Changing the Way We Build
Learn more about the bulding industry transformative journey in construction productivity and Building and Construction Authority’s role in shaping this change.
Last updated 1 March 2025
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Lecture details
Changing the Way We Build
28 July 2017
3.30pm – 5.00pm. Registration from 3.00pm, seated by 3.30pm
MND Function Hall
Lecture video
Synopsis
The Building and Construction Authority champions the development of a safe, high quality, sustainable and friendly built environment for Singapore; one that is supported by progressive, technologically-advanced and globally-competitive firms and highly-skilled workforce. In this lecture, Dr John Keung will focus on the sector’s transformative journey in construction productivity and BCA’s role in shaping this change.
Lecture report
The adoption of digital tools and innovation technologies has transformed Singapore’s building industry over the last decade, said Dr. John Keung in a recent CLC lecture.
The dean of the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) Academy credited this wave of change for helping the traditionally labour-intensive industry move towards a green building movement for environmental and energy sustainability. While BCA’s Green Mark scheme for rating the environmental sustainability of buildings started with just 17 buildings in 2005, it has expanded to more than 3,000 buildings — about a third of Singapore’s entire building stock. The scheme has also been used in 300 projects in 80 cities across 14 countries, as Singapore shares its experiences in driving sustainable building.
This shift did not come easily, said Dr. Keung. “The easy availability of cheap foreign workers was a strong deterrent for technology adoption. Companies were naturally extremely reluctant to invest in costly but productive technology.”
Moreover, a lack of collaboration among stakeholders in the construction value chain — from developers, consultants, architects, engineers, contractors, all the way down to facility managers — also lowered productivity. “They all work in their own silos with very little real collaboration,” he said. “Without proper collaboration and communication to link the upstream design with downstream construction and facilities management, this has led to many undesirable consequences: Unproductive, costly reworks, wastage of manpower and resources, and the result is lower productivity.”
This began to change in the mid-2000s when BCA worked with other government agencies and the construction industry to push for the green building movement, a transformation it had observed in other advanced economies.
“To make it work, we needed a paradigm shift. Incremental change is not going to help. We needed to change the way we build,” said Dr. Keung, who served previously as BCA’s chief executive.
Traditional 2D computer-aided design tools gave way to 3D Building Information Modelling (BIM). This was pushed through with regulation and government funding for training and building capabilities. “Our aim is to use IT tools to break down silos,” he said. “IT is a powerful tool…to enable developers, engineers, architects, contractors and subcontractors to work together as a team, ideally from day one.”
More recently, projects have made use of BCA Academy’s Centre for Lean and Virtual Construction. This brings together various parties, including the developer, architects and civil engineers, so that conflicts and design clashes can be detected early on.
“If you can sort out the differences there and then, it is extremely productive. And many a times, when you sit down together to discuss problems, there are lightbulb moments where you can find innovative, cheaper or more effective solutions,” said Dr. Keung.
Technologies such as prefabrication methods are also important in making the industry more productive, as well as reducing the negative impact of construction, such as noise and environmental pollution. This is why BCA is aggressively championing their adoption along the entire continuum of design for manufacturing and assembly. Its Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA) approach includes methods such as Prefabricated Pre-finished Volumetric Construction (PPVC).
“Under this process, we are looking at moving onsite processes usually carried out under hot, dusty and messy conditions offsite to a sheltered factory, where most processes can be optimised, and many can be automated,” he said.
Citing the push for DfMA as one of the most challenging attempts in changing the way Singapore builds, Dr. Keung said the agency took a multi-pronged approach. It first cut down the worker quota for all projects by 45%, and then raised the foreign worker levy substantially. To anchor these transformations, capability development was also carried out in cooperation with institutes of higher learning and other educational institutions.
“The whole idea was to narrow the labour substitution cost for technology, and get our industry to rethink the way they build by turning to more productive technology-driven methods and processes,” he said.
BCA is now pushing BIM adoption in the private sector with an eye to not just using it for submissions but also managing costs and facilities. The agency is also working with other government agencies to raise the use of prefabrication methods in industrial land development.
The future for Dr Keung is clear: “For green building, we want to achieve a breakthrough in innovative and cost-effective solutions for design, construction and maintenance.”
Written by Alvin Chua. This report first appeared in the Aug 2017 Better Cities newsletter.
About the Speakers
SPEAKER
Dr John Keung
Dean
Building and Construction Authority Academy, Singapore;
Former Chief Executive Officer Building and Construction Authority
Dr John Keung is the Dean of Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority Academy and holds a number of Board chairmanship and membership in various organizations in the field of sustainable development and solar energy. Prior to this, he was the Chief Executive Officer of the Building and Construction Authority for 11 years till 31 May 2017.
MODERATOR
Prof Thomas Schroepfer
Professor, Architecture and Sustainable Design;
Director, Advanced Architecture Laboratory,
Singapore University of Technology and Design
As an Architecture and Sustainable Design professor and author, Professor Thomas Schroepfer’s work investigates the increasingly complex relationship between design and technology in architecture. His research and design projects relate to advances in environmental strategies, structure and form, performance and energy, computer simulation and modeling, digital fabrication and building processes.