If Singapore were a trembling student, being graded on how sustainable it is as a city, its report card might well read: room for improvement.
That is how Professor Steffen Lehmann, who specialises in sustainable design and behaviour at the University of South Australia, sees it.
‘Singapore has been very smart in establishing itself as the leader of a ‘sustainable city model for Asia’,’ he says.
But he feels more can be done. He is one of the experts profiled in Living Cities, a new documentary series produced by Discovery Channel.
The six-part series, which started airing on Wednesday, holds Singapore up as an example to explore issues such as sustainability, urban planning and heritage involved in creating dynamic living spaces.
Praising Singapore for practices such as integrating ‘greenery in the built environment’, in the form of green roofs and facades as well as park connectors, he says it can do better in areas such as using renewable energy.
‘There is still too little energy produced using solar power or biomass, which is biological material from livin, or recently living organisms. The Singapore Government could give more incentives for people to buy solar panels,’ he suggests in an e-mail interview.
Singaporeans are also too dependent on air-conditioning, he points out. ‘We need better use of design principles appropriate for the tropics,’ he adds.
Dr Lehmann, 47, heads the Unesco Chair in Sustainable Urban Development for Asia and the Pacific, which advises government and private bodies on sustainable architecture and urban design. Its aim is to inspire and help people live in ways that are more environmentally friendly.
No stranger to Singapore, he has visited it every two months in the last decade.
An adviser with various government and private organisations, he also guides educational institutions on architectural studies.
Much of the Republic’s architecture, he feels, is ‘styling and superficial - more concerned with branding and marketing’.
However, there are a few projects he approves of: the Building and Construction Authority’s zero-energy building in Braddell Road, which has succeeded in achieving zero power consumption, and Henderson Waves bridge, which Dr Lehmann says, ‘is a great infrastructure project’.
In future, he predicts, cities will be based on urban blocks that are six- to 10-storeys tall, with more integration of green elements.
‘These will be zero-emission buildings that produce more energy than they consume,’ he says.
‘The opportunities for such blocks have not been fully utilised. We need to focus more on retrofitting and upgrading the existing mature housing estates from the 1960s to 1970s.’
Tall order? Maybe not.
