Reader's Response Draft

In the article “Use of cladding in buildings here have grown in recent times: Experts” from Faris Mokhtar, states that although there are benefits of cladding on a building, cladding is still a fire hazard.

Mokhtar (2017) states that the usage of cladding has shown to provide many benefits for the building. According to Assistant Professor Fadeyi (2017), cladding has shown to benefit in the reduction of energy consumption and increases the sustainability of the building.  According to Assistant Professor Budig (2017), he mentions that Singapore practices another style of cladding which enhances the shade of the building.

However, usage of cladding has been contributing in the rapid spreading of fire as it endangers the fire safety in the building as the oxygenation could escalate the fire (Mokhtar, 2017). According to Mokhtar (2017), cladding may have contributed to the fire that struck the Grenfell Tower, which led to multiple fatalities.

Although there are strict regulations regarding fire safety, there are existing buildings in Singapore which fail to meet the guidelines. As the fault lies within construction, a clearer process should be implemented to ensure proper installation of cladding.

Despite the strict fire safety regulations imposed in Singapore along with the governance from BCA, there are existing buildings in Singapore with cladding that failed to meet the set guidelines. From the article “36 buildings may have combustible cladding that doesn't meet safety standards; police investigating”, (Loh, 2017), it has been reported that 36 buildings were subjected to scrutiny, out of which 14 building were found to have cladding which failed to comply with the class ‘0’ regulations. These 14 buildings evidently show that the strict regulations and governance were unable to oversee the entire spectrum of the process.

Reported in the article “How did cladding woes happen despite layers of checks?”, (Ng, 2017), several parties were involved in the construction process, with checks done by 6 different parties throughout the construction process. However, even with the stringent checks, the material used was found to be non-compliant. From the article, it was found that the main cause for the non-compliance was directly from the source material, where the main material used for cladding was mixed with another material, which was not graded compliant.

A change in the construction process will be able to resolve these underlying issues. By having one main principal architect to oversee the entire construction process from the birth to completion of the cladding helps provide consistency through monitoring if there are any changes to the material. With certification at every check conducted by the various parties with acknowledgement from the main principal architect, ensures that there will be no compromise to the material. Even though this incident occurred due to the fault of a distributor, a change to the process should still be implemented to improve the existing system.

References: 
http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/use-cladding-buildings-here-have-grown-recent-times-experts
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/36-buildings-may-have-combustible-cladding-that-doesn-t-meet-9153588
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/distributor-placed-two-models-of-cladding-in-one-stock


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Analytical Reflection The recent mock presentation done in class was a good indication of the level my team and I were at. Having to work with one another, it was evident to see various working styles among my peers as well as the problems and issues to rectify. During the mock presentation, I've come to realize new things about myself. Firstly, I've learnt that body language makes a huge difference. The various postures and gestures led to different interpretations from the audience which affected the message that was to be put across. I've learnt that my lip actually twitched when I was trying to think of what I wanted to say, which surprised me as I did not realize that I was doing this subconsciously. As the attention is on oneself while presenting, having a sense of one's body language allow the speaker to portray a better image of one's self. To continue on, I realize that I have a hard time controlling my face expressions, where in my mind I was focused...
Read more
10 September 2017 Dear Ms Lim Introduction of Self, Strengths, Weaknesses and Goals. My name is Lim Wen Wei, currently pursuing the degree in Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (Land). Having graduated from Singapore Polytechnic with a diploma in Environmental Management and Water Technology, I chose to enroll in SIT’s degree program to hone my knowledge and technical skills in engineering. The strengths in communication that I believe I have is the ability to read body language and understand the various tones and words to use to on different people. Through my experience in work, school and army, I have had various opportunities to interact with people from all sorts of backgrounds through different modes of communication. I understand the vast difference tone can make while communicating with another party. An example that I had faced before was while sending emails to people from different departments of a company. The difference in the words I used could eithe...
Read more
Reader's Response In the article “Use of cladding in buildings here have grown in recent times” Mokhtar (2017), reported that although there are benefits of cladding installed on a building, cladding is still a fire hazard. It is reported that the usage of cladding has shown to provide many benefits for the building, such as heat insulation and the reduction in energy consumption (Fadeyi 2017). However, cladding has contributed in rapid spreading of fire as air is sucked into the ventilation gaps due to pressure, which could escalate a fire (Budig, 2017). According to the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), the ‘Singapore Fire Code’ regulates that the materials to be used in construction must meet the class ‘0’ requirement, which is defined that a fire will not spread when a material is ignited. These materials are required to adhere to local certification, which includes timely testing to ensure that there is no deviation from the requirement. Although there are...
Read more