Top 7 Heritage Building Restoration Firms in SG

1. Soil-Build Pte Ltd

Soil-Build is Singapore’s closest thing to a dedicated heritage restoration contractor. The firm led the structural and finishes restoration of Thian Hock Keng Temple between 1998 and 2001, then moved on to the Sultan Mosque complex in 2004–2005. Unlike most general builders, Soil-Build keeps timber carpenters, plasterers, and roofers on direct payroll instead of subcontracting the trades that actually touch historic fabric. On the Armenian Church (2008–2009), they replaced the entire Chennai-pattern clay-tile roof and repointed the chunam facade without altering the original lime binder ratios approved by the URA Conservation Advisory Panel.

2. Woh Hup (Private) Limited

Woh Hup’s name in this niche is anchored by the National Museum of Singapore restoration (2003–2006). The 1887 Palladian building required structural jacking of the portico columns while new basement gallery space was excavated directly beneath occupied galleries. Concrete was pumped in controlled batches behind the existing brick walls, and the foyer’s mosaic floor was reset using a lime-based bedding mortar. Woh Hup’s project management system ran a separate submittal workflow for every heritage-sensitive material, which is why they remain a preferred main contractor for state-owned conserved buildings.

3. Tiong Seng Contractors Pte Ltd

Tiong Seng won the S$54 million restoration contract for the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall in 2010. The job involved removing 1970s add-on structures, reinstating the original Empress Place facade, rebuilding the fly tower, and underpinning the old foundation using hand-dug pits because the URA imposed a 2 mm/s vibration limit at the neighbouring Old Parliament House. Tiong Seng also sequenced the entire theatre acoustic shell upgrade around the original 1905 plaster mouldings, keeping the heritage interior intact while installing modern back-of-house systems.

4. Hock Lian Seng Infrastructure Pte Ltd

Hock Lian Seng delivered the Capitol Theatre restoration and integrated Capitol Piazza development between 2013 and 2016. The 1929 facade was stripped back to its original plaster substrate, then rebuilt with matching lime-based render. The contractor restored the Moorish keyhole arches, the balcony balustrades, and the dome over the main foyer. The tricky part was excavation: a four-storey basement was dug directly beneath the theatre block while adjacent Stamford House was monitored 24 hours a day with automated total stations recording settlement readings on 15-minute intervals.

5. Lian Ho Lee Construction Pte Ltd

Lian Ho Lee handled the facelift of the Old Hill Street Police Station — the 1934 Neo-Classical building widely known as the MICA Building — between 2007 and 2009. Their scope covered over 700 timber louvre windows, all replicated in Sabah softwood to match the original profiles, plus full repointing of the facade render and a concealed rainwater gutter system installed behind the parapet. Lian Ho Lee is also on the URA’s approved contractor lists for conserved shophouse works in Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar, where they specialise in Strathmore clay tile roof replacement.

6. Chye Joo Construction Pte Ltd

Chye Joo Construction focuses on adaptive reuse of gazetted shophouses and occupied heritage blocks. A reference project is the Eu Yan Sang building at 269 South Bridge Road, where the team reinstated the original Peranakan floor tiles — cutting replacements from custom-fired clay batches to match the 1920s geometry. Their system for occupied-site restoration uses a detailed photographic log before any demolition, tagging each timber beam, door leaf, and plaster fragment so it can be reinstalled in the same physical position rather than replaced with new stock.

7. Samwoh Corporation Pte Ltd

Samwoh is not a pure heritage house, but their structure-repair division executes the kind of foundation and concrete work that conservation main contractors cannot do internally. Samwoh handled the structural grouting and epoxy-injection package for the National Museum’s east wing under Woh Hup’s main contract, stabilising the existing brick masonry before new waterproofing was laid. They have since performed similar underpinning works for two conserved blocks in Little India, where jacking and micro-piling were carried out without removing the original timber upper floors.

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