Singapore, a playful city? Inside the plan to become fun, resilient, and liveable

“The future of our built environment is for the younger generation to imagine,” was the key takeaway from Minister in Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance and National Development, Indranee Thurai Rajah’s speech. 

She was speaking at the launch of the Building Singapore Festival: From Dreams to Reality, held from 5 to 7 September. 

The festival was organised by Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) with the purpose of enhancing public understanding and appreciation of the built environment (BE) sector. 

The BE sector currently faces challenges of talent crunch alongside an ageing population that would strain its future urban capacity, according to the recent BCA’s Taskforce report. 

The festival hoped to “position the sector as an attractive career choice, to inspire the next generation to continue shaping a safe, sustainable, and liveable Singapore,” says BCA’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Industry Development, Tan Chee Kiat, to GovInsider.

One of the strategies to raise awareness of the sector’s impact to daily lives was engaging children using more creative, open, and experiential ways to interact with the built environment. 

Faced with the growing impacts of climate change, Singapore's younger generations are growing up in an urban environment that demands action.  

To ensure the future city is fun, resilient, and liveable, BE professionals and industry experts are collaborating on new strategies. 

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Integrating play into the urban environment 

“When we think of liveable cities, spaces for play may not always be the first to come to mind,” says Arup’s Southeast Asia Managing Principal, Lau Ching Luan, to GovInsider. 

Arup is an engineering consultancy firm with over 50 years of experience in Singapore. 

“But as spaces have turned more urban, increasing pressure on available space is edging children out of the urban realm,” he notes. 

The demand for limited space has resulted in urban areas that lack open areas for play, such as community playgrounds, parks, or recreational zones.  

This led to what Lau calls as the “play poverty” phenomenon, where many children grow up in urban areas that simply do not have space or infrastructure to engage in play.  

Play, beyond recreation, is a way of nurturing physical, social, cognitive and creative skills, particularly for children.  

According to Lau, playful urban spaces should be “intrinsic components of a city’s infrastructure, that enhances primary functions without disruptions”. 

One example was found in Mumbai, India, where a neglected flyover was turned into an open recreational space for the community, with benches and tables, climbing bars, game zones, greenery, and colourful walls. 

“A playful city is a robust city, inherently liveable as it is sustainable,” says Lau. 

To this end, Arup developed the Playful Cities initiative as a way of embedding play elements in city design and planning.  

Expanding the initiative to Singapore, Arup launched a series of “Playful Cities” workshops for children aged 6 – 14 years old to improve the awareness of the BE sector through play.   

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A greener landscape  

Singapore’s skyscrapers not only add to the visual appeal of the city, but the buildings also account for over 20 per cent of Singapore's carbon emissions. 

As Singapore’s national climate goals aim to reduce emissions to approximately 45 to –50 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO₂e) by 2035, green buildings are critical to achieving this objective, says BCA’s Tan. 

Over the past two decades, the move toward a climate-resilient built environment has been guided by policy, technology, and public-private partnerships, he notes. 

One of the key initiatives to enhance green building transformation was the BCA Green Mark certification scheme which encouraged energy efficiency improvements by setting energy performance standards for buildings. 

“When BCA first launched the scheme in 2005, there were only 17 certified buildings. Today, Singapore boasts 2,590 BCA Green Mark-certified buildings as of March this year,” said Tan. 

The collective impact of these green buildings was outstanding: over 4.2 billion kWh energy savings annually – equivalent to powering 1 million four-room HDB flats and S$1.3 billion in cost savings per year.  

“The carbon emissions offset by these buildings annually are equivalent to replanting a forest more than 13 times the size of Singapore or removing more than 396,000 internal combustion engine cars off the roads,” adds Tan. 

To push for wider green building practices, BCA provides funding for firms to conduct research and development, prototyping and test-bedding of new green building technologies under the Green Building Innovation Cluster (GBIC) programme. 

These efforts all count toward making a built environment that is more sustainable, clean, and liveable for all.

“While much has already been done towards greening the sector, the BE will continue to evolve as a critical component of the nation's climate resilience strategy, setting new standards for sustainable urban development in the process,” says Tan. 

Building stronger collaborations 

BCA launched an industry branding campaign to highlight the sector's crucial nation-building role as part of its wider transformation, says Tan. 

“It was an effort to spotlight the contributions of BE professionals and firms, update how the industry is transforming and leveraging technology, and strengthen the talent pipeline for Singapore's future development needs,” he says. 

The Building Singapore Festival was launched under this campaign, including the “Playful Cities” workshops for young learners to explore the practical and creative applications of engineering with the use of LEGO bricks. 

This activity was the result of a partnership between BCA, Arup, architectural consultancy firm Gensler, and the LEGO Group. 

Arup’s Lau adds that deep collaboration not just between sectors, but with citizens and children who are the city’s “future inhabitants”, was vital to build “culturally resonant solutions that foster collective ownership in the city.”