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Singapore, 26 August 2021 – The Singapore Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai puts Green architecture at the forefront, to help visitors appreciate the benefits and possibilities of integrating nature within urban environments. Layered with a showcase of greenery, digital solutions and art, the Pavilion exemplifies Singapore’s vision of becoming a ‘City in Nature’, and ethos of sustainable development via innovative and impactful urban solutions.
Workers installing a selection of plants to accentuate the curved wall; image by Singapore Pavilion, Expo 2020 Dubai
The extensive, multi-layered greenery is achieved by a carefully calibrated planting strategy with more than 170 plant varieties. Caring for these plants is no easy feat, especially those on the curved green walls of the Pavilion’s iconic cones. To address this challenge, three prototype climbing robots traverse the green walls around the Flower Cone to inspect the health of the plants, as well as to collect environmental data to monitor the performance of the Pavilion’s systems.
These dome-shaped robots are the result of a collaboration with Singapore-based robotics start-up Oceania Robotics, and they are among the first robots in the world deployed for the purpose of landscape maintenance on curved vertical green walls. These prototypes present a novel solution particularly relevant in Singapore, where vertical and skyrise greenery is an increasingly common sight in our built environment, a result of the nation’s urban greening policies that encourage building owners to inject more greenery into the buildings. It also provides a starting point for similar technologies to be developed in the future as such greening initiatives become more commonplace around the world.
Three prototype climbing robots scaling the green walls of the Flower Cone at the Singapore Pavilion, Expo 2020 Dubai; image by Singapore Pavilion, Expo 2020 Dubai
Each robot is equipped with cameras and sensors, and is trained through machine learning to evaluate the health status of individual plants. As they move along green walls, the robots can recognise plants in poor health that need to be replaced, as well as capture data for the calibration of irrigation and grow light settings to help the plants thrive.
This creative application of technology also extends to the existing innovations used by the National Parks Board (NParks) in Singapore, such as tree inspection microdrones and ultraviolet cameras.
– Construction+ Online
Source: Urban Redevelopment Authority
