Design My Place

Group 3

School: Nanyang Junior College

Members: Darren Ang Soon Peng, Ennabelle Huang Chu Yiun, Ngor Shing Yi,

Nur Ezzati Binte Zukri, Tan Fang Fang Sarah

Proposal: Compost Point

Our project, titled ‘Compost Point’, aims to create a world-class research and education facility for clean technology on Lorong Halus, a closed landfill. It would emphasize waste management and reduction. As Singapore aspires to be a zero-waste society by 2020, this facility could spearhead this initiative and allow Singapore to gain international recognition as a true Green City.

This year, the UN is hosting a conference on Sustainable Development. The agenda of this conference is to tackle the problem of global pollution. Pollution is a growing concern pertaining to both environmentalists and economists. For example, increased pollution levels have caused minute changes to the pH of the oceans. The sensitive coral reefs, backbone of marine life, are being bleached by this change, and this may result in the collapse of the sixteen trillion dollars ocean-based economy.

In line with this vision, this facility would focus on both research on the aforementioned field and educating the public on waste reduction and management. There would be a research area, as well as an education complex for clean technology. This layout allows the research facility and the education complex to complement each other. For example, students and the researchers could share facilities for their research. As such, students could have first-hand experience in clean technology.

Dome-shaped infrastructure would be built on the two hills, and serve as the research laboratories for the researchers. A possible field of research would be to optimize the amount of energy generated by the methane produced by landfills.

This facility would also assimilate into the Hougang estate. Recreation activities such as canoeing could be organized along the canal. There would also be workshops catering to households on methods to reduce and manage waste that the residents can participate in. Hence, the facility has the potential to be both an industrial estate, and an entertainment cum education park. The recreation also helps to bind and integrate everyone socially.

All in all, our project helps to integrate the public and researchers in a common location, and could raise environmental awareness and hopefully, influence Singaporeans to adopt a “green” lifestyle. At the same time, it would also improve Singapore’s economy by introducing another industrial park in the area of research and development.