IN WHAT WAY CAN THE GREEN BUILDING CONTRIBUTE TO HUMAN WELLNESS IN THE SINGAPORE CONTEXT?

Abstract

The Green Building Movement (GBM) came into prominence only a few decades ago mainly because of two emerging challenges: man’s increasing awareness of his impact on the surrounding environment and his undeniable dependence on mother nature. The green building has since taken on both challenges: striving to achieve an environmental impact that is as low as possible, and attempting to integrate the physical building back to nature. However, the basic underlying objective of architecture, or green buildings, is to provide spaces for the people. A fundamental question thus surfaces: In what way can the green building contribute to human wellness in its local context? This dissertation seeks to understand the contribution of a green building towards its inhabitants’ overall wellness in the Singapore context. Studies on the wellness situation and the green building definition in general Asia then Singapore are first carried out. Findings show that Singapore has positive physical health and wealth as compared to other Asian developing countries, but generally lack in non-physical terms such as happiness. It is also shown that the local green building rating tool, the Green Mark Scheme, have not addressed the non-physical aspects of wellness to an adequate level. Three main contributory aspects of the green building towards human wellness are then proposed: Physical (building), natural and social environments. The study is eventually streamlined to only natural and social environments in its contributions towards non-physical aspects of wellness in the Singapore context. Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH), a recent well-achieved green building recognised by the local Green Mark Scheme is selected as a context-specific case study outside of its medical nature. The first part of the case study is a mapping exercise of the physical (building), natural and social environments in KTPH, with an objective of locating the ‘ideal’ environment in KTPH. The second part of the case study involves a survey on 30 temporary inhabitants that includes a short questionnaire, a group sorting exercise of 12 photos showing varying environments in KTPH and a preference choice component. Datas are then illustrated in the form of construct sets, graphs and a Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) plot for analyses. Survey findings show that KTPH has positively exceeded the Green Mark Scheme’s requirements in its natural and social environments, and that both aspects of the environment are very important, with the natural environment being prioritised slightly higher than the social environment. It also suggests that natural environments are much easier to interpret and be acknowledged, as compared to social environments, which encompass multiple elements at the same time- the people, their activities, the environment- which will result in more variations in the reading of social environments. This is followed by a comparative study to determine how much of the temporary inhabitants’ responses are reflected on an official wellness indicator by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the contributions of Green Mark’s green building towards the temporary inhabitants’ responses.