Speech by Minister Chee Hong Tat at the Professor Chen Charng Ning Distinguished Lecture Series

A very good evening everyone. Happy to join you to celebrate the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering's (CEE) 45th anniversary. Let me begin by congratulating all the scholarship and bursary recipients here tonight.

Today, we gather to remember Professor Chen Charng Ning, a passionate scholar who inspired generations of engineers and students. As the Founding Dean of CEE and also the founding chairman of BCA, Professor Chen made invaluable contributions to Singapore's Built Environment sector.

This Distinguished Lecture Series serves as a fitting tribute to his legacy. It provides a platform for knowledge sharing and innovation, keeping his pioneering spirit alive for future generations.

Three Big Engineering Challenges for Singapore's Built Environment Sector

Singapore is widely recognised as one of the world's most liveable cities. Engineering has played a central role in this success, shaping the infrastructure that supports our daily lives. From efficient transport networks to sustainable water systems, engineering excellence underpins both our quality of life and national competitiveness.

As our city continues to grow and evolve, we must continually challenge ourselves to innovate and push boundaries.

Looking ahead, Singapore faces three important engineering challenges that will define our next phase of development: pushing our vertical boundaries, building more efficiently, and creating sustainable and inclusive infrastructure. Now this is not an exhaustive list of all the engineering challenges, but these are three of the challenges that my colleagues and I face in the Ministry of National Development, together with our industry partners and our partners from the academia in the Built Environment sector. Meeting these challenges will require strong collaboration between engineers, industry partners and government.

Challenge 1: Pushing Vertical Boundaries

Let me start with the first one, which is pushing vertical boundaries. Given Singapore's land scarcity, we must look for ways that we can build taller and deeper. This demands significant engineering innovation, as our engineers must master complex structural dynamics, soil mechanics, and environmental controls to safely optimise our limited space.

Let me share some examples of how over the years we have been pushing these vertical boundaries, both upwards and also downwards.

Our underground engineering journey began in the 1980s with the construction of our first MRT and road tunnels. This effort accelerated with the completion of the Underground Ammunition Facility at Mandai Quarry in 2008. By moving storage underground, we freed up 300 hectares of land while also benefiting from natural granite insulation that improves safety and energy efficiency.

Building on this success, we developed the Jurong Rock Caverns, which is Southeast Asia's first commercial underground hydrocarbon storage facility, saving 60 hectares of surface land for higher value petrochemical activities and reinforcing Singapore's position as a global energy hub.

Today, we are studying the feasibility of an underground cavern at Gali Batu to store construction materials. This project will require multiple engineering disciplines to address challenges in excavation, structural support, ventilation, and underground logistics coordination.

Our underground space utilisation also extends to transport infrastructure. For instance, during the construction of the Thomson-East Coast Line's Marina Bay Station, engineers used a specialised ground freezing technique to stabilise soft soil conditions while tunnelling near existing MRT lines that were sensitive to ground movement. The completed tunnels now allow commuters to transfer seamlessly across three MRT lines at Marina Bay.

Another example is SP Group's construction of Southeast Asia's first large-scale underground substation at Labrador. This innovative project features a 230kV underground electrical substation with a 34-storey commercial tower built above it, making it the first such integrated development in Southeast Asia. So the old design will be to build the 230kV substation as a standalone structure, and you cannot quite build around it, but this new way of moving the substation underground, we can then build above it. There is an office building; I went there for a meeting, met up with one of the companies, and I think this is something that we need to do more in Singapore, optimise the use of land.

So when it comes to building upwards, the upcoming housing development at Pearl's Hill - this is an HDB development - is our latest example. This project will feature Singapore's tallest public housing development, rising above 60 storeys. 60 storeys is not the first of its kind, we know there are other taller residential buildings in Singapore and overseas cities. But it is the tallest HDB block.

60 storeys will be more than 10 storeys taller than The Pinnacle@Duxton, which is currently our tallest public housing project. And this is part of our efforts to maintain a strong pipeline of BTO flats, by intensifying land usage and building taller where possible. A 60-storey block can provide about 50 per cent more flats compared to a 40-storey block, which is the height of most of our tallest HDB blocks today.

So that is the first challenge, building vertically up and down.

Challenge 2: Building More Efficiently

The second challenge is building more efficiently. Singapore has ambitious building plans across air, land, and sea, including Changi Airport Terminal 5, Tuas Port, and our ongoing housing programmes. With finite resources, we must find innovative ways to build more efficiently to deliver these ambitious projects on time, within cost, and to the highest standards.

We have developed innovative approaches to maximise efficiency in our use of construction materials. For example, we completed our first polder project at Pulau Tekong, which used empoldering technology to reclaim 800 hectares of land below mean sea level whilst reducing sand usage by almost 50 per cent compared to traditional reclamation methods.

We have also pioneered the use of precast concrete construction technology in public housing projects, reducing construction time and waste whilst enabling us to deliver quality homes more rapidly. By developing such resource-efficient construction approaches, we not only conserve precious materials like sand but we can also free up the space for housing and other essential developments.

Beyond materials efficiency, we are adopting emerging technologies such as robots and drones to address manpower constraints. Since 2023, HDB has deployed construction robots in BTO projects to automate labour-intensive tasks such as skimming and painting interior surfaces. These robots have improved productivity by up to 30 per cent. I think they can go further, and the costs may come down as well. So we hope to see more of these robots being used, and that will help us to improve our productivity.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is another promising area. For example, engineering consulting firm Meinhardt has developed KELIX, an AI platform that analyses historical project data and interprets client requirements to improve decision-making and tender compliance. Infrastructure firm AECOM has established an AI Innovation Centre in Singapore to develop solutions for data quality and underground utilities mapping. While some firms have started using AI applications, I think there is potential for more firms to come onboard, and for AI to see wider applications. We are at the start of this journey. There are a lot more in AI, robotics, automation that can help make our Built Environment more productive, more efficient.

Together with our industry partners, we have made good progress in transforming the Built Environment sector. But I believe we can do more together. This is why I have set up the Action Team to improve Built Environment sector productivity. The team comprises representatives from Government agencies and the industry, and will develop measures to help our industry players to achieve savings in time, costs and manpower.

It will focus on three areas: first, scaling up the adoption of productive technologies and progressive practices. Second, reviewing our regulatory approach to reduce regulatory compliance burden, support innovation and improve procurement and contracting practices. Third, supporting an enabling ecosystem for the industry to reap system-level synergies and address industry-wide challenges. Because we believe that some of the improvements will require us not just to do firm by firm; that is important, that is part of it. But if you only do firm by firm, you will be missing out on some of the larger ecosystem level improvements that can also benefit the industry as a whole.

In the coming months, the Action Team will engage widely to hear the views and feedback from our industry stakeholders. We would like to welcome everyone to share your ideas and your suggestions with the Action Team.

That is the second challenge, building more efficiently.

Challenge 3: Building More Sustainably and Inclusively

The third and final challenge I want to cover is building more sustainably, and also in a more inclusive manner. As climate change intensifies, there is a need to build more sustainably, and also pay attention to making sure that our Built Environment is more inclusive.

To achieve our net-zero targets by 2050, we must make a concerted effort to imbue sustainability considerations across the building life cycle, from planning and design to operations and facilities management.

Under our Singapore Green Building Masterplan, we aim to green 80% of our buildings, ensure 80% of new developments are Super Low Energy buildings, and achieve 80% improvement in energy efficiency for our best-in-class green buildings. So three 80s. It is a stretch target, we are not sure whether we will be able to hit it. But we should set an ambitious goal, and try our best working closely with the industry to strive towards these ambitious goals. Even if we do not hit it fully, I think it will allow us to stretch what we can do and achieve more, than if we were to set a very low bar.

Through our Built Environment Decarbonisation Technology Roadmap, we are also advancing a comprehensive approach to decarbonisation through a whole life carbon approach, addressing both operational and embodied carbon emissions throughout a building's life cycle.

Green buildings offer compelling commercial benefits, and they also enhance our quality of life through improved living and working environments. Developers typically recover their investment in green building features in about 5 to 6 years, with cost savings from improved energy efficiency accruing over the building's entire lifespan. And if we are going to see increased oil prices and electricity prices, I think this recovery period may be even shorter.

Furthermore, Green Mark-certified buildings have the potential to enhance the well-being of building occupants through improved thermal comfort, better ventilation and greater accessibility to nature. So there are many benefits; this is one of the areas that we feel is good for the environment, but certainly also good for business. It is a big thing and we want to encourage more building owners to come on board and do this.

As engineers, you play a critical role in helping us achieve our sustainability objectives. In planning and designing our buildings and its operations, you can help to reduce our carbon footprint by adopting market-ready strategies and solutions, such as alternative cooling and ventilation technologies and AI-controlled energy optimisation systems.

Just recently, Singapore launched the first Market Benchmark for the Embodied Carbon of Concrete, jointly developed by CapitaLand Development and Climate Group's ConcreteZero initiative. This provides our engineers with clear and practical data to make smarter material choices, demonstrating our commitment to evidence-based sustainability practices.

Besides sustainability, we must make our built environment more inclusive. This is cutting across different areas, but in our case, I just want to highlight one trend, which is our rapidly ageing population. There is a need to therefore ensure that our infrastructure is designed to be senior-friendly, barrier-free, and also accessible to all residents across different life stages. You design it to be senior-friendly, to be barrier-free, it will not only benefit seniors, because even other residents who are having any mobility challenges such as they are in a wheelchair, or parents with young children in prams, they can also benefit from the barrier-free access. So this push to make our built environment more inclusive, I think it can benefit everyone.

Now to do this, we must continue to design buildings and infrastructure to have these features - barrier-free and accessible - from the beginning. Such inclusive infrastructure not only serves our seniors but also benefits everybody.

To give you one example, we have our Age Well Neighbourhoods (AWNs), and the first will be launched in Toa Payoh as Toa Payoh has many seniors and is a mature estate. We intend to do this across different parts of Singapore, together with MOH. Residents can look forward to the upcoming Silver Upgrading Programme, which could feature active ageing facilities like therapeutic gardens, fitness trails and dementia-friendly elements.

The AWNs can also provide more Active Ageing Centres, and community spaces for seniors to remain active. Our Community Care Apartments are another example, where we integrate housing with care services within a single development footprint.

So these are just different ways in which we combine different needs, different requirements, and through good engineering design and planning, we are able to bring the different services together in a user-centric manner that can benefit our target group, in this case seniors.

And this is something which, given our constraints - land, manpower, carbon - we will need to find new innovative solutions and breakthroughs. And this is where I believe that the collaboration with our engineers is very important.

I want to end my speech by congratulating the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering once again on your 45th anniversary, and extend my warmest congratulations to all the scholarship and bursary recipients here today.

At its heart, engineering is about shaping the society we want to live in; creating lasting legacies for future generations, just as Professor Chen did; turning ideas into reality; and solving problems that matter to people's lives.

The three challenges I have outlined - pushing vertical boundaries, building more efficiently, and creating sustainable and inclusive infrastructure - these are not unique to Singapore. Many cities around the world face similar challenges.

Through strong collaboration between government, industry, universities, and research institutions, I believe we can develop solutions that not only serve Singapore and meet our needs well, but also would enable our companies and professionals to be able to export solutions that we have developed, because these can contribute to cities around the world facing similar constraints.

I would like to invite all of you to join us in this journey of building the capabilities that are needed to tackle these challenges and shape the next chapter of Singapore's development.

Thank you very much.