Continuing the trend that prevailed in 2016, 2017 has characteristically seen a downward trend in construction volume in the private sector, although the public sector’s somewhat sustained spending in infrastructure projects helped to ameliorate the gloom.
The dampened private housing market seems to be finally bottoming out as property prices rebounded slightly in Q4. In the whole of last year we have witnessed very aggressive pricings for government land sales and private collective sales (en-bloc) that was driven by the desire of both foreign and local developers to expand their land banks in Singapore. The number of en-bloc transactions hit a fresh high with developers snapping up more than 30 properties in 2017, with more expected to follow suit this year.
On the commercial front, there is an uptick in demand, even with more than 1,000,000 square feet of office spaces available with the completion of One Marina, Guoco Tower and OUE Downtown. Grade A offices’ rental in the CBD is expected to increase in 2018, driven mainly by the growing co-working spaces scene and demand for premium office spaces. While the retail sector recorded a 4.7% growth year-on-year, it continues to experience sustained pressure from the emerging e-commerce platform and growing vacancies.
Looking forward to the next 12 months and beyond, analysts are expecting the local economy to expand steadily, albeit at a slightly reduced pace.
Threesixty Cost Management Pte Ltd is a member of the Surbana Jurong Group which specialises in cost management and contractual administration from project inception to completion.
Over the last 2 years, in response to BCA’s roadmap for construction productivity, the industry has seen an upsurge of game-changing technologies and the adoption of innovative building methods. Perhaps one of the more talked about is PPVC (pre-fabricated pre-finished volumetric construction), or more commonly known as “Lego” building. The perceived benefits are well documented, but a common misconception about PPVC is the overall time savings that it can achieve. Generally, construction on-site takes comparatively lesser time because many wet trades are shifted off-site where the modules are constructed, but consideration of the additional time required up-front for detail planning and co-ordination are often overlooked. PPVC do come with its own set of challenges and at a cost premium; however, the additional cost can be off-set by a reduction in construction time and savings on labour cost.
With PPVC modules manufactured and fitted-out off-site, majority of the cost are up-front and contractors may have cashflow issues if a payment mechanism for materials off-site is not in place. As each PPVC supplier works with their own Professional Engineer, issues pertaining intellectual property might arise. There are cases where contractors engaged their own QP and this might affect the novation of consultants in modified Design and Build projects. As with most systems, there is no ‘one size fits all’ and PPVC is still at a very infant stage. This article will further look into the pros and cons of PPVC, the element driving PPVC costs, and the challenges from a procurement perspective.
Threesixty Cost Management Pte Ltd is a subsidiary of Surbana Jurong which specialises in cost management and contractual administration from project inception to completion.
Continuing the trend that prevailed in 2016, 2017 has characteristically seen a downward trend in construction volume in the private sector, although the public sector’s somewhat sustained spending in infrastructure projects helped to ameliorate the gloom.
The dampened private housing market seems to be finally bottoming out as property prices rebounded slightly in Q4. In the whole of last year we have witnessed very aggressive pricings for government land sales and private collective sales (en-bloc) that was driven by the desire of both foreign and local developers to expand their land banks in Singapore. The number of en-bloc transactions hit a fresh high with developers snapping up more than 30 properties in 2017, with more expected to follow suit this year.
On the commercial front, there is an uptick in demand, even with more than 1,000,000 square feet of office spaces available with the completion of One Marina, Guoco Tower and OUE Downtown. Grade A offices’ rental in the CBD is expected to increase in 2018, driven mainly by the growing co-working spaces scene and demand for premium office spaces. While the retail sector recorded a 4.7% growth year-on-year, it continues to experience sustained pressure from the emerging e-commerce platform and growing vacancies.
Looking forward to the next 12 months and beyond, analysts are expecting the local economy to expand steadily, albeit at a slightly reduced pace.
Threesixty Cost Management Pte Ltd is a subsidiary of Surbana Jurong which specialises in cost management and contractual administration from project inception to completion.
On 31 May 2017, Mr Lawrence Wong (the Minister for National Development) announced during a joint conference organised by the Board of Architects and the Association of Consulting Engineers of Singapore that the government is looking forward to promoting more collaborative contracting models, and is initiating plans to pilot some of the collaborative contracting models in public sector projects. Hopefully, this will also encourage private sector developers to take the cue and adopt some of these best practices.
In Mr Wong’s speech, he quoted 2 examples. The first example was in Hong Kong where project owners worked collaboratively with contractors in implementing the New Engineering Contract (“NEC”). His second example was the Integrated Project Delivery (“IPD”) in America, whereby from day one of the project, all parties come together to conceptualise the project, and seek to reduce errors and wastages, and minimise redesign problems. All team members were bound contractually to share risks and rewards based on achievement of agreed goals.
As a precursor to the implementation of collaborative contracting models, the government has already embarked on promoting some of these best practices such as getting more public sector agencies to implement Early Contractor Involvement (“ECI”), by adopting some of the best practices that can be found in the various standard forms of contract which promote partnering such as NEC or IPD, and by fine-tuning operational and co-ordination aspects of Building Information Modelling (“BIM”) so as to further promote BIM and any other form of collaborative tools and platforms.
Threesixty Contract Advisory Pte Ltd is a subsidiary of Surbana Jurong which provides independent mediation and advisory services.
On 31 May 2017, Mr Lawrence Wong (the Minister for National Development) announced during a joint conference organised by the Board of Architects and the Association of Consulting Engineers of Singapore that the government is looking forward to promoting more collaborative contracting models, and is initiating plans to pilot some of the collaborative contracting models in public sector projects. Hopefully, this will also encourage private sector developers to take the cue and adopt some of these best practices.
In Mr Wong’s speech, he quoted 2 examples. The first example was in Hong Kong where project owners worked collaboratively with contractors in implementing the New Engineering Contract (“NEC”). His second example was the Integrated Project Delivery (“IPD”) in America, whereby from day one of the project, all parties come together to conceptualise the project, and seek to reduce errors and wastages, and minimise redesign problems. All team members were bound contractually to share risks and rewards based on achievement of agreed goals.
As a precursor to the implementation of collaborative contracting models, the government has already embarked on promoting some of these best practices such as getting more public sector agencies to implement Early Contractor Involvement (“ECI”), by adopting some of the best practices that can be found in the various standard forms of contract which promote partnering such as NEC or IPD, and by fine-tuning operational and co-ordination aspects of Building Information Modelling (“BIM”) so as to further promote BIM and any other form of collaborative tools and platforms.
Threesixty Contract Advisory Pte Ltd is a member of the Surbana Jurong Group which provides independent mediation and advisory services.
This article presents the key geotechnical challenges related to gravity caisson quay walls and soil improvement works on reclaimed land for container port development in Singapore. The caisson foundation issues encountered in Jurong Formation are limestone cavities, presence of sandwich soft soils and potential soil softening beneath sandkey trench. Ground improvement using surcharge preloading and PVD is often implemented to accelerate the primary settlement, reduce the residual settlement and enhance the ground stability for the reclaimed land using various sources of filling materials.
This article presents the key geotechnical challenges related to gravity caisson quay walls and soil improvement works on reclaimed land for container port development in Singapore. The caisson foundation issues encountered in Jurong Formation are limestone cavities, presence of sandwich soft soils and potential soil softening beneath sandkey trench. Ground improvement using surcharge preloading and PVD is often implemented to accelerate the primary settlement, reduce the residual settlement and enhance the ground stability for the reclaimed land using various sources of filling materials.
The modelling of soil–atmosphere interactions for slopes requires a proper understanding of the relevant soil parameters (soil water retention curve and the permeability function). This paper reports on numerical investigations of an instrumented residual soil slope in Singapore. The objective of the paper is to provide practical suggestions for choices of hydraulic parameters that can provide realistic predictions in analysing practical problems. The analyses use an uncoupled unsaturated flow model and a hydromechanical coupled model with time-dependent boundary conditions. The results obtained using measured weather data for the slope were validated against field measurements of pore-water pressure changes. The models were able to capture the trend of changes in the pore-water pressure due to rainfall events provided that account was taken of a more permeable surficial layer due to the presence of desiccation cracking and root passages. A comparative study of stability shows that the mobilised shear strength drops quickly during a rainfall event but recovers much more slowly during drying. This shows how a series of regular rainstorms with short periods of drying in between can cause a ratcheting effect, with rapid loss of strength during each period of rain that is not recovered during the intermediate drying periods.
The modelling of soil–atmosphere interactions for slopes requires a proper understanding of the relevant soil parameters (soil water retention curve and the permeability function). This paper reports on numerical investigations of an instrumented residual soil slope in Singapore. The objective of the paper is to provide practical suggestions for choices of hydraulic parameters that can provide realistic predictions in analysing practical problems. The analyses use an uncoupled unsaturated flow model and a hydromechanical coupled model with time-dependent boundary conditions. The results obtained using measured weather data for the slope were validated against field measurements of pore-water pressure changes. The models were able to capture the trend of changes in the pore-water pressure due to rainfall events provided that account was taken of a more permeable surficial layer due to the presence of desiccation cracking and root passages. A comparative study of stability shows that the mobilised shear strength drops quickly during a rainfall event but recovers much more slowly during drying. This shows how a series of regular rainstorms with short periods of drying in between can cause a ratcheting effect, with rapid loss of strength during each period of rain that is not recovered during the intermediate drying periods.
Passive cooling strategy is a key element of sustainable building. Its optimum performance and potential benefit can be realized with careful and meticulous design. As a design option for public assembly spaces, however, passive cooling strategy is seldom given a fair consideration as compared to the mechanical cooling approach, especially in the tropical climate where high humidity prevails. This paper presents an extensive study on the technological aspects of vernacular architecture in Malaysia, particularly on the efficiencies and limitations of the passive house design, in order to explore the workable sustainable architecture prototype for public assembly spaces in the tropical climate. With the lessons learnt from the vernacular architecture, the design typology for a Taoist Academic Centre (TAC) was proposed. By adopting an integrated environmental design approach which involved performance analysis through computational studies, the design scheme was tested and modified to achieve the optimum spatial and environmental outcome. Ultimately, the paper aims to demonstrate that modern tropical architecture prototype is possible to be developed from vernacular architecture, and the proposed prototype will not only respond well to the local climates, but is able to accommodate different cultural contents.
