Eight architects across five firms have been recognised by Singapore Business Review as the most notable architecture professionals under 40 in Singapore for 2026, published 29 September 2026. Their combined project portfolio spans a $790m hotel — identified as the largest Mercure property in the world — a $450m mixed-use redevelopment, and Singapore’s first fully integrated healthcare campus. Five of the eight honourees are women. The selection covers healthcare, civic infrastructure, retail, hospitality, residential, and heritage conservation.
The Class of 2026: Five Firms, Eight Leaders
The 2026 list draws from DP Architects (three honourees), SAA Architects (two), and one each from RSP Architects Planners & Engineers, CPG Consultants, and Chang Architects. Honourees are presented below in order of age, youngest to oldest, as reported by Singapore Business Review.
Jacqueline Tjen, 30 — DP Architects
Tjen worked on Dairy Farm Residences & Dairy Farm Mall, a $125m integrated development of 460 units that used PPVC modular construction — 1,500 modules — on a sloping site adjacent to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. She also contributed to The Verandah Residences, a $37m, 170-unit low-rise development drawing on the language of neighbouring black-and-white bungalows through deep eaves, louvred screens, and verandahs for natural ventilation. Within DP Architects, she is a core member of the residential typology group, focusing on standardised delivery and digital coordination tools.
Siqi Zhang, 31 — RSP Architects Planners & Engineers
Zhang led project architecture on the i12 Katong Major Addition and Alteration, a $30m-plus revitalisation repositioning the East Coast mall through the COVID-19 pandemic. She also served as Project Architect on West Mall’s $40m-plus redevelopment, coordinating design development and technical delivery of a new communal gathering space, sheltered MRT access, an upgraded public library, and a basement food hall. A Registered Architect holding a Master’s degree from the National University of Singapore (NUS), Zhang has been with RSP since 2019 and has contributed to the Adventure Dining Playhouse at Resorts World Sentosa.
Chung Yen Ling, 30 — CPG Consultants Pte Ltd
Yen Ling served as Design and Project Architect on two nursing home projects under the Lentor Health portfolio. At Lentor Health Nursing Home (West Coast), she reinterpreted the institutional model into a home-like environment within a mature estate, conducting feasibility studies to address resident and community concerns. At Lentor Health Nursing Home (Macpherson), the design applied “Kampong Spirit” values, delivering one-bed-one-window layouts and communal rehabilitation spaces. She also mentors younger architects and leads BIM coordination at CPG’s Integrative Wellness Studio.
Melissa Tsang Hiu Ching, 34 — Chang Architects
Tsang worked on Maple House, a $1.5m–$2m Singapore residence that preserved its original single-storey character using natural materials rather than maximising floor area. On Moongate House, she contributed from concept through completion, developing a modular concrete language for a bespoke precast moongate form that balances everyday family living with the demands of large gatherings. She also collaborated with Studio Grain on the Low-Resolution Pavilion for Singapore Design Week 2025, using upcycled plastic. Alongside her practice under architect Chang Yong Ter, she has co-founded spatial design practice Nous Nous.
Liao Muqiong, 35 — SAA Architects Pte Ltd
Muqiong managed design execution and delivery on The Chevrons, a clubhouse redevelopment maintained in operation throughout construction through phased Temporary Occupation Permit strategies. She oversaw Pei Chun Public School’s redevelopment from design development to completion, delivering a new annex against a hard deadline set by the school’s temporary relocation schedule. As Superintending Officer Representative on the Goh Keng Swee Centre for Education — a 30-storey office tower currently under construction — she manages design coordination, stakeholder engagement, and the integration of architectural interfaces with the adjacent Ministry of Education Headquarters. A Master of Architecture graduate from NUS, she has also led remodelling at Changi General Hospital and delivered the JS4 and JS5 MRT stations.
Tan Wen Jun, 36 — DP Architects
Wen Jun led design development for One Punggol’s Regional Library and its community spaces, a multi-agency civic development. As design lead and project architect, Wen Jun brought the library from concept through to tender, integrating assistive technologies to set a new benchmark for inclusive public library design. At The Greenhouse at Dulwich College, a net-zero facility, Wen Jun led passive design and façade optimisation across concept and development stages. Wen Jun also contributes to DP Architects’ research groups and serves as a guest critic at NUS.
Kelvin Ng Si Hoa, 38 — SAA Architects Pte Ltd
Ng played a central role in the design and delivery of Woodlands Hospital, described by Singapore Business Review as Singapore’s first healthcare campus to fully integrate an acute hospital, community hospital, medical centre, and nursing home within a single development. The project navigated site constraints including expressway noise and rocky terrain, and was shortlisted at the 2024 World Architecture Festival before receiving a Merit Award at the 2025 CREDAWARD. He also contributed to Lentor Health Nursing Home, where landscaped buffers and layered greenery were used to mitigate airbase noise, and is working on the ongoing Tengah General and Community Hospital, whose terracotta-toned design and greenery draw on Tengah’s plantation and brickworks heritage. Ng joined SAA Architects in 2018 and mentors candidates through the firm’s Professional Practice Examination Candidate Development Programme.
Loh Zhu Ping, 38 — DP Architects
Zhu Ping handled design resolution, project management, and cost control on the Funan Redevelopment, a $450m vertically integrated development combining retail, offices, serviced apartments, and a rooftop urban farm. He also worked on Mercure ICON Singapore City Centre, a $790m hotel identified by Singapore Business Review as the Mercure brand’s largest property worldwide and Singapore’s first full-concrete PPVC hotel. At The Cathay Addition and Alteration, a $70m heritage repositioning, he managed design resolution and stakeholder coordination through a conservation review. Zhu Ping holds a Master of Architecture from NUS and serves as a guest reviewer there.
The Firms: Architecture Practices Shaping Singapore’s Built Environment
The five firms represented in this year’s list each operate at significant scale in Singapore. DP Architects, which contributes three honourees, disclosed in September 2026 that it has been measuring its carbon footprint since 2023. According to a September 2026 report in The Business Times, DP Architects’ total greenhouse gas emissions for 2024 were approximately 3,141 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, up from 2,430 tonnes in 2023, with the increase attributed to an expanded reporting boundary covering its 16 offices worldwide. The firm has set targets of a 50 per cent cut in operational carbon by 2030, net-zero operations by 2045, and net-zero whole-life carbon across all projects by 2050. It applies a proprietary Attributes of Purposeful Design (APD) framework across projects to guide sustainability performance; 67 per cent of its completed Singapore projects in 2024 and 2025 achieved Green Mark Platinum or LEAF Platinum or better, as reported by The Business Times.
SAA Architects contributes two honourees whose work spans healthcare campuses of national significance. RSP Architects Planners & Engineers, CPG Consultants, and Chang Architects each contribute one honouree, with project types ranging from mall redevelopments and nursing homes to residential conservation and experimental design pavilions.
Contributions Across Healthcare, Civic Space, and the Built Heritage
The portfolio assembled by the 2026 class is notable for its breadth of typology. Several projects carry a healthcare focus that reflects Singapore’s broader infrastructure priorities: Woodlands Hospital, two Lentor Health nursing homes, Tengah General and Community Hospital, and remodelling at Changi General Hospital all appear in the list. The combined value of these eight professionals’ projects is not individually tallied in the source, but the three largest disclosed figures — the $790m Mercure ICON hotel, the $450m Funan Redevelopment, and the $125m Dairy Farm development — alone account for more than $1.3bn in project value.
Civic and educational infrastructure is equally prominent. One Punggol’s Regional Library, the Goh Keng Swee Centre for Education, Pei Chun Public School, and The Greenhouse at Dulwich College appear alongside mass transit work — the JS4 and JS5 MRT stations — and heritage projects including The Cathay and The Verandah Residences. Several honourees also hold teaching or mentorship roles at NUS or within their firms, contributing to the next generation of registered architects.
The group’s approach to sustainability ranges from passive design and net-zero facilities to PPVC construction techniques that reduce on-site waste and assembly time. The Mercure ICON hotel’s status as Singapore’s first full-concrete PPVC hotel, as reported by Singapore Business Review, points to construction methodology becoming as important a professional marker as design outcome.
What This Generation Signals for Singapore’s Architecture Sector
Taken together, the 2026 cohort reflects several directions that the Singapore built environment appears to be moving in simultaneously: the integration of healthcare typologies into single campuses, the use of digital tools such as BIM and sustainability AI for project coordination and disclosure, the application of PPVC construction at scale, and the renovation and repositioning of heritage properties rather than wholesale redevelopment.
The gender composition of the group — five women among eight honourees — is also a data point worth noting in an industry that has historically skewed male at senior levels, though Singapore Business Review does not draw broader sector conclusions from this figure and neither does this article.
Several projects on this list remain active: the Goh Keng Swee Centre for Education is under construction, Tengah General and Community Hospital is ongoing, and the career trajectories of several honourees — some in their early thirties — are far from settled. The 2026 class is worth tracking not only for what they have built, but for the scale and complexity of what is still in progress.
Illustrative photo: Looking Up Architecture (Unsplash).jpg by Dhruv Deshmukh dhruvywuvy / Wikimedia Commons. CC0. Resized for display.
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