Seow Bei Yi, Straits Times AsiaOne 6 Nov 15;
Singapore now has about 72ha of rooftop greenery - enough to cover over 100 football fields - up from about 64ha last year, according to the National Parks Board (NParks).
This will increase almost three- fold by 2030, in line with the latest Sustainable Singapore Blueprint.
Contributing to this landscape are buildings that retrofit greenery on their roofs and walls, and new developments that incorporate greenery from the planning stages.
Yesterday, 22 such developments received awards and certifications from Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong at the opening ceremony of the GreenUrbanScape Asia exhibition, held at the Singapore Expo.
Twelve developments won Skyrise Greenery Awards, which recognise innovative greenery designs. There were a record 123 entries this year, up from 77 in 2013.
Eleven developments were certified under the Landscape Excellence Assessment Framework (Leaf), which recognises excellence in landscape design, particularly by developers who incorporate it at the very start of the development process.
The winners include a mall lined with green walls leading from its exterior to the atrium, a public housing development as well as historic buildings refurbished with a roof garden and 5m-tall green wall.
Westgate, comprising a shopping mall and office tower beside Jurong East MRT station, won the Outstanding Award under the Skyrise Greenery Awards.
Besides having gardens that are interspersed throughout the upper floors of its office tower, the development has about 1,350 sq m of vertical greenery and a semi-outdoor street sheltered by glass canopies.
Receiving both a Skyrise Greenery Award and Leaf certification this year is the Housing Board project SkyTerrace @ Dawson.
Six sky terraces, or elevated walkways landscaped with small trees and shrubs, link the six residential blocks and serve as communal gathering spaces. The estate's multi-storey carpark also has greenery on its facade and a roof garden.
It is one of five HDB projects that won a total of six landscaping and greenery awards by NParks this year.
The National Gallery Singapore, opening on Nov 24, won an Excellence Award under the Skyrise Greenery Awards. Its 3,000 sq m roof garden on the former City Hall building has plants like the orange jasmine (Murraya paniculata) and bauhinia trees, and it has 5m-tall vertical gardens on the fourth-level mezzanine of the former Supreme Court and the roof garden.
"Because Singapore is land- scarce, we recognise that greenery can easily be displaced by urban development," said Mr Wong. "To maintain our green environment, we have been innovating and greening skywards."
