Giant solar-powered air conditioners, vacuum garbage collection, subterranean roads for electric vehicles, urban farms and green architecture. Put them all together and you have Tengah, Singapore’s most ambitious project yet to build the city of the future.
Tengah, which means ‘center’ in the local Malay language, is part of Singapore’s effort to reduce a carbon footprint that’s bigger than some countries that are 50 times its size and to promote sustainability in energy, water and waste. The Southeast Asian nation, which is smaller than New York City, has set a target of capping its emissions by around 2030 and then halving them by 2050.
Key to reaching that goal will be to tackle the city’s debilitating tropical heat and humidity, while cutting the nation’s ever-rising energy bill for air-conditioning.