Nope this is not about to turn into a ranting post. Life has been treating me fair these days, I am happy, nothing much to complain about. Just that it's been shortly over 6 mths since I started work and I was thinking about what I had been doing, so decided to compile some photos and share some stuff!

First things first, let's get the interesting stuff out of the way (heh heh, that must be a first). A colleague got the opportunity to visit Chipperfield's 9 Trees in person, and he brought back 100+ shots of the project, interior and exterior. I don't think I can post everything here, so just some sneaks. Maybe we can look at them over CNY gathering... Herh herh herh :)




Recently went for a curtain wall lab testing. Seriously, I didn't know that they do it in real... I thought everything would be by computer simulations, the most a down-sized model in the wind tunnel. But a 1:1 mock up of a part of the whole curtain wall? Let's just say in this industry, it is much better to be safe than sorry. The lab test was quite informative, in telling us how the design will look like in real, and of course, the functionality of it. It was conducted in Tuas (the other usual location is in PSB, for Singapore).

So the curtain wall specialist installed a part of the curtain wall, in real with all the hardware selected and approved, and of course the glass and aluminium extrusions. An air-tight chamber is then built behind the curtain wall, the purpose of which is to simulate pressure differences inside and outside of the glass. So from the lab, we pump up the room pressures, at times up to extremes of 1200pa (-ve and +ve, meaning simulating wind blowing against the windows from outside, and when there is suction towards the outside). That is around 120 kg/sqm... which is no joke.

Apart from pressure tests, there is also a series of water tightness tests. Basically spraying water onto the curtain wall, and check if there is any infiltration. Was in the chamber when they conducted this, climbing up and down to check for leakage.

The pressure tests before were actually considered as forces applied perpendicular to the plane of the curtain wall. If it is a high rise building, you can expect the floor slabs to have some lateral movement that is in plane with the curtain wall too. This is also simulated, where the I-beams holding the curtain wall was displaced 7.5mm in both directions from the origin. The 7.5mm as derived from a rule-of-thumb formula recommended by the engineer: which is 1/500 of your floor-to-floor height. To past this test, there is to be no breakages, and the hardware (ie. window hinges, locks, etc) must still function. The pic below shows the hydraulic piston that was used to push the I-beam supporting the curtain wall at the middle section. They have a digital counter looped in to show the displacement (not shown).

We had a little time to kill so the curtain wall specialist drove us to their factory for a look. I was glad to see the use pretty high-precision cutting equipments involving the use of computers to calibrate, etc. Was also happy to see they pinned up some of the perspectives I churned out for the project in their designer's office. Heh... cheap thrills.

More photos... of err... me on site. Accompanying boss to supervise some trade demos. Brick-laying, plastering, skim-coating, waterproofing (smelly business I tel you!), etc etc. Quite eye-opening for a noob, to see how things are done. I seem to fold my arms alot on site. Hmmm, noted.

More site photos. This one from an excursion to visit one of our office's job. These two are colleagues from the team I'm assigned to. They make life in office much better, really. Below some marble dry-laying. Basically in Singapore there is such a thing called dry-laying before the wet lay, to make verify where each tile is to sit in the apartment so they won't look out of place and the house owners won't come calling you telling you to hack away the tile and replace. I can tell the difference from one stone to another, but I guess to fully understand the range within the same stone is something that comes with experience.

More site photos. Hmmm I hope I am already being quite careful of the photos I select, so as not to give away any more information that needs to be shared. Anyway, it isn't like the world reads this blog, right? These are sensitive times... anything can also be accused of leaking intellectual property... Below, the "3, 4, 5, 6" are gates to the passenger hoist, since the real lift car of the building is probably one of the last things to be installed.

Looking across to the opposite construction site using pre-cast technology. It gives you efficiency, quality control, and high buildability score. I was warned that if we one day come to use this technology, never draw the joint line on the floor level, cuz if there is leakage, you are going to hack your floor finishes. At least if it is on the parapet of wall, it might be easier to rectify.

So these are the project management parts of the job. Design wise, it comes and goes, like just before the Hong Kong trip. But lately I'm feeling that I might lose touch of design skills... sometimes looking at pretty images from the net just isn't good enough to be inspired and trained to design. Hmmm... Alas, I'll seize the opportunity when it comes.

Yesterday the bosses were asked to be present at a supplier's showroom to explain to a big organization's 2nd-in-command (who had a sudden interest in this project) why some of the decisions were made. It was pretty straightforward and went pretty well, but I was... if there is such a term, "culture-shocked". Because he is the 2nd-in-command, a huge entourage followed, as though they were suddenly interested in the project too. It was a little overwhelming at first, being tossed in with this crowd. This must be how the plankton feels, I thought, swimming beside a school of blue whales. But I noticed my boss taking down minutes of the things that were asked and comments that were made as the entourage made their rounds and I realize that there is still work to be done here, not just a wayang showcase and a tag-along just to watch suppliers hardsell their products to the client. At the end of the day, I was still quite taken aback by how commercial the whole day had went. It's really just business.

I believe that slowly, I'm beginning to grasp what I want / like to be part of, and what I don't.