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World’s first high-rise rotatable lab for tropics opens

SINGAPORE — To better test new energy-saving technologies amid real-world conditions, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) launched the world’s first rotatable high-rise laboratory in the tropics on Wednesday (July 20).

The S$4.5m Skylab which rests atop BCA Academy's rooftop is the world’s first rotating high-rise laboratory. Photo: Robin Choo

The S$4.5m Skylab which rests atop BCA Academy's rooftop is the world’s first rotating high-rise laboratory. Photo: Robin Choo

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SINGAPORE — To better test new energy-saving technologies amid real-world conditions, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) launched the world’s first rotatable high-rise laboratory in the tropics on Wednesday (July 20).

The S$4.5 million SkyLab, which rests on the rooftop of BCA Academy at Braddell, houses a suite of technologies — more than 200 sensors capturing temperature, heat, humidity and wind speed; data acquisition and building management systems; and a platform capable of spinning 360 degrees in half an hour. 

“Right now, what the industry does is to use simulation programmes. But there’s no way of verifying (the results). Simulation assumes a lot of behaviours. This rotatable lab can validate whether it’s true or not,” said Mr Lam Siew Wah, managing director of the BCA’s Built Environment Research and Innovation Institute (Berii). 

BCA chief executive John Keung added: “With the SkyLab, you can do many variations until you find the most optimal solution ... It’s critical for anyone who wants to invest in certain new facades, new systems; that you test it out first in the real world before you make that commitment financially.”

The SkyLab was launched on Wednesday (July 20) by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. There are two rooms: A reference cell and a test cell. Each has a floor space of 40sqm, and can be fully reconfigured to meet the requirements of each experiment. The lab was built in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California, where a similar lab catering to temperate climates exists.

Since operations started in March this year, the BCA has tied up with researchers from Nanyang Technological University to study the use of LED lights with a digitally addressable lighting interface (Dali) system and automated blinds. 

Compared with conventional lights and blinds, the researchers found they could achieve energy savings of 15 to 20 per cent, without falling short on “visual and thermal comfort”, said Berii’s senior manager Valliappan Selvam. 

The BCA has received 17 proposals from researchers keen to use SkyLab, and it is fully booked till 2018. Projects lined up include energy-efficient building facades for thermal comfort and air-conditioning systems. The goal is to have six to eight projects per year, said the BCA.

The trial technologies will have to tie in with energy efficiency, thermal comfort and visual comfort, and be close to market deployment, specified the BCA. 

Speaking at the opening, Mr Lee said the SkyLab would play an important role in Singapore’s sustainability drive. But aside from state-of-the-art hardware, the nation needs to upgrade its “software” to build safely, efficiently and with high quality. He said: “We have some ways to go in regard to productivity. Our construction methods are still labour-intensive and time-consuming. It is not sustainable to keep relying on low-skilled manpower.”

Singapore also still has far too many workplace fatalities, he said. While non-fatal major workplace injuries in the sector fell from 202 in 2014 to 157 in 2015, the number of fatalities has remain unchanged at 27 each year. To improve productivity and safety, Singapore has to focus on upgrading people’s skills and competencies, Mr Lee said.

The SkyLab tops the S$62 million Academic Tower, the latest extension of the BCA Academy. The 10-storey tower, which serves as a teaching facility, brings lessons to life by tapping technologies such as sun pipes and light-emitting plasma (LEP) lighting. Used in Singapore for the first time, the LEP lights are comparable to floodlights in intensity, and last five times longer.

These technologies, among others in the tower, collectively cut energy usage by nearly one million kilowatt hours per year, 35 per cent less than the energy usage of a similar building, and saves the equivalent of one and a half Olympic-sized pools’ worth of water yearly. 

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