Three projects lauded for beating site challenges
Engineers win BCA awards for using creative designs while ensuring safety
By Esther Teo
CONSULTING engineers Meinhardt faced major headaches while designing 313@Somerset in Orchard Road.
It had to divert the 10m-wide Stamford Canal, which ran through the building site, and handle 55,000 passers-by a day during construction.
To add to the challenge, the 313@Somerset complex is close to the Somerset MRT station and train tunnels.
Meinhardt's efforts at beating these challenges have now been recognised: It won the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) Design and Engineering Safety Excellence Award.
It swept two of the three awards announced by the BCA yesterday, for its work on 313@Somerset and City Square Residences. T.Y. Lin International received the third, for 78 Shenton Way.
Into its third year, the award recognises the often overlooked behind-the- scenes engineers for overcoming site challenges through creative engineering designs for site and public safety.
Nine merit winners, including Marina Barrage and the Singapore Flyer, were also recognised.
At the 313@Somerset site, Meinhardt Infrastructure - part of the Meinhardt group - managed to minimise ground movement using a reinforced concrete wall, and built temporary sheltered walkways for the hordes of commuters passing the construction site.
Meinhardt Infrastructure associate director Joanne Wong said the many challenges - including both integrating and diverting Stamford Canal within the development while ensuring it kept running - made the project 'very exciting'.
'It was very tough because Orchard Road is a very busy road and you have to keep the road clean all the time and look good even during construction,' she said.
'But our construction site, like any other, has dirt, earth, water, concrete trucks and steel bars coming in big vehicles and we have to plan the access well because the road has such heavy traffic.'
Ms Wong added that the route for pedestrian traffic had to be moved 15 times in the three years of construction, as the team dealt with challenges such as demolishing and reconstructing the station entrance amid a constant flow of human traffic and soft soil conditions.
Meinhardt's ability to deal with the tight space in the heart of the shopping district impressed the judges.
'To my knowledge, this is the first time here that you have a canal passing directly through a building,' said BCA building engineering director Chew Keat Chuan.
The project at 78 Shenton Way, whose civil and structural consultant was T.Y. Lin International, was also mentioned for its unique challenge of having a seven-storey office built above an existing four-storey carpark, which had to be in operation throughout the construction.
The site is also close to buildings in one of the busiest parts of Singapore, the Central Business District, said the BCA. This meant careful and meticulous planning was needed during construction to ensure that public safety was not compromised.
'With major roads...nearby, we had to carefully time our road closures with the authorities and also work at night to minimise disruptions to the office workers...We didn't have much space to store our equipment on site,' said T.Y. Lin principal Kenneth Liew.
And at the City Square Residences site, Meinhardt (Singapore), faced with difficult soil conditions - a 20m-thick layer of marine clay, to be exact - earned its distinction by constructing a circular wall 126m in diameter to protect the structural safety of old shophouses in the vicinity.
esthert@sph.com.sg
313@SOMERSET - Divert canal running through site, and handle 55,000 pedestrians a day -- ST FILE PHOTO, CB RICHARD ELLIS, BERITA HARIAN
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