Singapore's skyline blossoming

As most Asian cities experience rapid growth, they are loosing open green spaces. Cities like Singapore have little surrounding landscape to colonize and have had to look at increasing densities inside their cities while maintaining quality of life and access to open green spaces for all, reports website PhilStar.

Singapore has offset denser development by replacing lost greenery in urban centers with what officials call “skyrise greenery.” These are green roofs and vertical green walls on buildings and on their sides. The total surface area of green acts in almost the same way as landscape on the ground, but also in ways more than that. These interventions help reduce cooling requirements for buildings, mitigate pollution and reduce glare and heat buildup.

Since the country adopted skyrise greening as a policy, Singapore has seen more than 72 hectares of green roof or rooftop gardens constructed. The skyrise greenery is over and above the hundreds of hectares of Singapore’s 300 public parks, four nature reserves and several park connectors that crisscross the island nation. Singapore aims to double the area of green roofs in the next decade.

Landscape architecture and greening has always been a priority in Singapore. No private or public development project is approved without a site and landscape plan, which takes into account the surrounding context and aims to soften and enhance outdoor settings for residents, office workers, students or general users of the space and buildings being proposed.

GreenUrbanScape Asia is bundled with the Skyrise Greenery conference and exhibit and was held recently at the Singapore Expo complex near Changi Airport. At the opening of the event, Singapore’s Ministry of National Development, which oversees the Urban Redevelopment Authority, gave awards to 22 projects for general landscape development and Skyrise Greenery.

The GreenUrbanScape exhibit was full of displays of the latest technology in vertical greening, green roofs, drainage and irrigations systems, urban tree management, landscape maintenance, outdoor furniture and playgrounds, decking and paving. The talks offered a glimpse of best practices internationally.

Original article: Proudgreenbuilding