Mr Seah Kian Peng, CEO of NTUC Co-operative Ltd, and Mr Wong Heang Fine, Group CEO of SJ, signed the contract to appoint SJ to provide consultancy services for a new fresh food distribution centre
Surbana Jurong (SJ) has been appointed by NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Ltd (NTUC), the largest supermarket chain in Singapore, to provide multi-disciplinary consultancy services for a new fresh food distribution centre.
The 2.8ha development will consist of a 40-m-high Automatic Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), multi-temperature cold-rooms, ancillary office and facilities. It will be used as a distribution centre for the receiving, sorting, storage and distribution of fresh food for NTUC. The scope of works includes architecture, civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, and quantity surveying.
“In this project, we will be taking special care to ensure that the cold-rooms are designed to handle condensation, as well as meet cold chain and fire safety requirements,” said Michael Vong, Project Director and Deputy Managing Director, Building Consultancy Services (Urban Development 1). “We have assembled a team who recently completed the JTC Foodhub project and will be tapping on their experience to deliver this project successfully.” The project is targeted for completion in early 2021.
Artist impression of Surbana Jurong’s multi-storey Floating Pond concept
Surbana Jurong’s multi-storey Floating Ponds concept has won the WAFX (World Architecture Festival – Xth Edition) Prize in the Water category. Surbana Jurong partnered Singapore firm Apollo Aquaculture Group to develop the vertical-farming concept where fish and vegetables can be farmed together in a closed-loop, self-sustaining ecosystem with a minimum waste of water, energy and nutrients. The concept is highly scalable, both vertically and horizontally, to fit any available urban space.
The win is exciting for Surana Jurong as the WAF Awards are likened to the Oscars in the world of architectural projects, said senior architectural associate and project lead Alakesh Dutta, who added, “The prize is a firm acknowledgment of SJ’s ability to recognise critical agendas for the next generation of sustainable urban solutions and highlights the importance of developing collaborations with strategic partners like Apollo Aquaculture Group.”
This is the first award for the Floating Ponds project. It is in the running for another award – WAF 2017’s Future Projects award in the Experimental category, to be held in Berlin in November 2017, where team members Ms Tan Yok Joo and Mr Alakesh Dutta will be presenting the project to the jury.
If it wins, it will join the shortlist for World Building of the Year, an honour which other Singapore buildings have received in the past — The Interlace apartment complex won in 2015 and the Cooled Conservatories at Gardens by the Bay in 2012.
Aside from Floating Ponds, another Surbana Jurong project has made the Future Projects shortlist, in the category of Education. The National University of Singapore’s School of Design is a net zero-energy building that produces as much if not more energy than it consumes. The building was designed by Surbana Jurong in collaboration with Serie Architects and MPly Architects, and will contain the schools of architecture, landscape, interior and product design. When completed, it will be the first net-zero energy building in the tropics.
Artist impression of Surbana Jurong’s first township project in Baoshan
Yunnan, China, 11 October 2017 – Surbana Jurong Private Limited has won a contract to provide full-suite design services for a housing project in Baoshan city in Yunnan province, China. The project, awarded by the local Baoshan government, consists of 26 blocks of over 2,000 housing units, a multi-storey carpark, a kindergarten and a neighbourhood centre.
This is Surbana Jurong’s first township project in Baoshan. The project, which is about one quarter the size of Singapore’s Marine Parade estate, will reflect the community-centric design that Singapore’s townships are renowned for, with spaces for residents’ interactions and accessible amenities and services. At the same time, it will be planned with sustainability in mind, for example, by greening the roof of the multi-storey carpark.
The project occupies a total site area of 418,000 sqm and is expected to be completed in three years. Surbana Jurong will provide architectural, civil & structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, landscape design, civil defence shelter design as well as site coordination services.
Baoshan city’s vice mayor Geng Mei said, “This township project is Baoshan’s commitment to create a beautiful and sustainable city in this Southwestern region of the BRI. Our partnership with Surbana Jurong, a global company with proven track record in creating sustainable township, will ensure this project will be a success.”
Wong Heang Fine, Surbana Jurong Group CEO said, “We are excited to partner the city government in bringing the best of our township design and planning concepts to Baoshan city. China, like many rapidly urbanising cities around the world, will face increasing demand for affordable, quality housing. This project will showcase how local governments can partner Surbana Jurong to create sustainable township and positively shape the lives of its people and the community.”
Director of the Singapore Representative Office of Yunnan Commerce, Ms Wu Lixian, said, “We are seeing closer cooperation and exchanges between Singapore and Yunnan, and Surbana Jurong’s township project in Baoshan is a good example of our growing ties.”
Kenneth Teo, Regional Director (West China), China Group, IE Singapore said, “The potential for cooperation between China and Singapore is vast. We look forward to more such win-win partnerships between Singapore and Chinese organisations.”
Surbana Jurong is among the region’s leading firms in urban, industrial and infrastructure consultancy with a track record of over fifty years. Its urban township projects can be found across the region. It has been operating in China since 1994, beginning with the masterplanning of Suzhou Industrial Park, and has since delivered over 2000 projects in various cities across China. With Singapore and China continuing to enjoy good bilateral ties and China’s Belt Road Initiative gaining traction, Surbana Jurong will leverage its newest project win to pursue more opportunities.
For media enquiries, please contact:
Jackie Yu
Director, Group Communications
Tel: (+65) 6839-7326
Mobile: (+65) 9688-4269
Email: Jackie.YuWC@surbanajurong.com
About Surbana Jurong Private Limited
Surbana Jurong Private Limited (SJ) is one of the largest Asia-based urban, industrial and infrastructure consulting firms. Leveraging technology and creativity, SJ provides one-stop consultancy solutions across the entire value chain of the urbanisation, industrialisation and infrastructure domains.
Headquartered in Singapore, the SJ Group has a global workforce of 13,000 employees in 113 offices across 44 countries in Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, and an annual turnover of around S$1.3 billion.
SJ has a track record of over 50 years, and has built over a million homes in Singapore, crafted master plans for more than 30 countries and developed over 50 industrial parks globally.
SJ’s motto ‘Building Cities, Shaping Lives’ reflects its belief that development is more than just steel and concrete. SJ creates spaces and designs infrastructure where people live, work and play, shaping cities into homes with sustainable jobs where communities and businesses can flourish.
Minister Desmond Lee (centre in a white shirt) with construction industry leaders after a visit to The Wisteria.
It is not every day that a condominium receives VIP visitors before construction is completed but that is what happened at The Wisteria, Surbana Jurong’s ongoing private residential project in Yishun.
Earlier this month, Mr Desmond Lee, Singapore’s Second Minister for National Development, led a group of young leaders from the construction sector on a learning visit to the condominium – it is the first Government Land Sales residential project development in Singapore to incorporate Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction (PPVC) technology.
The Wisteria is also one of the first projects by SJ’s architectural team in Urban Development 2 (UD2) to use PPVC extensively. Between UD1 & UD2, SJ has built up good capabilities in PPVC, making SJ an early adopter and industry leader in this field.
According to Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA), PPVC is considered a game changer in the building industry for being able to speed up construction and achieve up to 50% in manpower and time savings. However, PPVC systems tend to be proprietary in nature and are subjected to stringent approval processes; they also require significant investment in technical knowledge and skills to implement.
Hence, contractors who are new to PPVC have been engaging SJ for advisory services on getting their PPVC systems approved. This ensures that the new players’ designs and materials are robust and can meet the minimum industry standards set by BCA.
SJ and its member company KTP Consultants have adopted PPVC in several multidisciplinary projects across residential, commercial, hospitality, healthcare and institutional sectors, working with clients such as MOH Holdings and Nanyang Technological University.
PPVC projects undertaken by SJ include:
Crowne Plaza Changi Airport Extension
Woodlands Nursing Home
Undergraduate Residential Halls 22, 23 and 24 at Nanyang Crescent, Nanyang Technological University
Canberra Drive Executive Condominium
New HDB Build-to-Order Parcel in Yishun.
The Wisteria is part of a mixed-use development comprising three nine-storey towers and 216 units built on top of a two-storey shopping centre called The Wisteria Mall. The development is targeted for completion by end 2018.
Surbana Jurong bags a total of eight awards in the recent HDB and SLA Awards!
HDB Awards
Surbana Jurong (SJ) has received two awards in this year’s Housing & Development Board (HDB) Awards under the Completed Projects (Housing) category. Held annually in Singapore, the HDB Awards are presented to architectural consultants and building contractors for projects which have demonstrated excellent design, quality and innovative construction.
The award-winning projects are:
Kallang Trivista – Certificate of Merit, Design
Keat Hong Pride – Certificate of Merit, Design
Award-winning projects: Kallang Trivista (top) and Keat Hong Pride (bottom).
Kallang Trivista capitalises on the panoramic river views with blocks configured to optimise views of Kallang River and the Marina skyline. Residents enjoy generous provisions and planning of amenities and community spaces catering to all age groups, as well as seamless connectivity between blocks, surrounding amenities, park connector network and external public transport nodes through accessible pathways at ground level.
Flanked by a neighbourhood park and a park connector along its eastern and southern edges, Keat Hong Pride features lush greenery, so residents can enjoy green links to nature outdoors. A central feature of this project is the vast roof garden above the car park, which houses a myriad of outdoor facilities such as playgrounds, precinct pavilions, shelters and fitness corners.
The awards were presented to winners on 6 September.
Singapore Land Architecture Awards
Surbana Jurong picked up six awards at this year’s Singapore Landscape Architecture Awards
Surbana Jurong won six awards in this year’s Singapore Landscape Architecture Awards. Organised by the Singapore Institute of Landscape Architects, the biennial Awards aim to honour the best landscape architects and promote landscape design in various design disciplines.
The award-winning projects are:
Project Name
Category
Award Received
Waterway Ridges @ Punggol
Residential
Outstanding Award of Excellence
One Canberra
Residential
Merit
Skies Miltonia
Residential
Merit
Singapore University of Technology & Design
Institution
Silver
SAFRA Punggol
Institution
Merit
Marine Cove @ East Coast Park
Parks and Public Spaces
Merit
The awards were presented to winners on 8 September.
Locating multi-storey fish farms on rooftops, in parks or even under viaducts could become a reality if infrastructure consultancy Surbana Jurong has its way. It has come up with a vertical system that needs less space than traditional farms, but can produce several times the amount of fish. Click here to read more
Elevated visitor / community spaces suspended above the integral blue-green spaces
Singapore, 4 September 2017 – Imagine rearing edible fish in farms dotted around the urban environment such as in parks, unused rooftops and other community spaces. This may become a reality soon. Surbana Jurong (SJ) has developed a high-intensity vertical farming concept, Floating Ponds, that can be applied to fish, vegetable or other agricultural products.
The proposed modular and scalable Floating Ponds comprises vertically stacked fish raceways to maximise production capacity of the available space. Such a concept means farms can be commercially productive even within limited land area and thus help ensure food security in land-scarce countries such as Singapore.
Make use of any available urban space
Being modular and scalable, Floating Ponds can be built and can function within any urban space available, ranging from a park space, to un-used roof space as well as community spaces within larger commercial developments. Having the entire fish farm ecosystem within the city will bring food production and processing closer to the residents and encourage them to take a proactive role in productive farming.
Done on a large-enough scale, vertical farming could significantly contribute to Singapore’s food requirement and enhance its food security.
Self-sustainable, closed-loop farm system
Floating Ponds is designed to be self-sustainable through a closed-loop ecosystem where the exchange and flow of water, nutrients and energy are integrated. This means that waste from one unit becomes input for another, reducing wastage and creating by-products of value. The spatial design and architecture of the farm works towards enabling these exchanges. The farm will also comprise a cold warehouse, processing and packing room, offices and R&D laboratories, integrating all farm processes into a singular facility. (Please refer to appended factsheet.)
Apollo Aquaculture Group’s three-storey fish farm prototype
SJ is ready to implement the Floating Ponds concept with partner Apollo Aquaculture Group (AAG). AAG successfully prototyped a three-storey fish farm using their closed-system water reticulation technology. The prototype currently holds about 100,000 fish and fry. SJ’s Floating Ponds concept can increase this to six storeys or more and potentially yield almost 5,000 tonnes of food-fish per year when in full operation.
This is six times more than conventional fish farm using the same amount of space.
“Surbana Jurong believes that innovative design and technology can play a significant role in agriculture and high-tech farming in land-scare Singapore. We are happy to partner Apollo Aquaculture Group in developing Floating Ponds, a concept that enables rapidly expanding high-density cities to build food resilience through creative and innovative usage of spaces. With such a vertical farming concept, Floating Ponds can maximise use of land and help make a small pocket of urban space significantly productive, enhance the surrounding ecology and generate a vibrant community hub with farming activities,” Mr Wong Heang Fine, Group CEO of Surbana Jurong said.
“The farming sector is vibrant in Singapore, but there are obvious space constraints here. We need to break away from the conventional mould and advocate new ways of farming. We are delighted to collaborate with Surbana Jurong in developing Floating Ponds and look forward to modernising fish farming and bringing the aquaculture industry to new heights,” Mr Eric Ng, Group CEO of Apollo Aquaculture Group said.
Surbana Jurong Private Limited (SJ) is one of the largest Asia-based urban, industrial and infrastructure consulting firms. Leveraging technology and creativity, SJ provides one-stop consultancy solutions across the entire value chain of the urbanisation, industrialisation and infrastructure domains.
Headquartered in Singapore, the SJ Group has a global workforce of 13,000 employees in 113 offices across 44 countries in Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, and an annual turnover of around S$1.3 billion.
SJ has a track record of over 50 years, and has built more than a million homes in Singapore, crafted master plans for more than 30 countries and developed over 50 industrial parks globally.
SJ’s motto ‘Building Cities, Shaping Lives’ reflects its belief that development is more than just steel and concrete. SJ creates spaces and infrastructure services where people live, work and play, shaping cities into homes with sustainable jobs where communities and businesses can flourish.
Simon Chiang (left) and Chong Wei Rong, Architectural Associates at Architecture Studio 1, underwent a one-month stint with Safdie Architects at their Boston office
If you are an aspiring architect, you would very likely jump at this once in a lifetime opportunity. To undergo a one-month stint with the team who designed two of Singapore’s iconic landmarks: the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort and the Jewel at Changi Airport. That was why there was no hesitation from Simon Chiang and Chong Wei Rong, when they said yes, to visit and undergo a one month attachment at Safdie Architects’ head office in Boston earlier this year. Safdie Architects was the team behind the world-famous iconic design projects in Singapore, plus many more globally, such as the Habitat ’67 in Montreal, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the Raffles City mixed-use development in Chongqing, China.
We caught up with Simon, Architectural Associate at SJ’s Architecture Studio 1, as he shares his experiences during his memorable stint with the Safdie team.
Q1. Why did you decide to go for this attachment at Boston?
Simon: I was fortunate and elated to be selected for this attachment! It was a great opportunity for me to interface with young designers in the Safdie office and work directly with them. Just to be exposed to a different style of studio and work processes, in an atelier setting, was definitely an opportunity of a lifetime.
Q2. Was there a specific project that you worked on with the Safdie team?
Simon: While I was there, I was working full time on a large-scale transportation hub, in an international design competition. I was one of the designers assisting the team to create graphics, drawings and models for the presentations. The Safdie team members were very open on sharing with us their ideas and design strategies.
Q3. What was it like working with the Safdie team? Any interesting observations to share?
Simon: The team that I was working with was a rather large team of about 12. Under the direction of Moshe Safdie himself and two of his long-term principals, we were engaged in numerous studies and sketches to test possible designs for the competition. What impressed me was the sheer size of the team and the resources they had dedicated to create the graphics and presentation material. More importantly, Moshe himself was always very hands on, making sure that every drawing and detail was personally signed off before it could be presented to clients. That impressed me, as he maintains a large amount of creative control, despite his busy schedule.
Q4. What have you gained from this attachment?
Simon: It was an eye-opener to see how the design practice is run at Safdie Architects. Being a world-renowned firm, the dedication to quality and commitment to the craft of architecture is also inherent to the way Safdie Architects is run. As an architect, it was encouraging to see the premium for a brand name firm translated into time and energy spent on developing good design. It is something that I hope to see happening more back in the industry in Singapore and Asia. Given the ease of us fitting in with the team there, I can safely say, in terms of talent and passion, us architects in Singapore are probably on par with our counterparts in USA.
Mr Yeo Choon Chong (right), Deputy CEO of Urban Development 1, receives a token of appreciation from Dr Djeng Shih Kien, Chairman of Singapore Institute of Advanced Medicine Holdings, at the groundbreaking ceremony
Surbana Jurong’s (SJ) Healthcare and Life Sciences team from Urban Development 1, Singapore, recently celebrated a project milestone with the groundbreaking ceremony of Singapore Institute of Advanced Medicine Holdings’ (SAM) new oncology centre. Based in Biopolis, the international biomedical research hub of Singapore, the new Advanced Medicine Oncology Centre will provide world-class imaging, treatment delivery and clinical informatics technologies. The new centre will be a significant step taken to address the region’s fast-growing number of people confronted with cancer.
Revit 3-D view of the compact proton therapy facility, nested into an existing building
Upon completion, the oncology centre will be the first in Singapore to offer non-invasive cancer radiation treatment, such as proton therapy. Through proton therapy (a type of radiation treatment that uses protons or positively charged particles), patients will be able to receive painless radiation treatment through the skin from a machine outside the body. Hence, the centre is an important development in Singapore’s healthcare sector, which is set to benefit thousands of patients in the future.
SJ is providing multidisciplinary consultancy services for this project, including architecture, civil and structural, mechanical and engineering, quantity surveying, as well as project management. The project is targeted for completion by December 2018.
The challenges faced by the SJ team are in the planning and design of the extremely compact proton therapy equipment facilities. In addition, the team must also work together with both the equipment vendor and the contractors, to plan and design the move-in path for the heavy and sensitive equipment. Equally challenging is the design and construction of the heavy radiation shielding bunker, to be incorporated into an existing building that had no prior structural provisions.
Hangzhou, a three-hour bus-ride from Shanghai, is famed for its historical relics, natural beauty, quaint towns and charming waterways. The capital of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, is also home to West Lake, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba. Adding to its list of tourist attractions in the future will be the Jing Hang Grand Canal Theatre & Park. Our design team has a significant role to play in the city’s upcoming attraction, as they have just clinched the International Property Awards-Asia Pacific “Best in Leisure Architecture-China”, for the provision of architecture and landscape design consultancy for the theatre and park.
Surbana Jurong (SJ) China was engaged to provide architectural concept design consultancy services for the theatre, as well as to offer landscape design for the adjacent park and plazas. The architectural design and landscape design took about one and a half years to complete, starting August 2015. Construction works on the project will soon begin.
Recognising the team’s design excellence in architecture and landscape design, the organisers presented the award to Wong Tim Fatt, North Asia division’s Vice President (Architectural), at a presentation ceremony in Bangkok. According to organisers of the International Property Awards, the projects are judged by a highly experienced team of professionals, who cover the whole range of property disciplines. Winning the award was no easy feat, as the competition was opened to property professionals from around the world.
Kudos to our design team (architectural) in Shanghai! For the record, team members are: Wong Tim Fatt, Guo Yin Mei, Dong Jing Jing, Richard Cruz, Andrew Lim, Li Ming Ming, Yang Hou Jin and Jin Hui Fen.
