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  Channel NewsAsia 24 Mar 05
Singapore set to be leader in vertical greening in Asia Pacific
By Hasnita A Majid

SINGAPORE: Singapore's rooftops are set to go green as part of the latest efforts to transform Singapore into a City in the Garden. Residents of Block 119 Edgefield Plains in Punggol look out to a green roof instead of a concrete one.

A pilot project started in the area 2 years ago, to test the effectiveness of a green roof, and results have shown that not only can the green roof help to cool the temperature of the surface and air in the surroundings, but it can also reduce the glare from the sun on neighbouring buildings and improve the air quality to some extent.

More of such green roofs will be built on existing multi-story carparks over the next few years, starting with Sengkang and Punggol.

"We are focusing on the rooftop greenery because basically we want to create a self sustaining green community. In other words, we want to have vertical greening, but want to do it at the lowest possible costs in terms of setting up the greenery, maintaining works so while rooftop gardens may make sense in certain circumstances, in order to have a garden on the rooftop but in most situations whether in rooftop carparks or housing estates, what we really need is a rooftop greenery." said Second Minister for National Development Lim Swee Say.

It costs about $750,000 to build a rooftop garden on a multi -storey carpark, but it costs half of that for a green roof as only low maintenance plants will be used. While existing carparks can support a green roof, they are not able to support rooftop gardens. A rooftop garden which needs more intensive work, must also be incorporated in the the design of a building right from the planning stage.

This latest move will complement work already done to transform the city into a huge garden, which includes linking up parks through park connectors and intensifying greenery along roads. "In Singapore we have many roads linking the buildings so we say why not make use of these roads and step up the greenery so that the roads can be part of our park connectors so our intentions is to basically, through the park connectors as well as the streetside greenery to link up all the greenery in Singapore so that the gardens can be seamless and integrated into one big garden of Singapore," added Mr Lim.

As a city that's made up of mostly highrise buildings, experts have said that vertical extension of ground level greenery will certainly help to soften Singapore's urbanised harsh surroundings. "We believe that Singapore can be the first leading country in the Asia Pacific that does not only have horizontal greening but vertical greening as well," said Mr Lim.

Green roofs are widely established in European countries where it's installed for environmental and ecological reasons, as well as improve the urban landscape. - CNA
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