'Communities in the sky' wins best news website award for ST

ST bags 4 golds, silver at Wan-Ifra event; SPH Media is top winner with 8 awards

- Gracia Yap

In July 2023, The Straits Times' housing correspondent Michelle Ng had an idea to showcase how the design of Housing Board blocks has evolved over the years.

"I found the exterior of HDB flats very interesting, and wanted to do something engaging and visualsdriven," said Ms Ng, who worked with a cross-desk team that experimented with using 3D modelling to explain the architectural structure of HDB blocks in Singapore.

To understand the block structures and how these have changed, the team interviewed various experts, including architects such as Dr Liu Thai Ker, Singapore's master planner from 1969 to 1989.

They built 3D models of three main types of blocks - slab blocks, point blocks and The Pinnacle@Duxton as an example of taller, high-density blocks.

On April 24, ST's visual story "How Singapore builds communities in the sky" won overall gold for best news website at the 16th edition of the Digital Media Awards Asia.

In all, ST won four golds and one silver at the awards, organised by the World Association of News Publishers (Wan-Ifra) to recognise publishers that have adopted digital media and mobile strategies in response to how people consume news and information.

SPH Media, which publishes ST, was the top winner with eight awards. These were presented at a ceremony on April 24 at the Sofitel Kuala Lumpur Damansara.

The team behind the HDB visual story had planned to include audio recordings of the interviews. These recordings were later made into two podcast episodes, which allowed the team to include information that did not make it into the interactive.