ICA_Feb 07.pdf - Roof & Facade

Surbana Corporation: From Mass
Housing to Iconic Buildings
Summit Residences, China (PRC)
Al Salam City – UAE
Faced with the prospect of looming
competition on its home turf of
Singapore and armed with a 40-year
track record in public housing building
and design, the folks at Surbana had to
quickly learn the ropes of securing
business in a competitive environment.
The task was made even more daunting
when the Singapore government
imposed a ‘non-compete condition’ on
Surbana in exchange for guaranteed
projects from HDB over a period of four
years. It was no consolation that
between 2002 and 2006, HDB ‘new
build’ numbers were stagnating, as the
supply of houses outstripped demand
in the then shrinking economy. Unfazed
by the challenges ahead and leveraging
on its Singapore experience, Surbana set
out exporting its planning and design
expertise to the world.
IN 2003, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of
Singapore, Mr Lee Hsien Loong announced in his national
Budget Speech that the government will, as part of measures
to facilitate entrepreneurship, progressively stop providing
services that the private sector can supply. A few months
later, on 1 July 2003, the public housing authority, Housing
and Development Board (HDB), announced that its Building
and Development Division was to be re-organised and HDB
Corporation Pte Ltd (HDBCorp) would be created.
Of the 3,000 personnel affected, 900 chose early
retirement, while 1,300 urban planners, architects, engineers,
project managers, quantity surveyors and site supervisors
joined HDBCorp. The birth of HDBCorp signaled the
beginning of Surbana Corporation (Surbana). The next three
years following the re-organisation was an exciting one:
HDBCorp was acquired by Temasek Holdings, the
government’s investment vehicle and re-branded to Surbana
Corporation. Surbana went on to build a township in
Chengdu, China and to provide its full suite of planning,
building design and construction management services to
places as far flung as the Middle East and South Africa.
Exporting Surbana’s Expertise
Today, Surbana boasts a track record of having clinched
projects in more than 45 cities across 14 countries. Some of
the services that Surbana has exported include master
planning for regional governments, architectural and
engineering design, project management and supervision.
With regional offices in Shanghai, Chengdu, Hyderabad,
Kolkata, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City and Abu Dhabi,
Surbana has made its mark and staked its future on the
growing economies of Asia and the Middle East.
The year 2006 marked an important milestone in
Surbana’s history, as the first keys to the completed
apartments of the middle-income Chengdu Botanica
Township were handed to buyers, thus replicating its success
story in Singapore housing and township development.
Riding on the wave of Botanica’s Phase One sell-out success,
Surbana moved quickly to acquire land in the cities of Wuxi
and Xian to build about 40,000 homes over the next decade.
In January 2007, Surbana held a ground-breaking ceremony
for its prestigious Royal Complex mixed-use development
project in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Costing US$214 million to
develop, the development by the water-front prime district
is scheduled for completion by January 2010. In addition,
Surbana’s award winning Grand Corniche Hotel, designed
to reflect Abu Dhabi’s maritime heritage, is also targeted for
completion in December 2009. To be built at an approximate
cost of AED 370 million (US $100 million), this sleek 35-storey
structure will house a luxury hotel, serviced apartments and
a retail podium.
Surbana is gaining wide-recognition for its diverse
regional portfolio, and has won many local and international
awards. The company’s architectural designs have won a
number of international competitions including an Excellence
Award for the ecological master planning of Taihu
(Tongzhou). Surbana was also bestowed the highest honour
in the architectural arena by earning three awards for the
public sector category of the internationally recognised Fiabci
Prix d’Excellence in 2006. In Singapore, Surbana was
recognised and awarded the 2006 BCI Asia Top-10 leading
Architectural firms in Singapore and also won two HDB
Design Excellence Awards in 2006.
Refocusing on Home Market
Surbana’s ability to deliver a full suite of services and its
reputation for quality delivery is not lost on its clients. Most
of the expertise in designing and building the more than
900,000 homes that house about 85% of Singapore’s
population resides with Surbana today. No other
organisation can boast of that track record, and only a few
have the in-house expertise to provide a one-stop, integrated
● From page 1
already has. Town planners have intensified land use
by locating various facilities together instead of placing
them separately. For example, storm-water collection
ponds are located under road flyovers, and train stations
and bus stations are built over each other. Singapore,
thanks to its perennial quest for efficient town planning,
has perfected a system (which can help builders and
town planners in developing countries such as India,
Vietnam, the Middle East and China) to find answers to
pressing questions like creating adequate public
housing, a clean environment, an efficient public
transport system, and effective country-wide sanitation
and waste-disposal systems.
For example, Singapore acts as a catalyst for India’s
foreign trade because Singapore is a strategic business
hub for an estimated 6,000 Indian companies. Singapore
is also India’s largest trading partner among the ASEAN
member countries. The Indo-Singapore bilateral trade
touched 16.6 billion Singapore dollars in December 2005.
This trade volume is expected to increase substantially
approach to development from site planning, land surveying,
architectural and engineering design to contract and project
management and supervision. Being a Temasek-linked
company has also helped to open doors to overseas projects
as foreign governments recognise the well-respected
Singaporean system that offers efficiency, integrity and
effectiveness.
Surbana’s management recognises the challenges ahead,
so it is sparing no effort in changing perceptions and
promoting Surbana’s capabilities beyond just public housing
projects. Indeed, Surbana has shown itself capable of more
diverse designs such as iconic projects in the Middle East,
retail malls in India and luxury homes in Shanghai. Besides
providing the full gamut of building consultancy services,
Surbana has also carved itself a niche in water-front
development projects. For example, Surbana’s reclamation
and infrastructure team was responsible for reclaiming most
of Singapore’s eastern and northern shores, including the
now highly sought after Marina Bay Financial Centre.
Surbana also had a hand in building the Marina South Pier,
which replaced the downtown Clifford Pier passenger ferry
terminal, and the company also completed reclamation and
infrastructure works for the Southern Islands, which is touted
as Singapore’s newest playground for the jet-setting rich.
Surbana’s consultancy arm, Surbana International
Consultants, is hoping to emulate the same degree of success
in its home market of Singapore as it has overseas. As of
July 2007, Surbana will be free to compete for Singapore
projects. The timing could not be better as the construction
industry has shown strong growth, even though it is still a
far cry from the pre-Asian financial crisis of S$24.4 billion in
1997. With the award of two integrated resorts, a new sports
hub, ramped–up public housing programmes and more
government land sales expected, there should be enough
projects to keep many companies busy. While Surbana may
have an edge in gaining market share in public sector projects,
being thoroughly familiar with the government procurement
process, landing jobs in the highly competitive private sector
will not be as easy. ❏
with the signing of the Comprehensive Economic
Cooperation Agreement (CECA). While the marketing
efforts of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) have
ensured that Singapore is a must-see for many Indians
(and PRC Chinese) planning holidays abroad, it is a
propitious time for Indian companies to tap the exciting
infrastructure possibilities that the vibrant city-state has
to offer.
Singapore companies are keen to offer their expertise
in areas such as master planning of townships,
architectural designs and construction. Singapore
brands are also looking for partners to distribute or
market their products abroad, especially in India,
Vietnam, the Middle East and China (PRC). In the areas
such as intelligent building systems, security
surveillance systems or traffic control systems,
Singapore has world-class companies, which could
provide transfer of technology and infrastructuredevelopment
knowledge abroad. ❏
This article was submitted by IE Singapore.
2 ICA Volume 1 Issue 1 2007