Bukit Batok Brickworks 1972 - 1995.

  On a few occasions in the past, I mentioned the Bukit Batok Brickworks a number of times in my blog or on other socmed platforms.  Most of the responses were like “Oh, really? Was there one? I didn’t know that”. And due to it being such a trivial bit of nostalgia, it soon became lost in the ocean of information or worse, misinformation. And most have forgotten about it.

The HDB Brickworks at Track 14, Old Jurong Road.
This was the only picture I could find showing the brickworks externally.
Photo taken from the Straits Times archives, Nov 1993.

Recently, an opportunity arose for me to recount the presence of this little known forgotten facility. This was how it came about...

National Library Board (NLB) closed its public library at Bukit Batok in 2024.
It was to undergo a two year revamp and rebuild from 2024 to 2026, and was slated to reopen in March 2026. It will located inside the WestMall @ Bukit Batok.
As part of the overall programme to highlight their newest refurbished and modern library, the NLB in conjunction with the National Archives of Singapore (NAS), started a heritage project to collect memories and memorabilia about Bukit Batok. It is called Bukit Batok: Hills, Home, Heritage., which would be part of their overall “Singapore Memories” Project. (https://www.singaporememories.gov.sg)

They searched the internet for more, and perhaps, unknown facts about the region when they came across this blog, which is basically my life story over the past seven decades that I lived in this area.
In October 2025, I received an invitation to meet them, and perhaps to do an interview of my past experiences living in Bukit Batok.
And so it was that I have till now contributed eight hours of oral submissions about my history and relationship to Bukit Batok. "Telling my grandfather stories" as I said to my friends.

One of the most surprising trivia to them was learning that there was a full-fledged brickworks in Bukit Batok that was directly owned and operated  by the Housing and Development Board, the HDB!

In the 1960s, when the HDB was formed to tackle the housing problems in Singapore, they depended initially on the nine major brickworks in Singapore for the supply of bricks for their building programme.

Most of the operating brickworks in Singapore at the time were in the Jurong region. Nanyang Brickworks, Sin Chew Brickworks, Jurong Brickworks, Goh Bee Brickworks and Asia Brickworks were some of these, with others further afield, like Alexandra and Tekong.

By the end of the 1960s, the HDB still depended on these independent suppliers, but were subjected to erratic supply conditions and price fluctuations.
To ensure minimal disruption to their ever growing building programmes, the HDB decided to set up their own brickworks. Thus, in 1972, the HDB Brickworks was set up at the then rural Track 14, Old Jurong Road.

The earthen clay in the Jurong region had the ideal qualities for making bricks.

In their first year of production, the Bukit Batok Brickworks produced 17 million bricks - the ubiquitous red bricks we recognise in almost all of the HDB flats being raised at that time. Year by year, they raise their production levels from that initial 17m bricks to 35m in 1977, to 40m bricks by 1979. With the addition of a second kiln, they were able to produce up to 80m brick annually in the 1980s.
The HDB brickworks had the most modern production line of its time in Singapore. Eventually, the HDB Brickworks had more than sufficient output that they even began to supply bricks to private construction projects in Singapore.

Bricks being stack at the HDB Brickworks.
(Source: HDB Annual Report 1978)

Bricks made at the HDB Brickworks
(Source: HDB Annual Report 1978)

In 1980, the HDB began experimenting with pre-fabrication as the newer technology to speed up the building of flats.

A French company GTM-Coignet was contracted to build prefabricated components like walls and staircases. However, this was not like today’s pre-cast concrete flat components.
It was more a hybrid experiment using bricks and concrete. Fabricated off-site and ferried to the construction site and assembled. This was said to speed up the construction by 40%.

The early experimental units were known as the A-model flats, which were found initially at Yishun, Tampines and also at Bukit Batok. My first flat was one of these at Blk 203 Bukit Batok, a 25-storey point block built in this manner.

The pre-fabrication of these flat components were done on same grounds of the HDB Brickworks, eventually taking over the entire site when the HDB decided to close the HDB Brickworks in 1993.

The HDB Pre-Fabrication factory site at Bukit Batok West Ave 3.
The little track between the HDB blocks and the factory was the former Track 14,
Old Jurong Road, that would be developed into Bukit Batok West Ave 3.
Picture was taken in 1986. The HDB flats on the right are Blk 134-136 Bukit Batok West.
Today the former factory site is occupied by the Millenia Institute and Eden School.

By 1990, the Singapore Government had already decided that brickworks were not a viable industry given the issues that brickworks were facing. Complaints of air pollution, noise and  dust from making bricks, and the environmental damage in mining the clay, eventually led to all the brickworks being closed in Singapore. External supplies from overseas became the norm with brick suppliers from countries such as South Africa, Australia and Taiwan filling in the void.

As Bukit Batok New Town grew in size beyond the 1990s and 2000s, the pre-fab factory at Bukit Batok West Ave 3 was moved to Woodlands. I believe to day they are based in Senai Johor where pre-cast concrete method is the latest technology used in making HDB flat components.

Is it no wonder that the area where the HDB Brickworks once stood is today a sub-zone of Bukit Batok New Town called “Brickworks”. On this former HDB Brickworks site today sits the Eden School and the Millenia Institute education facilities along was is now Bukit Batok West Ave 3.

Cliffhanger! Did you already know of this brickworks at Bukit Batok?
Then, you might be surprised by another bit of trivia.
Did you also know that all your kitchen and bathroom ceramic tiles, as well as the external decorative tiles in your estate were also made by a HDB factory?
The factory was also in Bukit Batok!
Come back to my blog and perhaps you'll find that I will reveal it in one of my articles.