DPA group Hosts Industry Sharing for Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary) Career Compass Expedition

Committed to nurturing the next generation of Built Environment (BE) professionals, DP Sustainable Design (DPSD) joined DP Architects (DPA) in hosting students from Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary) for an industry visit as part of the school’s Career Compass Expedition to inspire and introduce students to different career aspirations and pathways. Attended by our director Yong Siew Onn, ESD analyst Chelsea Ho, DPA senior associate director and RGSS alumna Ang Guo Zi and DP Green’s director LAr. Yvonne Tan, the session shared the firm’s multidisciplinary approach to architectural and urban design and introduced the practice’s Green-Well-Tech (GWT) thrust. The latter – realised through the Attributes of Purposeful Design (APD) tool and framework, aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and SG Green Plan – is a strategic response undertaken by the firm to generate more holistic and comprehensive design solutions for sustainability and wellbeing.

Using case studies of institutional projects such as Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary) and The Greenhouse at Dulwich College (Singapore), the team delved into the integration of sustainable design strategies in spaces familiar to the students. While the goal for a greener and more conducive learning environment forms the baseline for both projects, each achieved it through differing sets of architectural and sustainable design strategies that were meticulously and collaboratively derived through site studies, performance-data and multidisciplinary design discourse. The team, through the project case studies, also shed insights into the intrinsic link between planetary and human wellbeing; demonstrating through the outcomes achieved how the optimisation for sustainability often entails the incorporation of wellbeing and/or landscape design strategies and vice versa.

Beyond knowledge-sharing, the session also featured discussions and interactive engagements that provided students with insights into the careers within the BE industry and the role of sustainable design in shaping future cities.