How Government Can Foster Digital Cities: Singapore's Example

How Government Can Foster Digital Cities: Singapore’s Example

Geoff Zeiss, Director of Technology

 

 

e-submission

 

Digital submissions are mandatory in Singapore.  Singapore's e-submission system means that when making a submission for a building permit, DWG, DGN, DXF, DWF, or PDF files are mandatory, paper is not accepted.  The process of moving to electronic submissions began a decade ago and took about four years to complete.  The organization responsible for building permits in Singapore is the Building and Construction Authority (BCA).  When a submission is received, it is reviewed by 16 government agencies, seven of which review the application in detail, and the BCA has the final authority to grant or reject the submission or ask for clarifications or modification.  The objective of mandatory e-submission is  efficiency with the objective of reducing the time and effort required to review submissions.  Singapore’s objective is  to automate the review process and is optimistic that BIM will help make automation practical.

 

BIM submission

 

Currently, e-submission requires 2D drawings with layers defined according to a BCA standard.  At the present time e-submission of building information models (BIM) is partially supported.  Architectural BIM models from Revit and ArchiCAD are accepted, support for e-submission of structural BIMs is in progress, and e-submission of MEP BIMs will be starting later in the year.  

 

More Intelligent Urban Models

 

As architects move to e-submission of BIMs and civil and utility engineers develop model-based designs for transportation, utility, and telecommunications networks, urban planners will increasingly have access to model-based digital data which will enable much more intelligent modeling of urban environments.

 

(Many thanks to Ho Chow Jin of Autodesk Singapore for information about Singapore’s e-submission initiative.)

 

-JPL