Commercial Planning Norm for HDB towns

The City Form Lab worked on a two-year collaboration with the Singapore Housing and Development Board (HDB) as a consultant for preparing a new planning norm for the provision of commercial facilities in Singapore's public housing towns. The study created a model for:

1. Determining the quantum of commercial space,
2. Determining the mix of commercial functions,
3. Determining the location of commercial facilities and
4. Determining the preferred typologies of commercial buildings in Singapore's future HDB towns. 

As part of the study, we made extensive use of City Form Lab's Urban Network Analysis software tools. Our software tools and analytic workflows  were used to examine the impacts of alternative spatial distribution scenarios of commercial space (between town, neighborhood and precinct centers) and for developing a comprehensive assessment tool for determining the sustainable quantum of retail and service needs given variable housing, employment and visitor densities in different HDB towns. The new norm was successfully adopted in 2016.