# BCA Study Finds Buildings Saved Up To $950K A Year With Design For Maintainability — What It Means For Homeowners

- **Source:** Stacked Homes
- **Published:** 2026-07-22T13:39:57.000Z
- **Author:** Hailey Khoo
- **Original:** https://stackedhomes.com/bca-study-finds-buildings-saved-up-to-950k-a-year-with-design-for-maintainability-what-it-means-for-homeowners/
- **Topics:** Private Residential, Investment & Capital Markets

## Featured rationale

The findings may strengthen the case for maintainability features, potentially reducing residents’ long-term maintenance costs while helping developers market better-managed, lower-running-cost homes.

## AI summary

A BCA study estimated design-for-maintainability measures could save commercial buildings $310,000 to $950,000 annually and Copen Grand up to $110,000 annually.

## Original article

Buildings that are easy to maintain rarely make headlines, but a study commissioned by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), released on July 22, puts concrete numbers on the idea.

Working with third-party consultants, BCA examined two existing commercial buildings (Surbana Jurong’s SJ Campus and CapitaLand’s Ascent), a new commercial development (Shaw Tower), and a new Executive Condominium (EC) (Copen Grand).

Across the three commercial buildings, annual operational savings were estimated to range from $310,000 to $950,000 after designing for maintenance upfront, while Copen Grand saved roughly $110,000. Most of the added construction costs for these features were recouped within three to six years.

BCA also announced separate changes to the projects that must adopt CORENET X, its digital platform for coordinating building-plan submissions across agencies, effective from October 2026.

Ageing buildings and a shrinking workforce are driving the push

The study concerns Design for Maintainability, or DfM: building in how a structure will be cleaned, repaired and serviced at the design stage, rather than working it out after construction is done. BCA has been pushing the concept because Singapore’s building stock is growing and ageing; at the same time, the facilities management workforce is shrinking. These two pressures cannot be solved by simply hiring more maintenance workers.

DfM has been part of BCA’s Green Mark 2021 certification scheme since 2021, through a dedicated Maintainability (Mt) section that assesses how easy a building’s design makes it to service. Projects that meet the section’s prerequisites and score at least 10 of its 15 available points earn a Green Mark Mt Badge.

But BCA said industry feedback pointed to a gap; there was no quantitative evidence of how much DfM saved, and private residential developers in particular had little reason to invest in it, since they sell their units at completion. The savings would go to the Management Corporation and future homeowners, not to them.

To close that gap, BCA turned to Surbana Jurong Consultants, part of the Surbana Jurong Group (SJ Group), awarding the study in December 2024 with work starting the following month. The brief was to put a dollar figure on the business case using life-cycle costing, an approach that weighs a project’s construction cost against its running and maintenance costs over a set period, in this case 30 years.

“At SJ Group, we believe this whole-of-lifecycle approach is essential to unlocking asset performance, reducing lifecycle costs, and delivering resilient, sustainable and future-ready development,” says Praveen Hassan Chandrashekar, Regional Director (Asia) of the Sustainability & Resilience Office at SJ Group.

Completed in May 2026, the study mapped Green Mark Mt Section features onto the four buildings and modelled the savings against a baseline design without them.

Modest upfront costs in exchange for substantial savings

For the three commercial buildings, the added construction cost of incorporating DfM measures worked out to between 0.6% and 1.5% of total construction cost. In return, the study found potential annual operational savings ranging from $310,000 to $950,000, with most measures paying back their added cost within six years. Copen Grand’s incremental construction cost was lower, at 0.2% of total construction cost, and its potential annual operational savings were smaller too, up to $110,000 a year, but its payback period was shorter: within five years for most measures.

Metric | Commercial (Shaw Tower, SJ Campus, Ascent) | Residential (Copen Grand)

Added construction cost | 0.6% to 1.5% of total construction cost | 0.2% of total construction cost

Potential annual operational savings | $310,000 to $950,000 | Up to $110,000

Typical payback period | Under 6 years | Under 5 years

Maintenance labour cut | Many measures cut man-days by more than 60% | Many measures cut man-days by more than 65%

The residential case study shows a smaller dollar figure than the commercial buildings largely because a single EC carries less mechanical and electrical plant than an office tower does, but its percentage reduction in maintenance man-days was the highest of the four buildings studied.

BCA said the largest productivity gains across all four came from architectural decisions made at the design stage, such as the choice of floor materials, ceiling types and how the façade is accessed for cleaning, rather than from mechanical or electrical upgrades on their own.

One cat ladder at Shaw Tower saves $750,000

BCA’s example of how this plays out comes from Shaw Tower, a newly redeveloped office building of about 560,000 sq ft owned by Shaw Towers Realty, with Lendlease as project and development manager, Aedas as architect and Beca as the M&E consultant.

Servicing the fan and basin at the top of a cooling tower usually means bringing in scaffolding every time, since there is no permanent way up. Shaw Tower’s design team built in an enclosed cat ladder instead, giving workers safe, direct access. BCA said this one change is projected to generate more than $750,000 in life-cycle savings, with a payback period of just three years. Cooling towers typically last 15 years, so the tower’s owner recovers the cost of the ladder well within the equipment’s working life, with 12 years of savings still ahead of it.

“The new Shaw Tower has been redeveloped with our beliefs in incorporating maintainability features from the outset, to support operational efficiency, sustainability and resilience that will withstand the test of time,” says Alfred Yeung, General Manager of Shaw Towers Realty.

The inclined track at the rooftop of Shaw Tower that its Building Maintenance Unit system operates on. Source: Shaw Towers Realty Pte Ltd

Other features built into the tower include a rail for accessing its vertical green wall, a Building Maintenance Unit system with an integrated glass-replacement arm for façade work at height, and a motorised lifting beam for moving heavy mechanical equipment between the rooftop plant room and ground level without temporary cranes.

DfM at Copen Grand starts with landscaping and drainage

For residents of private properties, Copen Grand is the more relatable case. The 639-unit EC in Tengah, developed by City Developments (CDL) and Sunway MCL, obtained its Temporary Occupation Permit in April 2025 and is Singapore’s first EC to attain BCA’s Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy standard.

Its DfM features include water points every 15m radius along the landscaping so gardeners do not need to run hoses across long stretches, gravel maintenance paths that reach planter beds without disturbing what is planted, rain-cover overhangs at lift lobbies to cut water ingress, and a davit arm system at roof level that lets 100% of each residential block’s facade be cleaned and inspected with gondolas without scaffolding.

The in-house gondola system which covers facade work across all sides of the blocks at Copen Grand. Source: CDL

Developers don’t benefit from the savings, so BCA made it compulsory

None of this changes what a unit at Copen Grand cost to buy, since the study measures running costs after the building was completed. What it does change is who gains from those lower running costs, and that is the crux of the incentive problem BCA’s study was set up to address.

Copen Grand’s developers do not benefit from any of the operational savings the study found, because the units are already sold; the Management Corporation, and by extension the residents who pay maintenance fees, gets that instead. BCA acknowledged this directly in the study, noting that private residential developers see no direct return on investment from DfM, and that its real value to them is as a marketability tool: a Green Mark Mt Badge signals a lower-running-cost, better-maintained asset to a homeowner at the point of sale, even though the developer never captures the savings itself.

For public buildings and GLS-awarded sites, the badge was never optional to begin with. Since 2021, the Mt Badge has been compulsory for new and retrofitted public buildings under the GreenGov.SG initiative, on top of the Green Mark Platinum Super Low Energy standard.

It has also been a sustainability condition attached to the Built Environment Transformation Gross Floor Area (GFA) Bonus Incentive Scheme since November 2021, and to Government Land Sales (GLS) sites since June 2022, meaning private developers building on GLS land awarded from that date have effectively had to design for it regardless of whether they wanted to.

BCA has said more than 60 projects have adopted the Mt Badge to date, with about a quarter of those doing so voluntarily, beyond what the GLS and GFA-bonus conditions required. The new study is aimed at growing that voluntary share by giving developers and building owners an actual dollar figure to weigh against the modest upfront cost, rather than asking them to take the savings on faith.

Fewer projects will need to use CORENET X

Separately, BCA used the same announcement to scale back how it is rolling out CORENET X, the digital gateway that coordinates building-plan submissions across agencies. From October 1, all new projects with a gross floor area of 5,000 sqm (about 53,800 sq ft) or more will be required to submit via CORENET X. Projects below that threshold will no longer be mandated to use the platform and can continue submitting through the older CORENET 2.0 system.

BCA said a review found CORENET X’s benefits, mainly earlier coordination between agencies that cuts down on downstream delays, were more pronounced on larger, more complex projects involving more regulatory submissions. For smaller projects, often run by smaller firms with fewer staff, the costs of mandatory adoption were likely to outweigh the benefit, prompting the narrower threshold.

The next test: whether developers act without a mandate

“For too long, maintenance has been treated as someone else’s problem – to be addressed only after the building is handed over,” says Ang Kian Seng, Group Director of Environmental Sustainability at BCA. “This study shows that designing for maintainability is not a cost burden, but a sound investment. By making maintainability a priority from day one, we can reduce long-term costs, improve productivity and create a more resilient built environment that serves future generations well.”

BCA said it will work with SJ Group and industry trade associations on a series of engagement sessions with architects, engineers, developers and facilities managers to share the study’s findings and gather feedback on wider adoption. Those sessions, more than the study itself, are where BCA’s actual bet gets tested.

A stronger dollar case only draws private residential developers into building beyond what GLS conditions or Green Mark tiers already require if it improves their economics, and right now, the savings the study just quantified go to homeowners and their Management Corporations, not to the developers footing the bill.

## Chinese translation

> Translation model: grok_cli

### 建屋局研究：可维护性设计每年可为建筑节省高达95万新元——对业主意味着什么

建屋局委托的一项研究发现，为维护而设计每年可节省高达95万新元；仅萧氏大厦的猫梯一项，预计在其全生命周期内可节省逾75万新元。

易于维护的建筑很少登上头条，但建设局（BCA）委托、于7月22日发布的一项研究，为这一理念给出了具体数字。

BCA与第三方顾问合作，审视了两座既有商业建筑（盛裕集团的SJ Campus与凯德的Ascent）、一座新建商业项目（萧氏大厦Shaw Tower），以及一座新建行政共管公寓（EC）（Copen Grand）。

三座商业建筑在前期纳入可维护性设计后，预估每年运营节省介于31万至95万新元；Copen Grand则约节省11万新元。这些功能的大部分额外建设成本可在三至六年内收回。

BCA还另行宣布了对必须采用CORENET X项目的调整——该平台用于跨机构协调建筑图则呈交，自2026年10月起生效。

老龄化建筑与萎缩的劳动力推动这一方向

该研究聚焦“可维护性设计”（Design for Maintainability，简称DfM）：在设计阶段就把结构如何清洁、维修与保养纳入考虑，而非等竣工后再想办法。BCA一直在推动这一概念，因为新加坡的建筑存量在增长且日益老化；与此同时，设施管理劳动力却在萎缩。这两大压力无法仅靠多雇维修工人来解决。

自2021年起，DfM已纳入BCA的Green Mark 2021认证体系，通过专门的可维护性（Maintainability，Mt）章节评估建筑在设计上是否便于维护。满足该章节先决条件并在其15分中至少获得10分的项目，可获颁Green Mark Mt徽章。

但BCA表示，业界反馈指出存在缺口：缺乏DfM能节省多少的量化证据；尤其私人住宅发展商投资意愿不强，因为他们在竣工时即售出单位，节省会流向管委会与未来业主，而非发展商。

为填补这一缺口，BCA委托盛裕咨询（Surbana Jurong Consultants，属盛裕集团SJ Group），于2024年12月授标，次月启动研究。任务是用生命周期成本法为商业理据给出金额数字——该方法在设定期间（本案为30年）内权衡项目建设成本与其运营、维护成本。

盛裕集团可持续发展与韧性办公室亚洲区域总监Praveen Hassan Chandrashekar表示：“在SJ集团，我们相信全生命周期方法对于释放资产表现、降低生命周期成本，以及交付有韧性、可持续且面向未来的发展至关重要。”

研究于2026年5月完成，将Green Mark Mt章节的各项功能映射到四座建筑上，并对照没有这些功能的基准设计建模节省额。

适度前期成本换取可观节省

对三座商业建筑而言，纳入DfM措施的额外建设成本约占建设总成本的0.6%至1.5%。作为回报，研究发现潜在年度运营节省介于31万至95万新元，多数措施可在六年内收回额外成本。Copen Grand的增量建设成本更低，为建设总成本的0.2%，潜在年度运营节省也较小，最高约11万新元，但回收期更短：多数措施在五年内即可收回。

指标 | 商业（萧氏大厦、SJ Campus、Ascent） | 住宅（Copen Grand）

额外建设成本 | 建设总成本的0.6%至1.5% | 建设总成本的0.2%

潜在年度运营节省 | 31万至95万新元 | 最高11万新元

典型回收期 | 6年以内 | 5年以内

维修人工削减 | 多项措施将人日削减逾60% | 多项措施将人日削减逾65%

住宅案例的美元数字小于商业建筑，很大程度上是因为单座EC的机电设备量少于办公楼，但其维修人日的百分比降幅在四座研究建筑中最高。

BCA表示，四座建筑中最大的生产力提升来自设计阶段的建筑决策，例如地面材料、天花类型的选择，以及外立面如何接近以进行清洁，而非单独依赖机电升级。

萧氏大厦一架猫梯节省75万新元

BCA以萧氏大厦为例说明成效。这是一座约56万平方英尺的新建改造办公楼，由Shaw Towers Realty持有，Lendlease担任项目与开发管理，Aedas任建筑师，Beca任机电顾问。

检修冷却塔顶部的风机与水盘通常每次都要搭脚手架，因为没有固定上达通道。萧氏大厦设计团队改为内置封闭式猫梯，让工人可安全、直接进出。BCA表示，仅此一项改动预计可在生命周期内节省逾75万新元，回收期仅三年。冷却塔通常寿命约15年，因此业主可在设备使用寿命内远早收回猫梯成本，其后还有约12年的节省空间。

Shaw Towers Realty总经理Alfred Yeung表示：“新萧氏大厦从一开始就按照我们的理念纳入可维护性功能，以支持运营效率、可持续性与韧性，经得起时间考验。”

萧氏大厦屋顶上建筑维护单元（BMU）系统运行所在的倾斜轨道。来源：Shaw Towers Realty Pte Ltd

大厦内置的其他功能还包括：通往垂直绿化墙的轨道、配备集成换玻臂的建筑维护单元系统以进行高空外立面作业，以及机动吊梁，可在屋顶机房与地面之间运送重型机电设备而无需临时起重机。

Copen Grand的DfM从景观与排水开始

对私人产业居民而言，Copen Grand更有共鸣。这座位于登加（Tengah）、共639个单位的EC，由城市发展（CDL）与Sunway MCL开发，于2025年4月取得临时入伙准证（TOP），是新加坡首个达到BCA Green Mark白金超级低能耗标准的EC。

其DfM功能包括：景观区每隔15米半径设置取水点，园丁无需长距离拖软管；砾石维修小径可抵达种植床而不扰动已栽植物；电梯大堂雨棚外挑以减少进水；以及屋顶吊臂（davit arm）系统，使各住宅楼外立面100%可用吊篮清洁与检查，无需脚手架。

Copen Grand内部吊篮系统覆盖各座楼栋四面外立面作业。来源：CDL

发展商无法从节省中受益，因此BCA将其变为强制

这一切并不改变Copen Grand单位的购入成本，因为研究衡量的是竣工后的运营成本。它改变的是谁从更低的运营成本中受益——而这正是BCA研究要解决的激励核心问题。

Copen Grand的发展商无法从研究中发现的任何运营节省中受益，因为单位已售出；管委会，以及支付维修费的居民，才是受益方。BCA在研究中直接承认这一点，指出私人住宅发展商从DfM看不到直接投资回报，对其真正价值在于作为可销售工具：Green Mark Mt徽章在销售节点向业主传递更低运行成本、维护更好的资产信号，尽管发展商本身从未捕获这些节省。

对公共建筑与政府售地（GLS）项目而言，徽章从一开始就不是可选项。自2021年起，在GreenGov.SG倡议下，新建与改造公共建筑除须达到Green Mark白金超级低能耗标准外，Mt徽章亦为强制要求。

自2021年11月起，它也是建筑环境转型总楼面面积（GFA）奖励激励计划的可持续条件；自2022年6月起适用于政府售地（GLS）地块，意味着自该日起获批GLS土地上的私人发展商，无论是否愿意，实际上都必须按此设计。

BCA表示，迄今已有逾60个项目采用Mt徽章，其中约四分之一为自愿采用，超出GLS与GFA奖励条件所要求。新研究旨在通过给发展商与业主实际金额数字，对照适度的前期成本权衡，而不是要求他们凭信念相信节省，从而扩大自愿采用比例。

需要使用CORENET X的项目将减少

与此同时，BCA借同一公告收缩CORENET X的推广范围——该数字门户跨机构协调建筑图则呈交。自10月1日起，所有总楼面面积达5,000平方米（约53,800平方英尺）或以上的新项目须通过CORENET X呈交。低于该门槛的项目不再强制使用该平台，可继续通过较旧的CORENET 2.0系统呈交。

BCA表示，检讨发现CORENET X的益处——主要是机构间更早协调、减少下游延误——在涉及更多监管呈交的较大、较复杂项目上更为明显。对较小项目（往往由人手较少的较小公司运营）而言，强制采用的成本可能超过益处，因此收窄门槛。

下一步考验：发展商是否在没有强制的情况下行动

BCA环境可持续性组总监Ang Kian Seng表示：“长期以来，维护被视为别人的问题——要等建筑移交后才处理。这项研究表明，为可维护性而设计并非成本负担，而是明智投资。从第一天起就把可维护性列为优先，我们可以降低长期成本、提高生产力，并创造更能服务子孙后代的韧性建成环境。”

BCA表示，将与SJ集团及业界商会合作，举办一系列面向建筑师、工程师、发展商与设施经理的交流会，分享研究发现并收集更广泛采用的反馈。这些交流会，比研究本身更能检验BCA真正的赌注。

更强的金额理据，只有在改善其经济账的前提下，才能吸引私人住宅发展商在GLS条件或Green Mark等级已要求之外再进一步建设；而目前，研究刚刚量化的节省流向业主及其管委会，而非承担费用的发展商。