7^th SIP Planning Awards Ceremony & Winning Entries 2021 

The Singapore Institute of Planners (SIP) was delighted to host its 7^th SIP Planning Awards Ceremony at the URA Centre on 16^th Sept 2021 evening. The changes wrought by the Covid-19 epidemic not only created many new norms in our lives but also this year’s SIP Planning Award ceremony. Unlike past years where the ceremony was held over a gala dinner in a hotel, this year's ceremony was conducted with restrictions on physical attendance due to Covid-19 Safe Management Measures. The Planning Awards this year was streamed live with an in-person attendance of about 30 guests, reaching out to a further 700 guests in Singapore and around the world.

Gracing the event virtually was Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Second Minister for Finance and National Development, Ms Indranee Rajah. Ms Indranee expressed her keen interest in the progress of SIP's collaboration with the Singapore Institute of Architects and the Urban Redevelopment Authority on the future plans for the Paya Lebar Airbase area and looked forward to stronger partnerships between planners from the public and private sectors in future.

Mr Wilfred Loo, SIP President, delivered the opening address, thanking Minister Indranee, all distinguished local and overseas guests, partnering professional institutions and associations for attending the first hybrid award ceremony (held both physically and virtually). He also expressed his appreciation to all the local and overseas judges for their invaluable views in the process of judging the project submissions.

SIP President, Mr Wilfred Loo, delivering the opening speech.

Overseas and local judges

The preparation for this 7^th edition started as early as 3Q 2020. SIP ,introduced substantial changes to the award categories to honor both projects and people, locally and internationally, as well as responding to the prevailing planning environment. Hence, there was a total of 11 categories in this 7^th edition. The current Covid-19 pandemic situation had thrust SIP to explore innovative ways of receiving, sorting and judging the submissions. The entire submission and judging process was carried out through electronic means. SIP would like to thank our 16 esteemed local and overseas judges for their hard work and expertise in evaluating the record number of submissions this year.

Panel of judges for Awards Categories 1 to 9

Panel of judges for Award Categories 10 & 11

Submissions for the awards had a wide reach, with projects hailing from Singapore, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, and Turkey, to name a few. All the entries went through the first round of judging by the panel of judges via an online e-judging platform. The finalists were then shortlisted for a second round of deliberation by the judges held over zoom calls.

Stage 1 Online judging portal

The Winning Entries

The bi-annual Planning Awards Ceremony this year honoured 28 exceptional urban planning projects out of a total of 93 submissions of projects from Singapore, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and New Zealand in ten project categories. Apart from recognising outstanding projects, SIP also introduced a new category called the Young Planner of the Year this year to recognise planners below 40 who have contributed to the advancement of the planning profession in Singapore.

For the project categories, SIP awarded 10 Gold Awards, 4 Silver Awards, 4 Bronze Awards, and 8 Special Mentions across the ten categories. The winning entries were selected by a panel of distinguished judges based on planning approach and methodology, originality and innovation, core value demonstrations, implementability of the project, as well as clarity of communication by the submissions. The award categories and winners are summarised in the table below.

The Award Recipients

The joy of the award recipients were not dampened despite that the fact that this year’s ceremony was held in a scaled down hybrid manner. Nevertheless, we certainly look forward to a pandemic-free world where we could celebrate the 8^th SIP Planning Awards physically with partners and friends from around the globe in 2023.

Note : The photos of the event and winners receiving their awards is available for sale. If you are interested to purchase the photos, please email info@planning.org.sg