Four projects in Singapore have won the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) Architectural Heritage Awards (AHA) 2016, due to their exceptional work in heritage building conservation and restoration. These include:

Award for Restoration and Innovation:
• 13, 15, 17 Stamford Road, Capitol Singapore

Award for Restoration:
• 225A Queen Street, Roman Catholic Church of Saints Peter & Paul
• 3 Muscat Street, Sultan Mosque
• 72 Club Street, Goh Loo Club

Special Mention:
• 30 Beach Road, South Beach

The Awards were inaugurated in 1995 to recognise the people who make conservation happen – owners, developers, contractors and other professionals. They exemplify the highest standards within the conservation movement and have gone beyond what is necessary to sensitively restore their heritage buildings for continued use, said URA. To recognise the important role that conservation specialists play in these restoration projects, from this year onwards, they have also been included as part of the awardees.

Now in its 22nd year, the annual Awards also promote public awareness and appreciation of quality restoration of monuments and buildings with preservation and conservation status in Singapore. With these four winners, there are now a total of 128 projects that have received the Awards.

There are two categories for the URA Architectural Heritage Awards:

The Award for Restoration is for projects that demonstrate exemplary restoration of gazetted heritage buildings, and they stand out for adherence to the three ‘R’ principles of maximum retention, sensitive restoration and careful repair, as well as the ‘top-down approach.

The Award for Restoration and Innovation is for integrated ‘old’ and ‘new’ developments, which demonstrate exemplary restoration of gazetted heritage buildings, innovation and architectural excellence of the new developments and how the ‘new’ draw inspiration from and enhance the ‘old’.

In addition, from this year, the ‘Special Mention’ has been formalised. At the discretion of the Assessment Committee, a project may be given ‘Special Mention’ for commendable efforts in some aspects of the restoration work.

The four winning projects will be showcased at The URA Centre (45 Maxwell Road), from 7 October to 30 November 2016. There will also be a series of talks and visits to selected award winners. Please visit http://ura.sg/AHAsg for details on these and other public events related to this year’s AHA.