The Bird-Safe Building Guidelines focuses on various ways of designing bird-safe building interiors and exteriors. The guidelines take reference from international standards and targets building managers, architects and developers to encourage them to incorporate biophilic design principles into developments. They are also part of the Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark 2021, which aims to encourage the industry and professional to collaborate and develop green building schemes, raising Singapore’s built environment’s sustainability standards.

 

These guidelines are non-prescriptive best-practice recommendations and are meant to provide information on how our built environment can be more bird-friendly. Key elements highlighted in the guidelines include:

 

• Exterior design elements to enhance the visibility of glass surfaces to birds. These include adding visible structural details – such as columns, balconies and sunshades – to glass surfaces, using treated glass to reduce light transmission, and external features such as decals and stickers.

• Interior design elements – such as blinds, sunshades and hanging artwork –to minimise reflections, decrease the transparency of glass, and enhance its appearance as solid structures to birds. Besides that, the use of technology such as automatically controlled light fixtures can reduce the amount of indoor lighting at night and reduce the likelihood of disorienting night-migrating birds.

• Considerations for Existing Buildings – Suggestions include developing a programme to monitor collisions and identify potential hotspots around their building. A variety of low-cost measures, such as adding non-reflective tinted screens and applying decals on glass surfaces, can then be undertaken at specific areas of the building where collisions are an issue (e.g. glass surfaces facing a private garden).
  
  
  

NParks will continue to review the guidelines to ensure it remains updated and effective.

 

View the Bird-Safe Building Guidelines (PDF, 5.0MB)

View Annex 1 - Bird-themed decals designed by NParks (PDF, 0.72MB)