SINGAPORE - 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 visuals-driven,” 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.

Digital graphics journalist Charlene Chua, who was part of the team, said: “HDB is a very local story, so this project winning gold makes me feel very humbled because it shows that people are interested in our local stories.”

ST also clinched gold in the best data visualisation category for “Is Singapore actually getting hotter?”

This project stemmed from a request from the ST Newsdesk in June 2022 to analyse temperature data.

The team sought to examine 30 years of data from the Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS) with a different lens, looking at not only the averages of maximum temperatures, but also the averages of minimum temperatures.

After running through the data, the team found that the minimum temperature at night was also increasing over time.

Data visualisation editor Rebecca Pazos said: “The general population talks about getting hotter during the day, but not so much at night.

“So it was really interesting for us to add that to the conversation.”

The team waited till the middle of March 2023 to publish the story when the weather got hotter.

Another visual story, “Why the haze has reached Singapore’s shores again”, won silver for best data visualisation. It illustrated how smoke from Indonesian peatlands is transported to Singapore, contributing to the haze.

The team behind this project used a 3D haze model to simulate the 2019 haze episode in Singapore.

To illustrate how shifting hot spots could affect the severity of haze, they used maps and hourly wind data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service on June 21 in 2013, Sept 24 in 2015, and Sept 14 in 2019 – the days with Singapore’s highest recorded PSI level in those years.

The story was initially meant to explain why Singapore had not experienced severe haze in a while and mark the 10th anniversary of the 2013 haze, which was one of the worst to hit the Republic, said Ms Chua, who was part of the team.

However, they changed the angle in June 2023 after experts warned that there was a high chance of haze returning later in the year due to climate patterns such as El Nino.

The story was completed in September 2023 and published the next month when the PSI level in Singapore reached unhealthy levels.

Digital graphics consultant Xaquin Veira Gonzalez, who mentors the ST visuals team, said this story used data to visually show how different factors brought the haze to Singapore.

Mrs Pazos, who oversaw the stories on the haze and rising temperatures, said: “We want to build stories that are a memorable experience for our readers, feel handcrafted and that there was passion put into them.

“We are always experimenting with new tools and technology, that’s why we love this job.”

ST won the top award in two other categories – best newsletter and best podcast.

ST HeadSTart, a free weekly newsletter, was revamped in 2023 to appeal to a younger audience.

“We wanted the tone to be more approachable, fun and dynamic, especially for a generation described as having a shorter attention span,” said business correspondent Cheow Sue-Ann, who is part of the team behind the newsletter.

She said the newsletter’s three main pillars of content are finance, career advancement and adulting.

“The newsletter takes the information we need that might be very hard to digest and makes it fun and engaging,” she added.

Subscribers to the newsletter also got first access to We Try First, an eight-episode video series that launched on Jan 16, 2024, and explores various topics related to career development, personal finance and lifestyle.

Podcast series True Crimes of Asia, which clinched the gold award, has six episodes that ran from April to September in 2023.

ST podcast editor Ernest Luis said it took a collaborative effort across the newsroom to produce the series.

He conducted 13 hours of training over two months for journalists who hosted each episode.

“The training involved practising enunciation for better diction and introducing dynamics to make the host’s voice sound better, so anyone who listened to the series would understand without having to pause or replay,” Mr Luis said.

Other journalists and staff in the newsroom were asked to do voiceovers.

“This podcast was a way for us to engage the newsroom, some of whom had never been inside the podcast studio,” Mr Luis said.

Chinese-language daily Lianhe Zaobao clinched gold in the best lifestyle site category and silver for best news website, while radio station Money FM 89.3 won a silver for best podcast.

South China Morning Post won four awards, including two golds for best lifestyle site and best use of video.

ST editor Jaime Ho said: “These awards are an affirmation of our collaborative and creative newsroom. It’s deeply appreciated. We will continue to innovate, and bring our stories ever closer to our audiences and community of readers.”