Ho Kay Tat, publisher and CEO of The Edge Media Group (left) and Bernard Tong, CEO of EdgeProp Singapore

The inaugural EdgeProp Singapore Excellence Awards 2017 honour projects and developers that prevailed despite the tough market conditions over the last three years. The awards were presented at a gala dinner at the Pan Pacific Singapore on Oct 23. Although this is the first year of the awards, the support from the property industry has been encouraging, with more than 50 submissions from 24 property developers.

The idea behind the awards is simple — we want to establish a credible benchmark to recognise Singapore’s top developers and projects by using a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics (see methodology).

We would like to thank our panel of external judges for their contribution: Tan Tiong Cheng, president of Knight Frank Asia Pacific; Lai Huen Poh, managing director of RSP Architects Planners & Engineers; Christopher Flannery, director of Swan & Maclaren; Yu Shi Ming, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Real Estate; and Hwang Yun Hye, assistant professor for the Master’s programme of landscape architecture at NUS.

The judging process was extensive and time-consuming, but it was the only way to ensure that all submissions were given due consideration. Over the span of three months, the judges held multiple rounds of meetings to discuss and debate the merits of each project and the scores they would be awarded. The panel also visited multiple sites and spoke to the developers, project managers, architects, consultants as well as landscape designers.

Finally, we engaged KPMG Singapore to ensure that the entire process was transparent and the scores were verified and documented. Our intention was to celebrate excellence and recognise developers that have created residential projects that not only stand out in the skyline but are what residents are proud to call home.

This article appeared in EdgeProp Pullout, Issue 803 (Oct 30, 2017).