DESIGN FOR MAINTAINABILITY (DFM) OF URBAN ROOFTOP FARMING IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Implementation of urban rooftop farming systems has potential to expand in Singapore due to rising interest in greening and growing food locally as well as to tackle food scarcity and rising food cost issues that are widespread around the world. Although rooftop farming has been implemented in several private buildings such as offices, malls and HDB carparks and is considered as a form of skyrise greenery in Singapore, it is relatively new in the commercial direction and few farms are operational long enough to verify its success. More research is required about its maintainability at the design stage in order to successfully gain from operating and maintaining urban rooftop farms for as long as the building is there. For that reason, the purpose of this paper is to identify issues in operating and maintaining urban rooftop farms in Singapore and from there, come up with design for maintainability guidelines for future reference. Findings in this paper reveal that environmental and technical challenges are common in the operations of urban rooftop farms locally, and maintainability was not a main concern or known concept by the industry stakeholders. Throughout the case studies, key problems faced during operations of the rooftop greenery applications and in particular the rooftop farm, were factors such as algae growth, pests’ infestation, crop wipe out, accessibility, safety and fight for rooftop spaces respectively. It reveals that some of the problems are a result of poor design considerations and thus, introducing end users or facility management teams in the planning and design stage could help to counter challenges faced in the maintainability aspects. To minimize instances of facility owners incurring additional costs to renovate roof areas, repair or replace equipment before the end of their service life, proper research and design in earlier stages could lead to savings in cost, minimization of risk and maximization of performance for the farm. Identified challenges faced in current urban rooftop farms and related green roof systems can be used as inputs to create a case study-based Design for Maintainability (DfM) guidelines for industry stakeholders to consider when designing the urban agricultural rooftop systems locally in the future. This DfM guidelines could ensure long term sustainability and maintainability of rooftop farms in cities such as Singapore.