S'pore urban planners building reputations abroad

S'pore urban planners building reputations abroad SINGAPORE: He started as an urban planner with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) in 1991. He enthuses: "There are many developing countries looking to have properly planned cities or towns. His is one of a number of Singaporean companies making their mark building cities abroad. He said: "Companies and governments who have come here see for themselves how the city is planned. Images and photographic panels of overseas projects by six local urban planning companies, including SCP Consultants, DP Architects and Jurong Consultants, are on display. Now, their achievements are increasingly being celebrated in an exhibition at the URA Centre in Maxwell Road until June 1. She added that this made for a powerful selling tool that helped clients make informed decisions. It turns out that modern Singapore, with its 46 years of building a gleaming, efficient and eminently liveable city-state, with industrial and business parks and carefully planned suburban neighbourhoods, has been an ideal environment for urban planners to take that know-how and vision to the world. Leow, who set up SCP Consultants as a one-man company in 2004, now has 40 employees in its Singapore office and 230 in China, and has notched up 307 urban-planning projects. Some urban planners, such as Leow, started out in their own backyard in Singapore working for government agencies such as the URA and Housing Board, planning suburban neighbourhoods. "For most of the planning work that we do overseas, Singapore offers wonderful built examples for study. And with five billion people expected to live in cities by 2030, the need for urban planners particularly those with the coveted Singapore "branding" can only increase. With the business of designing cities hitting new heights, Leow, for one, was hoping to expand his company. S'pore urban planners building reputations abroad Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 25/04/2012