SINGAPORE – A historical townhouse in Neil Road is set to become the first conserved building in Singapore to be energy self-sufficient in end-2027, after repair and upgrading works on it are completed.
Its occupant, the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Architectural Conservation Laboratory (ArClab), aims for it to be the first historical building to be retrofitted to achieve net-zero operational energy.
This would show the way for other buildings of a similar vintage to achieve similar energy efficiencies, said Dr Nikhil Joshi, principal investigator at the research and training centre within the university’s architecture department.
The 140-year-old townhouse at 141 Neil Road is among more than 7,200 buildings in Singapore that have been conserved thus far.
Of these, about 6,500 are shophouses, which have similar characteristics to the townhouse in Neil Road, which was built in the 1880s.
As at February, the Building and Construction Authority has certified 13 buildings in Singapore as “net zero” under its Green Mark scheme, which means the buildings consume as much electricity as they produce. The scheme assesses buildings’ performance, including their energy efficiency, among other factors.
None of the 13 buildings is conserved.
ArClab was officially opened in November 2022. Since then, researchers have learnt about the building’s conditions, such as airflow, temperature, humidity and solar radiation, and studied how to repair the building in a manner that retains as much of its original character as possible.
