Greetings from the Singapore Hub!

We are excited to share that the [AGR] Agropolitan Territories of Monsoon Asia module and Cooling Singapore attended the ASEAN Sustainable Urbanisation Forum (ASUF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!

We conducted a new iteration of the ‘Participate with Data’ — a workshop to build capacity for data-driven participatory planning workflows. This time, we tailored the workshop to government leaders and planners from across ASEAN and addressed the need to harness data across scales to present a holistic picture of multifaceted climate risks ASEAN.

Participants were taught a workflow that leverages across platforms to make data more accessible, regardless of GIS expertise, for inclusive and sustainable planning. Cooling Singapore demonstrated the Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT) for advanced climate simulations, followed by AGR illustrating a workflow of utilising ur-scape, FCL’s open-source planning support tool, as a unified platform to harness data across scales, formats and qualities. The DUCT showcased how city-specific datasets can be integrated within physics-based climate models, generating reliable climate data across various spatial scales and under different ‘what-if’ scenarios. With ur-scape, outputs from the DUCT, alongside other open-source datasets, are now made interactive and accessible to our participants. This allowed them to understand the complexity of problems faced by rapidly urbanising cities and facilitated data-informed insights for sustainable pathways — bridging data gaps planners typically face.

Evi Syariffudin, module coordinator of AGR, also delivered a keynote speech titled ‘Digital Transformation and Innovative Cities’. She illustrated the synergies across modules and intra-CREATE initiatives through their projects, providing the audience with a holistic view of FCL’s expertise in shaping sustainable cities and settlement systems.

Upon reflection, this collaboration between AGR and Cooling Singapore has been extremely meaningful for both our modules as it reinforced the need for transparent data sharing towards inclusive planning. Ultimately, planning is a mutli-disciplinary field beyond tools, it requires active participation and building capacity across citymakers, and in extension, to people on the ground who experience and live in these places every day.

Wishing you a great weekend!

On behalf of Joshua Vargas, Evi Syariffudin, and Adelia Ayu Sukma