Last week, construction of the world’s tallest modular buildings was completed in Singapore.
The Clement Canopy building consists of two 40-story towers with 505 luxury apartments, located in the heart of this city’s residential and Kent Ridge Education Belt districts. Each tower is 459 ft tall, and combined they are made up of 1,899 modules whose weight ranged from 37,000 to 64,000 lbs.
UOL Group, a leading real estate and property management firm in Singapore, is the project’s client as part of a development joint venture with Singland Homes. ADDP Architects was the project's architect.
Clement Canopy is the first structure on the island to use an all-concrete version of the Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction (PPVC) system, where freestanding modules, complete with finishes for walls, floors, and ceilings, are produced offsite and then assembled onsite, according to Concrete Construction magazine.
In April 2016, the Singapore government awarded Dragages Singapore, a subsidiary of France-based general contractor Bouygues Bâtiment International, the contract to design and build Clement Canopy. Aurélie Cleraux, Bouygues Bâtiment’s head of modular construction, tells BD+C that more than 60% of the two towers’ superstructure was built offsite. The modules were cast by a concrete precast manufacturer in Senei, Malaysia, in five days. (The project required a total of 48 module shapes.) The fitouts were completed in the contractor’s factory in Tuas, Singapore, within 15 days. The modules included mechanicals and plumbing, plastering, painting, and bathroom fixtures and tiles.
The contractor used two Liebherr 1000 EC-H 40 Litronic High-Top tower cranes to erect the towers. The Clement Canopy project was delivered in 30 months, six months ahead of its initial timeline. Cleraux says most of this period was spent in designing and planning.
Cleraux explains that there’s a big push by the Singapore government to improve construction productivity. And the benefits of modular and prefabrication processes, he says, are that they can reduce construction time by up to 50%, and reduce onsite labor by 30%. Other benefits include reduction of jobsite noise, pollution and neighborhood disruption; improvements in jobsite safety and the quality of the finished product, as well as the possible reuse of the building’s materials down the road.
In February 2018, Dragages Singapore won a €13 million ($9.6 million) contract to build six more 15-story residential buildings in Singapore whose reinforced concrete structures will be 65% factory built.
“We are going to see a complete disruption in the next few years: our clients expect ever more efficient and faster building solutions,” Nicolas Borit, CEO of Bouygues Bâtiment International, told Global Construction Review last year. “Through the experience we have acquired on a number of projects, we are able to provide modular construction solutions today which fully meet their expectations, from design through to the construction of the final product.”
These six buildings were expected to take 33 months to complete.
Related Stories
| Sep 19, 2013
What we can learn from the world’s greenest buildings
Renowned green building author, Jerry Yudelson, offers five valuable lessons for designers, contractors, and building owners, based on a study of 55 high-performance projects from around the world.
| Sep 19, 2013
6 emerging energy-management glazing technologies
Phase-change materials, electrochromic glass, and building-integrated PVs are among the breakthrough glazing technologies that are taking energy performance to a new level.
| Sep 11, 2013
BUILDINGChicago eShow Daily – Day 3 coverage
Day 3 coverage of the BUILDINGChicago/Greening the Heartland conference and expo, taking place this week at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza.
| Sep 10, 2013
BUILDINGChicago eShow Daily – Day 2 coverage
The BD+C editorial team brings you this real-time coverage of day 2 of the BUILDINGChicago/Greening the Heartland conference and expo taking place this week at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza.
| Sep 4, 2013
Smart building technology: Talking results at the BUILDINGChicago/ Greening the Heartland show
Recent advancements in technology are allowing owners to connect with facilities as never before, leveraging existing automation systems to achieve cost-effective energy improvements. This BUILDINGChicago presentation will feature Procter & Gamble’s smart building management program.
| Sep 3, 2013
Delinquency rate for commercial real estate loans at lowest level in three years
The delinquency rate for US commercial real estate loans in CMBS dropped for the third straight month to 8.38%. This represents a 10-basis-point drop since July's reading and a 175-basis-point improvement from a year ago.
| Aug 26, 2013
What you missed last week: Architecture billings up again; record year for hotel renovations; nation's most expensive real estate markets
BD+C's roundup of the top construction market news for the week of August 18 includes the latest architecture billings index from AIA and a BOMA study on the nation's most and least expensive commercial real estate markets.
| Aug 22, 2013
Energy-efficient glazing technology [AIA Course]
This course discuses the latest technological advances in glazing, which make possible ever more efficient enclosures with ever greater glazed area.
| Aug 14, 2013
Green Building Report [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Building Design+Construction's rankings of the nation's largest green design and construction firms.
| Jul 29, 2013
2013 Giants 300 Report
The editors of Building Design+Construction magazine present the findings of the annual Giants 300 Report, which ranks the leading firms in the AEC industry.