Northwave takes home inaugural Layout Excellence Award for outstanding spatial design

/ EdgeProp Singapore |

November 25, 2021 10:30 PM SGT

Northwave is a 358-unit development located along Woodlands View in District 25

SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - The executive condominium (EC) Northwave was one of five projects that won the inaugural Layout Excellence Award at the EdgeProp Excellence Awards 2021. The project received top marks for the quality of liveable space provided in each unit.

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The 358-unit EC is located along Woodlands View in District 25. Its central location between Admiralty, Woodlands and Sembawang means that it is close to several neighbourhood hubs. The project is also located between Sembawang and Admiralty MRT Stations, both of which are on the North-South Line.

Northwave consists of six 16-storey residential blocks and the unit mix includes two- to five-bedroom units of 678 sq ft and 1,464 sq ft. There are also six penthouse units that range from 1,593 sq ft and 1,722 sq ft.

Northwave is one of five projects that was recognised for its unit design, based on a quantitative evaluation by PropTech firm Attribuild.

A wide range of condominium facilities are evenly distributed around the 133,347 sq ft site. Facilities include a wading pool, a Jacuzzi, a hydro-spa pool, a 50m swimming pool, entertainment pavilions, a skate park, a basketball and futsal court, a gym as well as a badminton court.

Liveable space

The new judging category for the inaugural award critically evaluates the unit layout of a project to help consumers decide on the overall suitability of a property from a lifestyle use perspective — on top of typical metrics like price and location.

Homegrown PropTech start-up Attribuild was engaged to provide the floor layout evaluation to assist in the judging process. Attribuild utilised its proprietary algorithm to provide unit plan analysis and score all the submissions

Based on Attribuild’s algorithmic evaluation, about 60% of all the unit types available at Northwave received full marks based on the quality of liveable space. This reflects the efficiency of the unit planning compared to other similarly sized unit submissions. For example, according to the metric, units that have less wasted space like corridors will score higher.

More than half of the unit types at Northwave received close to perfect marks for the spatial planning of the master bedroom.

More than half of the unit types at Northwave also scored close to perfect marks in the individual assessment of the master bedrooms and kitchen area. Master bedrooms for the units at Northwave tend to be more spacious designed compared to other submissions, while the kitchen areas had better spatial design such as more counter space that emphasise functionality.

About 65% of unit types at Northwave also received high marks in the spatial provision of circulation areas. This pertains to open areas such as stairs and corridors. The Attribuild algorithm takes the view that these types of circulation areas are not desirable, for example units with bigger corridors will score lower.

Individual unit types that scored particularly high were the four- and five-bedroom penthouse units, as well as the 678 sq ft, two-bedroom units. The report noted that the penthouse units tend to have big and well-proportioned dining rooms and small circulation areas that make the overall layout more efficient compared to other units in the project.

The kitchen also scored well due to the efficient use of countertop space and functional design.

These units also have fewer miscellaneous areas such as bay windows, air-conditioning ledges and strata void spaces, making it more spatially efficient. The two-bedroom units featured similar spatial design points, but also had a high proportion of useable areas and smaller external areas such as balconies and roof terraces.

In addition to Attribuild’s typical assessment, an adjustment factor was used to normalise the scores of each unit by adjusting the impact of the difference in the size of each unit. For example, calculations were made to the median size of all three-bedroom units in the submissions. An adjustment factor is then applied if a particular three-bedroom unit deviated from this median. This allows Attribuild to reasonably compare the design between a variety of unit types and configurations from mass market condominium units to high-end luxury units.

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