It prioritises safety while promoting dignity, empowerment and autonomy. Small-scale “home-like” environments are integrated into the project, encouraging meaningful participation and providing opportunities for personal space and privacy. Wards are laid out and oriented in such a way that reduces levels of unwanted stimulation while enhancing levels of helpful simulation. Through the façade treatment, residents within the facility can also retain their relationship with the outside world. Every ward also has large operable windows to bring in light and air, and provide residents with a view to the green and residential neighbourhood that surrounds them. A Community Plaza, accessible to the public, is designed into the home, where exhibitions and talks to educate neighbours will be held – helping reduce the stigma surrounding long-term nursing care facilities and encouraging the public to support residents and those within the community with dementia.
“The use of 1st Class BIM technologies in this project helped further streamline work processes and model quality, thus increasing the mobility and accuracy of coordination on site and improving project delivery in terms of productivity objectives at different stages of a project,” says AR Ng San Son, director at DPA and the design architect of Ang Mo Kio 23 Nursing Home.
“The success we’ve had through the IDD process is really a joint effort and shared spirit of collaboration with our client, MOH Holdings; our consultants, KTP Consultants, Meinhardt (Singapore), CPG Consultants and DP Consultants; as well as our contractor, Vigcon Construction.”
DPA formally adopted BIM technologies in its design processes with the construction of the Singapore Sports Hub in mid-2011. The initial goal of capitalising on the visualisation and coordination benefits for this complex project quickly evolved to include development of both design and shop drawings as coordinated documentation accommodated changes more easily. “The award is a significant one for the firm,” adds AR Ng. “As one of the early adopters of digital technologies in the industry, it is a testament of excellence in not only our adoption of IDD but also our continued commitment to deeper cross-discipline collaboration for greater effectiveness and efficiency in our design and project delivery.”
The inaugural edition of the awards was organised to recognise teams that have demonstrated excellence in their adoption of IDD and digital technologies to aid in processes such as design, fabrication and assembly on-site, as well as the operations and maintenance of buildings.
Aligned to efforts to transform the industry, IDD is one of Singapore’s key thrusts in the Construction Industry Transformation Map (ITM), and is a partnership between government, unions, institutes of higher learning, and industry players to create a highly-skilled workforce competent in the latest technologies pertaining to architecture, engineering, construction and operations technologies.
DP Architects extends its congratulations to all other winners in the BCA IDD Awards.
