UOB HQ 1974
Scene of Singapore
River 1974
UOB HQ 1974
4 COW at Genting highland
from left: Chua Ai Tong,Chia Weng Kok
Tan Lye Beng, Pao Ven Kong
4 COW at KL train station
from left: Tan Lye Beng,Pao Ven Kong
Chua Ai Tong, Chia Weng Kok
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Photo taken at Paya Lebar
International airport
UOB office interior
UOB main branch decor
UOB main branch banking hall
UOB main branch coins bank
UOB main branch manager work desk
UOB main branch decor
UOB HQ credit marketing
department office
4 COW at KL rainway station
from left: Pao Ven Kong, Chua Ai Tong,
Tan Lye Beng, Chia Weng Kok
Installing escalator at the banking hall
Post tension cable with shield for transfer
beam
View of Raffles Place with Ocean
Building (far left) and Asia Insurance
Building (centre tall building)
Construction of post tensioned
transfer beam
UOB HQ under construction
UOB HQ under construction
Construction of post tension
transfer beam
Construction of post tension
transfer beam
UOB HQ under construction
Lift core slip form construction
Podium construction
back ground: old Chartered Bank
View of Bonham Street
Transfer beam under construction
Temporary contruction lift
Site office
Left: Pao Ven Kong,
Centre: Chua Ai Tong,
Right : Tan Lye Beng
Transfer beam
Reinforced super structure
work
RC wall construction
Post tension beam construction
Transfer beam construction
COW- Pao Ven Kong
Ready for concreting
Inspected reinforcement and
standby for concreting
Standby for concreting using pump
Beam cables being stressed
Super structure work in progress
Tower super structure following
lift core work
Temporary hoarding along Chulia
Street/ Bonham Street
Podium super structure work
COW - Tan Lye Beng standing
at podium roof
COW- Pao Ven Kong standing at
podium roof
Podium super structure work
Podium super structure work
installation of escalator
installation of escalator with chain
block
COW - Pao Ven Kong
from left : Pao Ven Kong,
Woon Sin Foong(main contractor site QS)
Tan Lye Beng, Chua Ai Tong
From left: Pao Ven Kong,
Tan Lye Beng
Goh Boon Peng (RE)
Chua Ai Tong
Mr Poon (site foreman)
Basement excavation
Standing on RSJ- act cool
From left: Chong Pak Yoon (chief COW)
Pao Ven Kong
Pao Ven Kong checking steel structings
Back ground - former John Little
departmental store
Singapore River below
Column reinforcement
Photo taken from Raffels Place
From left: Chua Ai Tong, Pao Ven Kong
From Left: Chua Ai Tong. Tan Lye Beng
Chia Weng Kok, Pao Ven Kong
Photo taken from Esplanade
I was admitted to the Singapore Polytechnic in 1968 after my Chinese Secondary 4 and GCE O level. It was a 3 years full time diploma course in Building Construction. The course covered quite a wide range of subjects. English language, mathematics, accounting, building structure, building construction, building specification, architecture drafting, quantity survey, land surveying, economics, building services, estimating, building law, site organsation, building science. The Building Construction trained students and prepared them working in the building industry after graduation. The graduates can either be employed by the contractors, consultants, property developers or the building owners. Some graduates even set up their own firms as building contractors. I was employed by the United Overseas Bank as a building site supervisor in short called COW (clerk-of-works) in 1971 after I graduated. My job was to supervise the construction work and to ensure that the works were carried out in accordance with good workmanship and material specifications as specified in the bills of quantity that form part of the building contract documents .
Frankly speaking, most if not all graduates were lack of site experience. I was one of them like a piece of white paper. We learned all the theories in the class room. Our only site experience was picked up during our second year vacation training. I was assigned to a building contractor called 'Reliance Construction'. Reliance Construction was awarded with the building contract to undertake the construction of the Jurong Power Station. My attachment there was one month plus. The Jurong Power Station project was at its advanced stage. It was near completion and almost getting TOP (Temporary Occupation Permit). Back in 1969 it was termed TOL (Temporary Occupation Licence). So one could imagine how much site experience can the under graduates obtain from the one month training. Moreover, very few firms will give any important task to the trainees for such a short period. Most trainees I believed were there as observers. I was attached to Mr Zee, one of the contractor's foreman who parted his building site knowledge to me while I was on vacation training. I appreciated very much of his gesture. He was a very experience site foreman. That was the only practical experience I gained from the three years study at the Singapore Polytechnic. With the Polytechnic academic training, I was able to pick up the technical knowledge fast when I started my site work. By the way, the then Singapore Polytechnic was situated at Prince Edward Road, end of Shenton Way. The present address is at 500 Dover Road. The valuable technical site experiences that I gained from my first project for 3 years were as follows:
1.0 Metal Sheet Piles
I reported to work on 17 May 1971. The proposed 30 storeys with 3 basements of the United Overseas Bank head office building project was at its initial foundation stage. Sheet piles were driven in the soil before earth work. "I" beams were put in place progressively as the earth excavation work was in progress. The "I" beams against the sheet piles were there to counter act the lateral forces from the external soil and to keep the sheet piles in up right vertical position. This was the very first valuable site experience I gained from the job. The next valuable experience that I gained was my guts. I had to overcome my height phobia problem by walking on the "I" beams strutting over the excavated site to carry out inspection. The "I" beams were 30 meters above the basement excavation. Any off balance could plunge to the bottom and resulting death. I was able to walk on the "I" beam confidently within a week I started work.
2.0 Raft Foundation
The Structural Engineer (Ove Arup) had adopted the raft foundation design over the large diameter bored piles design for the foundation works. The reinforced concrete raft foundation acted as a raft to handle any uneven ground settlement. Premixed concrete was ordered to ensure concrete consistence quality and also it was due to site space constraint. There was no space to set up patching plant. All COWs carried out site work quality check. Concrete slump test was conducted for almost every truck before concrete was allowed to pour in. Concrete test cubes were collected at random for laboratory compression test. This was to ensure the casted concrete complying with design strength. Any overdue concrete (2 hours from patching plant) will be rejected. Pouring of concrete must be continuous to avoid cold joint. Curing of concrete after casting was a must to cool the concrete (heat was dissipated after concrete setting due to chemical reaction).
3.0 Post Tensioning Transfer Beams
There were 8 hexagonal huge columns from the basement to the fourth storey at the perimeter of the tower block. From the 6th storey onwards, the columns design changed to numerous small columns. There was a huge post tensioned beam on the 5th storey to carry and transfer all the loads from the small columns (6th storey) to the huge columns (4th storey). Post tension cables with shields were laid together with the deformed reinforcement steel bars in the transfer beam before concreting. The transfer beam was stressed (post tension) after the beam concrete achieved its designed strength after 21 days.
4.0 Slip forming (climbing formwork)
The slip form technology was good for construction of lift core for high rise building where the structure was vertically through out from the bottom to the top. The formwork will be jacked up slowly during the pouring of concrete. Block outs on the core wall must be well positioned to avoid hacking of concrete after casting due to errors. These block outs were for the lapping of beams and the floor slab to the core wall. The slipform can only be jacked up when the concrete has reached its initial setting while the pouring of concrete was in progress. There will be some concrete fallen off while jacking up. Workers on the slipform lower deck will follow up with the patching work. Metal jack rods for the hydraulic jack climbers will be joined and extended during jacking up of the slipform. The jack rods will be left in the concrete to form part of the reinforcement bars.
5.0 Reinforcement bars inspection
The reinforcing bars sizes and arrangement can be checked against the structural drawings. But knowing what to check on site was the key to ensure that the works were constructed in accordance with the design intent. Some works were not indicated in the structural drawings but they were deem necessary in practice. It was important to check the sizes of the reinforcement bars, the spacing of the links in the beam, the spacing of the bars as in the slabs and walls, the length of the lap bars, the concrete cover for the bars, the steel chairs for the slab double layer reinforcement to prevent sagging of the top bars, the length of the starter bars, the cleaniness of the formwork and joints.
6.0 Architectural works
My architectural works site experience from this project were: Marble to walls and floors, glass mosaic, ceramic tiling works, anodised aluminium windows with laminated glazings, water proofing works, pressure grouting works, board room carpets with underlay, internal brick wall partition, plastering work, false ceiling works.
7.0 M&E Services
I also picked up the M&E services knowledge from this project. The main contractor had to coordinate with the M&E sub-contractors to work out the concrete body plan with regard to structure penetrations for vertical and horizontal M&E services, combined services drawings for aircondition ducting, fan coil units, sprinkler pipings, sanitary & plumbing pipings, electrical trunkings, cabel trays, telephone trunkings, security conduits, smoke & heat detectors conduits, lightings layout, PA system( public address system), Rain water down pipes, lift installation, escalator installation. For the Bank project, there were special items like vault doors installation, safe deposit boxes installation, drive-in bank with bullet proof glass window installation, vault ventilator(an equipment to supply air,food and light in case some one is locked accidentally in the vault), air lock or air duct(the air lock/air duct will be in closed position to seal aircon opening to the vault when the vault door is closed. This is to prevent burglar). There was no ATM in 1971.
I started work as a green horn and picked up my site experience as the work progressing while I carried out my supervision work and fullfilling my duty as COW. I would like to thank Mr Liew Peng Leong 刘炳梁 , the Proprety Manager who was an architect and town planner by profession. He gave me the opportunity to start my career. He gave me a chance to learn as I work even though I was a fresh Polytechnic graduate without much site experience. Without him I would not be where I am today. He was a very nice boss to work with. If any of his subordinate made mistake and he was called in to the Chairman office. He will not release his anger to the person just because he got adverse comment from his boss. Instead he will speak to the staff nicely and to ensure his staff will not commit the same mistake again. All the staff who worked for him respected him. My salute to him.
Last but not least, I wish to thank my three good colleagues Chua Ai Tong, Tan Lye Beng and Chia Weng Kok. They were my working buddies. They had given me all the support I needed and also passed on their knowledge to me from time to time. I would not had gained so much site experience without their guidance. Among the three, I would regard Chua Ai Tong my mentor. He was the most experience and knowledgeable person on site. Ai Tong was my study buddy for the Singapore Polytechnic advanced diploma course in Building Maintenance Management. Chua Ai Tong and Tan Lye Beng were my study buddies for the Bachelor of Construction Management course with the Australia Central Queensland University. We encoraged each other and help one and other on our course work. We even attended the graduation ceremony in Australia together. We had great fun. Thank You Brother Chua,lye Beng and Chia Weng Kok 谢谢蔡大哥，来明小弟和谢永国小弟。
