Lim Chu Kang Agri-Food Hub

To secure Singapore’s food future and build a resilient Singapore, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is working to transform Lim Chu Kang (LCK) into Singapore’s flagship agri-food production hub of the future.

Ramboll and Henning Larsen, together with lead consultant MKPL Architects Pte Ltd, are working with SFA on the LCK master plan, envisioning its transformative blueprint to safeguard Singapore’s food future. The project is of national significance as it will contribute to Singapore’s ‘30 by 30’ vision, which aims to build the agri-food industry’s capability and capacity to sustainably produce 30 percent of Singapore’s nutritional needs by 2030.

The team is focused on transforming the LCK site into a pioneering, highly productive and resource efficient agri-food cluster, optimised to maximise productivity within the tight land constraint; the initial masterplan is approximately 390 hectares. The concept includes holistic ecosystems to enable sustainable, productive agri-food production, a framework for circular resourcing and opportunities for businesses and agri-food workers.

Henning Larsen leads the master planning, urban design and landscape design, while Ramboll provides services across its coastal resilience, water supply and wastewater treatment, solar, ecology services, transport strategy and impact assessment, civil and structural disciplines.

The first of its kind, this ground-breaking approach is tailored to suit Singapore’s climate and the coastal topography of the site. The plan proposes an innovative stacked farm concept that caters to different levels of food production and unique production conditions e.g., indoor mushroom and beansprout farming in the basement where sunlight is not required, an enclosed environment with regulated indoor climate and temperature for leafy vegetables, greenhouses for fruit and vegetables that thrive in natural daylight, and indoor farms for fish and crustaceans with water and air treatment.

Circular thinking guides the district-wide design, aimed at boosting energy efficiency and operational resilience, for example, turning agricultural waste into assets using anaerobic digesters.

Coastal protection measures are significant drivers of the design. The building and green spaces are carefully integrated to create multi-functional spaces which maximises food production areas whilst addressing rising sea levels concerns and ecological sensitivity of the site.

Preserving the characteristics of the site is an important consideration, Lim Chu Kang is surrounded by rich biodiversity areas, such as the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and Kranji Marshes. The landscape will respond to the ecosystems in the area and provide, sensitive, low impact recreational opportunities for the public.

The gradated-farm approach informs the zoning strategy. The core area, where farming is more intensive and biosecurity measures are stringent, is located farthest from the nature reserve. Next to the reserve is the transition zone, characterised by lower development density. This zone also serves as a buffer between the core zone and biodiversity rich areas.