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Opening remarks by Mr Ng Lang, Chief Executive Officer for The Urban Redevelopment Authority, at the opening of the joint SUTD-FCL exhibition ‘RE:IMAGINING CITIES – Urban Design Research in Singapore’, 12 September 2014, 6pm, at URA Atrium

  Published: 12 September 2014

Professor Kees Christiaanse
Programme Leader of the Future Cities Laboratory by the Singapore-ETH Centre

Professor Jeffrey Huang
Head of the Architecture and Sustainable Design pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design

Assistant Professor Andres Sevtsuk
Director of the Singapore University of Technology and Design’s City Form Lab

Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

Thank you to our three professors for their presentations, and a very good evening to everyone. Welcome to the Singapore City Gallery and the opening of this exhibition.

The Singapore City Gallery was set up to create an idea hub for the exchange of ideas on urban planning and architecture. We are very pleased that it is shaping up the way we want it to be. This would not have been possible without the strong support from our universities and research institutions.

I am happy to see that the City Form Lab of the SUTD and FCL, two separate research institutions, have come together for the first time to present their urban design ideas to enhance liveability in Singapore, and have chosen the Singapore City Gallery as the venue for their exhibition.

Partnering the community for a better living environment

We welcome and support such exchanges because they create opportunities for knowledge sharing and partnerships that bring people and good ideas together to help make our city a highly vibrant and delightful place. In fact, URA is also an active partner in many of such collaborations.

We are currently one of SUTD’s partners in their new study on ‘Liveable Places: A Building Environment Modelling Approach for Dynamic Place Making’. This study aims to develop a new design tool that can help planners better optimise the design and layout of public spaces, services and amenities for the people by using technologies such as sensors and smart-phone crowdsourcing to garner more accurate information about how people use these spaces and services on a daily basis. This will help inform us on how we can improve connectivity, accessibility and convenience for people’s daily lives.

FCL and us are also currently working together to establish a Walkability index for Singapore. This involves an extensive mapping of the different physical attributes (e.g. shading, noise and crowding) and the gathering of survey responses from pedestrians to help us better understand what influences people’s choice of the routes they take. This will help us to better identify appropriate design interventions to enhance overall walking experience. We are also looking into areas such as cognitive science to improve people’s sense of way-finding and orientation in their urban environment.

More opportunities for sharing of ideas

The positive experiences from these collaborations has convinced us that we should do more to encourage impactful research projects to be brought out of the labs and shared with practicing urban planners, architects and the public.

On this note, I am pleased to share that URA will be setting up a dedicated exhibition space – a sort of Urban Lab – at the URA Atrium. This dedicated space will provide a platform for partners to present impactful research projects and share their ideas and knowledge behind creating a better living environment for everyone. We will be announcing more details early next year.

We look forward to having more collaborative opportunities and your continued support to bring about innovative urban solutions that will make Singapore an even more liveable city as well as inspire Singaporeans to re-imagine even better neighbourhoods for themselves and their communities.

Thank you.

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