About Me

Hello! Thank you for visiting my page. I am a PhD candidate (Urban Analytics and 3D City Modelling) at the National University of Singapore, supervised by Prof. Filip Biljecki. I build open source tools, dashboards, and mobile and web applications to support urban planners. My work adopts a systems approach, combining open data and computational methods to inform the planning of sustainable and liveable cities. If you are interested to collaborate, please drop me an email with the form below and I will get back to you as soon as possible!

Events

MIT Visiting Researcher (Boston, USA)

Senseable City Lab (On-site, 15 August 2024 to 15 February 2025)
Visiting Student Researcher

Working on visual A.I. algorithms for cityscale urban sensing.

Young Leaders Programme

World Cities Summit
Young Leader

The World Cities Summit Young Leaders programme provides a professional networking and thought leadership platform on global urban issues.

NUS Overseas College (Nagoya, Japan)

Map IV, Nagoya University (On-site, 15 January to 30 June 2024)
Machine Learning Engineer Intern

Developing open source, deep learning-based solutions for end-to-end generation of high-definition maps from city-scale point cloud and 360° imagery.

Science-Based Approach to Future Scenario Planning

USS R&D Congress 2023, Singapore Ministry for National Development (9:00 - 11:00 AM SGT, 5 October 2023)
Speaker

Examining the role of science-based methods to plan for the future of cities.

Modelling Urban Networks in Cities

127th OGC Member Meeting - Digital Twin Special Session: (13:30 - 18:00 PM SGT, 26 September 2023)
Session Organizer

We present a network-based analytical perspective to understand and model cities.

Free and Open Source Digital Planning Tools

PlanTech Briefing, Planning Institute of Australia (13:00 - 14:00 PM AEST, 20 July 2023)
Speaker

A crash course on freely available tools that can add value to the urban planning process.

Street view imagery: Have we answered all the questions with it? What’s left to do?

The 4th Spatial Data Science Symposium (8:45 - 9:45 AM EDT, 6 September 2023)
Session Organizer

We present and discuss the latest advancements in street view imagery research with Prof Yuhao Kang (USC), Prof Mohamed R. Ibrahim (UCL), and Prof Pengyuan Liu (NUIST).

Recent Work

The City Rebooted: Networks, Connectivity and Place Identities in Singapore

Published by World Scientific
Edited by Chan Heng Chee and Harvey Neo

This book adopts a multidisciplinary approach to signpost future pathways of cities, drawing on the experiences of the city-state of Singapore.

Housing and the City

Published by Council on Urban Initiatives
Chan, H.C., & Yap, W (2024).

Five decades of delivering affordable and adequate public housing in Singapore.

Global Feature-Rich Network Dataset

Published in Scientific Data
Yap, W., & Biljecki, F (2023).

High resolution network dataset and interactive dashboard for 50 global cities.

Urbanity: Automated Modelling and Analysis of Multidimensional Networks in Cities

Published in npj Urban Sustainability
Yap, W., Stouffs, R., & Biljecki, F (2023).

We develop an open python package to automate computation of contextual and semantic spatial attributes of urban networks at any geographic location and scale.

Incorporating networks in semantic understanding of streetscapes for active mobility planning.

Published in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
Yap, W., Chang, J.H., & Biljecki, F (2022).

We investigate visual complexity and urban greenery along urban networks in Singapore and Tokyo. Access: here.

Free and Open Urbanism: Software for Urban Planning Practice

Published in Computers, Environment and Urban Systems
Yap, W., Janssen, P., & Biljecki, F (2022).

A state of the art review of open source analytical software to support urban planners. We identified 124 software and analyse trends in the landscape. Our work is open source and available here.

(Book Chapter) Tokyo - Pushing Frontiers, Planning for Society 5.0

Published by IMD and SUTD
Yap, W., & Norakmal, H (2021).

This is the second volume of smart city case studies edited by Arturo Bris, Christos Cabolis, Bruno Lanvin, and Chan Heng Chee. What drives cities to be smart? How have cities employed technology to cope with the global pandemic?

(Book) Age-Friendly Neighbourhood Planning and Design Guidelines - A Singapore Case Study

Published by World Scientific
Yuen, B., Bhuyan, M. R., Song, S., Moogoor, A., Yap, W., Močnik, Š., & Chua, R. (2022).

This work focuses on evidence-based research and examples of existing good practices on health-enabling, age-friendly neighbourhood provision. Recommendations prioritises the need to engage with older people when creating neighbourhoods that contribute to healthy ageing in place.

Neighbourhood built Environment, physical activity, and physical health among older adults in Singapore: A simultaneous equations approach

Published in Journal of Transport & Health
Song, S., Yap, W., Hou, Y., & Yuen, B (2020).

An increasing body of evidence suggests that regular physical activity can have important beneficial effects on individuals’ health into later years. This research investigated the inter-relationships between neighbourhood built environment and health.

The associations between older adults’ daily travel pattern and objective and perceived built environment: A study of three neighbourhoods in Singapore.

Published in Transport Policy
Hou, Y., Yap, W., Chua, R., Song, S., & Yuen, B (2020).

The increasing preference for ageing-in-place highlights the pivotal role of the neighbourhood environment in meeting the mobility needs of older adults.

Get In Touch

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have an interesting idea for collaboration, have some research opportunity to share, or would like to discuss some ideas. I have a broad interest in all things urban, not limited to, urban ethnography, collaborative planning, urban economics, real estate markets, metaverse and smart cities. I am also keen to explore context-based urban research, particularly for communities and cities in Southeast Asia. Looking forward to connecting and hearing from you!