by Brianna Crandall — September 21, 2015—The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) of the pace-setting city-state Singapore announced the latest updates to its Green Mark sustainable building certification and details of the world’s first high-rise rotatable laboratory for the tropics at the opening ceremony of the recent Singapore Green Building Week (SGBW) 2015.
Green Mark 2015
Marking the 10th anniversary of the BCA Green Mark program, used in several Asian countries, BCA introduced a new version, called “Green Mark 2015,” to further push the boundaries on environmental sustainability. Developed through a collaborative framework for new nonresidential buildings, Green Mark 2015 will incorporate key changes, with an expanded focus to address sustainability in a more balanced and holistic manner.
Green Mark 2015 comprises four main sections:
- Climatic Response
- Building Energy Performance
- Resource Stewardship
- Smart & Healthy Building
A bonus section on advanced green building efforts is included, to spur efforts beyond requirements.
Key benefits for building occupants and users include a stronger emphasis on indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in relation to enhanced health and well-being, and buildings that are equipped with smart controls and analytics to assist in the management and optimization of building resources.
The revamped program will enable projects to analyze energy effectiveness in both the optimization of energy efficiency as well as energy consumption. Greater recognition for renewable energy will be considered; this is expected to accelerate solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption by further encouraging the use of renewable energy through solar feasibility studies and solar-ready roof design.
The program was launched as a pilot and will be fine-tuned before full implementation.
BCA SkyLab
The BCA SkyLab will be the world’s first high-rise rotatable laboratory for the tropics, with state-of-the-art facilities for testing and development of innovative energy-efficient building technologies. BCA says the SkyLab is another step closer to its “ambitious goal of achieving ‘low-energy high-rise’ buildings and ‘zero-energy low-rise’ buildings in the tropics.”
Built on the rooftop of a new building at the BCA Academy, the BCA SkyLab is constructed on a rotatable platform to enable tests to be carried out at any orientation to the sun and wind. The BCA SkyLab is part of BCA’s plans to further accelerate the pace of research, development and application of energy-efficient building technologies.
Developed in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California, the BCA SkyLab complements BCA’s existing Zero Energy Building (ZEB) to develop green building research and development efforts in Singapore. BCA SkyLab is expected to be completed with a pipeline of technologies to start test-bedding by the first half of next year.
