Keynote Lecture
| Keynote Lecture II | Driving Resilience in Innovation and Engineering Research |
| Date / Time | 31 May 2018, Thursday / 13:30 - 14:00 hrs |
| Speaker | Dr. Johnny Wong , Group Director of Building & Research Institute Housing & Development Board of Singapore |
| Chairs | Quek Ser Tong, Sang-Hyo Kim |
The Housing & Development Board (HDB) is Singapore's public housing provider and master developer of HDB towns. Established in 1960, HDB houses more than 80% of the Singaporean population in 1 million flats in 24 HDB towns nationwide. We provide affordable and quality homes, and comfortable living environment for our residents to live, work, play and learn. As the master developer of HDB towns, HDB's involvement in housing the nation covers town planning, urban and building design and construction, operation and maintenance, and community building. Understanding the important role HDB plays in driving sustainability for the built environment, HDB has drawn up a comprehensive 'Roadmap to Better Living in HDB Towns' framework to help guide its developmental efforts. The framework covers three key thrusts: Well-Designed Towns, Sustainable Towns, and Community-Centric Towns.
Like most other cities, Singapore do face many new challenges for its nation and urban landscape, such as more extreme weather conditions due to climate change; denser towns to accommodate a growing population but still meet the rising aspirations of residents; and ageing population and infrastructure. These challenges set the impetus for HDB to look for new urban solutions to overcome the challenges towards developing more resilient living environments. The solutions include new planning and environment modeling tools to drive greater resilience in towns; introduce robust design concepts to ensure structural safety and functionality for all its buildings; drive construction productivity through design for manufacturing and assembly; adopt sustainability measures to enhance operation and maintenance efficiencies in estates; and co-create solutions with the community to promote resilience in neighbourhoods. In addition, HDB also leverages on ICT and Smart technologies to push the boundaries further.
Through the implementation of cutting-edge applied research, state-of-the-art technology and comprehensive urban analytics, HDB is making its estates more liveable, efficient, sustainable and safe, creating endearing homes for all.
| Biography |
As the Group Director of Building & Research Institute (BRI), a research set-up under the Housing & Development Board (HDB) of Singapore, Johnny Wong is responsible for leading HDB's efforts in spearheading new innovative, cost effective solutions and technologies to create a better living environment and achieve greater sustainability.
Johnny Wong has been involved in many research studies on areas relating to building materials, acoustics, prefabrication technology, urban solutions and systems, construction technology and environmental sustainability. He is also responsible for promoting smart and sustainable development initiatives in HDB buildings and estates. Some of the initiatives which he spearheaded included the development of innovative green roof systems, HDB Smart Town framework, deployment of solar energy systems in public housing and new connection systems for precast application, pre-fabricated pre-finished volumetric construction concept and system, and complex urban systems modelling. Dr Wong is driving the holistic and comprehensive sustainable development framework to guide the development of new towns like Punggol Eco-Town. In driving Singapore's Smart Nation agenda, HDB is championing the Smart Urban Habitat Domain and Dr Wong co-chairs an inter-agency working committee to spearhead the Smart town efforts, which aims to leverage smart technologies to make towns and estates more liveable, efficient, safe and sustainable. Dr Wong is a Board member of the Professional Engineers Board and Singapore Green Building Council. He also represents HDB in the Green Mark Advisory Committee.
With notable contributions to his field of work as a Professional Engineer, Johnny Wong has been conferred several awards including the Henry-Boot Award, Laverick-Webster-Hewitt Award, the Institute of Civil Engineers Award and Public Administration Medal (Silver) for his contributions to the Public Sector. He and his team have been conferred several awards, including the American Environmental Sustainability Honour Award, SEC-Senoko Energy Green Innovation Award, as well as the Energy Globe Award and the Singapore Concrete Institute Excellence Award in 2017.
