Skip to main content

Reader Response Draft #3



In the article “Hotel New World Collapse”, Lim (2009) discussed the events leading up to the collapse of Hotel New World, which was caused by a series of engineering faults and poor building management.

Hotel New World was a multi-story building that was constructed by Lian Yak Realty in 1971 and was located at Owen Road. According to Lim, the collapse of Hotel New World in 1986 was so devastating that it did not leave any walls and columns standing. After the collapse, rescue teams consisting of both local and foreign specialists were dispatched. Lim stated that former president Wee Kim Wee arranged “a commission of inquiry” to inspect the source of the collapse on 22 March 1986. Lim stated that according to the investigation report, the primary reason for the collapse “was due to inadequate structural design of the building”. The additional installation on the roof also contributed and accelerated the collapse. The investigation report also mentioned that visible “cracks in the column, wall, and floor” were observed before the collapse. Further investigation showed that the team behind the construction consisted of unqualified personnel. The absence of proper supervision of structural designs and maintenance management led to the Hotel New World tragedy.


First cause of the tragedy of Hotel New World was the insufficient supervision by qualified personnel such as professional engineer on structural designs. Proper supervision was needed to ensure that the structures were designed by qualified person to comply with the construction regulations. According to Thean, Vijiaratnam, Lee, and Broms (1986), the building structure design plans of Hotel New World was done by an unqualified person without supervision of a professional engineer. It was also mentioned that the changes made to the building structural plans were not consulted with the professional engineer (Thean, Vijiaratnam, Lee and Broms 1986). This lack of supervision of the professional engineer and the communication between the unqualified person and the professional engineer led to poor structural design of the building which did not comply with the construction regulations.

Second cause was the lack of supervision by the government authorities when the building structural plans were submitted for approval. The government authorities were responsible to ensure that the construction of the building was carried out under the supervision of a qualified personnel. In the article “Findings likely to affect industry professionals”,(1986) it was mentioned that the Development and Building Control Division, which was responsible for the “processing and approving development project”, approved the construction of Hotel New World after examining that the structural designs were endorsed by the “registered professional”. The article also mention that the Development and Building Control Division found out about the unqualified person after the collapse of Hotel New World. This mean that if Hotel New World did not collapse, the government authorities would not have known about the unqualified person till this day. This showed that the government authorities were not competent as they failed to identify the building structure design plans, they had validated were prepared by an uncertified person. If there had been competent supervision done by the government authorities Hotel New World would not have faced the tragedy.

Absence of proper and regular maintenance of Hotel New World was the final cause of the tragedy. The maintenance management of the Hotel New World was done by the owners of the building (Thean, Vijiaratnam, Lee and Broms 1986). It was also mentioned that despite numerous attempts made by the renovation contractor to inform the building owner about the deteriorations of the building the owner did not make any amendments. The article “Untrained man drew the plan”, also mentioned that there was further installation of a water tank on the roof endorsed by the building manager even though the building was only designed to carry one water tank “in the building’s motor room”. This showed that the management of the building was poor and lack the knowledge of the consequences that could cause by neglecting to make the amendments and the additional installation. The maintenance management could have prevented the Hotel New World tragedy with regular inspection done on the building structures by professional engineers. According to Thean, Vijiaratnam, lee, and Broms (1986), the maintenance management of the building “did not care about structural maintenance”.

The tragedy of Hotel New World was inevitable given all the causes. The supervision on structural designs by a qualified person, followed by the government to ensure the construction guidelines have been complied and the role of the owner in maintenance management of the building were critical factors to prevent tragedy such as the collapse of Hotel New World.    




References:
Lim, T.S. (2011). Hotel New World Collapse. Retrieved February 10,2020, from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_783__2009-01-02.html


Untrained man drew the plans. (1986, September 18). Straits Times, pp. 1. Retrieved from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19860918-1.2.2


Findings likely to affect industry professionals. (1986, October 6). Straits Times, pp. 10. Retrieved from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19861006-1.2.22.12?ST=1&AT=search&k=How to avoid another Hotel New World disaster&QT=how,to,avoid,another,hotel,new,world,disaster&oref=article-related


Thean, L.P., Vijiaratnam, A., Lee, S.L., & Broms, Bengt B. (1987). Report of Inquiry on the collapse of Hotel New World, pp. 14, 28. Retrieved February 10, 2020, from http://eservice.nlb.gov.sg/data2/BookSG/publish/2/2b6b1c5c-8918-433a-a41e-8d2be8451577/web/html5/index.html?opf=tablet/BOOKSG.xml&launchlogo=tablet/BOOKSG_BrandingLogo_.png&pn=1




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Annotated Summary

Arnold, D. (2011). Articles - Self-Healing Concrete. Retrieved 6 March 2020, from https://www.ingenia.org.uk/Ingenia/Articles/eb2f64de-2493-4dfc-9adc-3ae8e13ca477 The focal point of this article was the progression of 'self-healing' concrete technology over the years. According to the article 'self-healing' concrete is a mixture of concrete containing 'self-healing' agents such as bacteria and nutrients. The idea of incorporating 'self-healing' agents into concrete mix design of the buildings had been conceived in the late 1900s. However, the idea was not fully realized due to the absence of interest from the ‘commercial engineering sector’. Fortunately, the idea was revived in the early 2000s when numerous notable ‘industry players’ made a partnership with Delft University to further the research and development of self-healing concrete. The pursuit of finding a suitable self-healing agent started in 2006 at Delft University. It was discovered t
9 comments
Read more

Formal Letter

Dear Professor Brad, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Moe Wai Yan Tun, but you can call me Wai Yan. I graduated from Singapore Polytechnic with a diploma in civil engineering with business in 2017. I chose to study civil engineering in polytechnic because my parents encouraged me to. However, I have grown my interest in it while studying in Singapore Polytechnic and decided to further my studies. A communication strength I possess will be the ability to make a conversation interesting. My love for telling jokes and stories over the years had made me develop a habit to make the conversations captivating. However, I strongly believe that I still have room for improvement. In my opinion, I have a weakness in the ability to initiate a conversation with a stranger. Whenever I am at a party or an event, I find myself interacting with the people that I have known before. I am not a shy person, but I lack the communication techniques and s
6 comments
Read more

My Critical Reflection

The goals I have set for myself at the start of the modules were to better communicate through my writing and to have the ability to analyze and interpret the news articles. Throughout this module, I have learned various writing skills and techniques such as proper language usage for email writing, paraphrasing, and crafting a technical report. The modules have taught me to better understand and use the language through various assignments. To improve myself on my writing skills outside of the classroom I have made a point to follow the procedures and techniques that were taught in the classroom and applied them when I must send emails for my group projects for other modules. Also, during the process of crafting the reader’s response, I have gained skills such as being able to cite sources in APA style and cross-reference 2 different sources. One of the things I was most proud of from the last assignment was my oral presentation. I learned it a hard way about the importance of prepa
3 comments
Read more