NUS Campus to testbed solutions towards Singapore as a smart sustainable city model

THE FACULTY of Engineering in collaboration with the School of Design and Environment (SDE) will establish standards and best practices for design and development in an initiative involving the NUS Kent Ridge Campus as a living lab for solutions towards Singapore as a model for smart sustainable cities.

Elaborating on this initiative, NUS President Prof Tan Chorh Chuan said: "Cities will require a range of solutions to become 'smarter', more ecologically sound and resource efficient. These solutions should be applicable at different scales in the built environment from products to buildings and whole cities. NUS has strengths in many relevant research fields. By using our campus as a test-bed, we can study how the work form different research disciplines can be brought together to produce integrated solutions and platforms that can help reshape our urban environments and raise the quality of life in Singapore and other Asian cities."

Joint efforts between the Faculty and SDE are underway to develop solutions that would couple innovative planning, creative design and the extensive use of technologies to embed intelligence so that buildings and other physical infrastructure and lifeline systems become a seamless entity that is self-learning and able to respond intelligently to its environment.

One example of research is led by Assoc Prof Gary Ong, Deputy Head (Infrastructure and Resources), Department of Civil Engineering, which looks into designing physical urban infrastructure that is versatile and flexible so that it can be converted easily to meet future needs. The concept will address changing demands on the physical urban infrastructure due to alternative land use, changing trends in the population as well as climatic changes.

One focus is to develop Designed for Disassembly Building (DfD) Systems which involves the design and management of resources throughout the lifecycle of a building from the extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, construction, operation to demolition.

Said Assoc Prof Ong: "DfD Systems can be test-bedded within NUS. We can design and refigure future campus infrastructure to suit future needs of NUS without having to demolish and rebuild. The study takes sustainability to a higher level without having to commit additional resources needed in the recycling of construction materials sourced from the demolition of existing buildings."

Assoc Prof Ong added that they are also exploring new ways of recycling construction materials from buildings being demolished. "We are trying out a novel technique which makes use of microwave to treat concrete aggregates to increase yield and quality. This technique is more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient compared to conventional systems currently available," he said.

Other research related to the initiative concerns waste management as well as transportation. A core group of researchers at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering led by Assoc Prof Tong Yen Wah, has been studying the
re-utilisation of city waste by converting waste materials to energy and chemical products using both biological and chemical methods. The team is looking into building small scale reactors in the campus. These reactors will be scalable and when developed can be applied to small townships.

In the area of transportation, Assoc Prof Lee Der-Horng, Department of Civil Engineering, is leading a team to develop a smart transportation system for Singapore, taking into consideration optimal land use, changing travel behaviour as well as minimal disruption to the environment. The Kent Ridge Campus with its diverse range of commuters will be an excellent testbed for some of the solutions derived.

The NUS Campus with its diverse population of students and staff, multi-functional built infrastructure and its location in a natural setting, offers an excellent environment to test bed innovative infrastructure solutions.