development that will showcase the features and initiatives of the new roadmap is Parc Residences @ Tengah, a Build-To-Order (BTO) project in Tengah launched in August this year.
An adjacent BTO project yet to be named, to be released at a later date, will share the amenities.
Both are located in the Park district, one of the five housing districts in the “forest city” of Tengah.
Together, the two developments will comprise around 2,200 apartments ranging from flexible two-bedroom to five-bedroom apartments.
These floors will be integrated with nurseries, a Residents Committee center and a major neighborhood center with a supermarket, food court and commercial schools.
The nearby neighborhood center will be integrated with a polyclinic to facilitate access to care facilities for both young and old.
It will also feature a prominent staircase that opens directly to community green spaces on each floor to encourage residents to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
The parking decks of the multi-story parking lots at Parc Residences @ Tengah will be raised to free up ground-level spaces for community activities and play areas.
In the adjacent development, the roof of the multi-storey car park will have a “sky sports park” with fitness equipment alongside a 300m racing circuit and a 100m speed track.
Integrated developments like Kampung Admiralty in Woodlands and Oasis Terraces in Punggol will be more common, Heng said.
For example, the Bedok South Horizon BTO project will be integrated with the Siglap Community Center and senior care facilities. It will be ready next year.
To foster the kampung spirit, HDB will seek input from residents to design and build their preferred shared spaces, such as empty terraces. HDB said it will put it to the test next year on selected BTO projects in Tampines and Dawson.
Smart technologies will also be present in the new Tengah apartments.
Homeowners can subscribe to an energy efficient centralized cooling system and control its use through an app, which can save up to 30% on life cycle costs.
Up to 10 percent of parking lots will have electric vehicle (EV) ready infrastructure for residents with electric vehicles. The electrical charge required to charge electric vehicles is complemented by solar energy collected through photovoltaic solar panels on the roofs of nearby blocks.
The existing localities are not left out either.
Four cities – Bukit Merah, Queenstown, Choa Chua Kang and Ang Mo Kio – will be rejuvenated under HDB’s Remaking Our Heartland initiative, in addition to those already undergoing renovations.
The green features will be implemented in existing cities under a 10-year HDB Green Towns program, which aims to make all of Singapore’s cities more sustainable and livable by 2030. These features include solar panels and smart LED lighting in common areas that is dimmed when there is little human traffic.
On Thursday, HDB CEO Cheong Koon Hean said that one of HDB’s key focal areas in driving national sustainable development efforts is solar power.
“By 2030, when HDB turns 70, we can expect to see 70% of all HDB blocks equipped or identified for solar installation,” said Dr. Cheong.
Since its inception 60 years ago, HDB has built more than one million apartments in some 10,000 blocks across the island.
Today, eight out of 10 Singaporeans live in HDB apartments, of which 90% own the house they live in.
Dr. Cheong noted that HDB’s work is a “continuous and iterative process” even as it enters its seventh decade of building homes for Singaporeans.
“Over the past decade, we have introduced a new generation of public housing, with significant shifts toward well-designed, sustainable, and community-focused cities that harness both the power of nature and smart technologies,” he said.
“We remain steadfast in our mission and will continue to innovate and implement fresh and bold ideas for the future of life at HDB.” – The Straits Times / Asia News Network
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