PRESS RELEASE - Building & Construction Authority

PRESS RELEASE
BCA Awards for Construction Excellence - Homegrown
Contractor Earns its Mark of Excellence
1. Top local contractor, Woh Hup (Pte) Ltd, has done well again - this time
winning the construction excellence accolade for three of its building projects. Last
year, Woh Hup and SembCorp Construction made headlines by being the first two
local contractors to have won dual excellence awards in a single year.
2. Woh Hup's two winning projects in 1999 were the Traders Hotel in Yangon,
Myanmar, by the Thai-Singapore joint venture, Syntech-Woh Hup Pte Ltd and the
UOB Plaza II by Wimpey-Woh Hup JV Environmental Engineering.
3. This year, Woh Hup has won another two awards, one for Shangri-La
Apartments and the other for Guthrie House, while its Fifth Avenue
Condominium project was awarded a Certificate of Merit. In all, it has bagged 7
awards and a certificate of merit since 1999.
4. Shangri-La Apartments, located between Anderson and Orange Grove
Road, is a 10-storey luxurious service apartment comprising 127 units with a 2-
level basement carpark. Woh Hup’s use of innovative precast designs and the
implementation of its systematic quality management programmes resulted in the
successful completion of this aesthetically pleasing high quality project. The
project also won the 1999 BCA Best Buildable Design Award.
5. Guthrie House comprises a 4-storey office block with a basement carpark.
It is located at the junction of Fifth and Sixth Avenue. The main constraint in this
project was the two large diameter main water supply pipelines transporting water

from Johor to the reservoirs in Singapore, which were located 3m away from the
basement of the building. Despite this site constraint, Woh Hup was able to deliver
this quality finished project on time and with good safety performance.
Woh Hup’s Quality Management Philosophy
6. What sets Woh Hup apart from its peers is its high level of professionalism
and its commitment to quality management. Woh Hup’s comprehensive quality
control systems, which include stringent in-process inspection at prescribed
frequency, help to raise the quality standards of its projects. The quality of
workmanship is checked by Woh Hup’s construction supervisory team and
assessed independently by the firm’s Quality Assurance Department in
accordance with the Project Quality Plan and the Inspection and Test Plan. Each
succeeding activity will not commence until its preceding activity is inspected and
meets the quality standards required.
7. All levels of Woh Hup’s construction team are trained to understand and
apply the BCA’s Construction Quality Assessment System (CONQUAS)
requirements to ensure consistent delivery of high standard of workmanship.
CONQUAS is regarded by the industry as the de facto national yardstick for
measuring construction quality. In-house hands-on quality assurance/quality
control training are also conducted for the site staff, including subcontractors. Staff
also shares experiences on good and bad practices learnt from previous projects.
8. The company is now introducing more technology-based ideas into the
construction process such as the research and development into productivity
analysis software, defects control system and e-integrated management system.
Woh Hup has devised a defects control system for inspecting and controlling
defects in completed units prior to handing over. The system also effectively
monitors the progress and completion of rectification works by the relevant
subcontractors and ensures the proper closing out of these defects. The adoption
of this system effectively minimises handover disputes and facilitated inspection
and efficient control of defects.

9. Woh Hup is one of the first construction companies to be certified under the
BCA ISO 9000 Certification Scheme in 1994. Recently, the firm has also been
certified by BCA under its Occupational Health and Safety Management System.
This shows the company's commitment to continual improvement, customer
satisfaction and total quality management.
Obayashi Has Done Equally Well
10. Obayashi Corporation has achieved equally impressive results, winning for
itself an award each for Hotel Rendezvous and the Bridge at Marina Bay, and a
Certificate of Merit for Commerce Point, a 19-storey Design-and-Build office
building.
11. Hotel Rendezvous is a four-star hotel located at the junction of Bras
Basah Road and Prinsep Street, boasting 300 guestrooms and an internal open
landscaped courtyard. The façade >
of the hotel was designed and detailed to respect and harmonise with the
architectural features of the surrounding conservation shophouses. Advanced
strengthening technique using hybrid woven fabric was introduced for the
restoration of the structural components of the shophouses. Meticulous and
painstaking efforts were made to record and reproduce the decorative façade
details for the historical shophouses as well as to restore the damaged features
and mouldings.
12. Bridge at Marina Bay, also known as the Esplanade Bridge, is a 280m
long and 44.4m wide dual carriageway with pedestrian footpath on both sides that
span across the Marina Bay. The 3-dimensional curved design features required
for the bridge spanning between the piers demand cast-in-situ construction
method to be adopted, which made the formwork design very difficult and
challenging. Reinforcement design and detailing were extremely complex as every
rebar and stirrup in the 3-dimensional curved span is of different length, curvature,
sizes and placement angles.
Other Award Winners

13. This year saw the highest number of awards being given out in the 14-year
history of the BCA Awards for Construction Excellence – a total of 14 Award
winners from six categories: Commercial Building, Residential Buildings
($1000/m 2 & above), Residential Buildings (below $1,000/m 2 ), Industrial Buildings,
Institutional Buildings and Civil Engineering Projects. Another 13 projects were
awarded Certificates of Merit.
14. The award winning projects have scored well in terms of the award's
assessment criteria - contractor’s overall management, technical capability and
innovations, and the quality of the completed projects. This year, 15 of the 27
winning projects were bagged by 11 local contractors, a testimony to their
increased awareness and commitment to construction quality.
15. The overseas contractors have also done well. 12 of the winning projects
were won by seven construction giants, mainly from Korea and Japan, including a
French company.
16. Some of the more unique features of this year's winning crop include:
• Centennial Tower – Early involvement in the project design allows
the contractor to incorporate innovative construction methods that
improve buildability and productivity e.g. extensive use of system
formwork and precast components to achieve better accuracy and
finish that eliminated the need for plastering.
• The URA Centre – Of special mention is the use of innovative
tension cable truss system for the 5-storey high atrium glass walls.
In addition, a canopy is supported by aluminium rafters with truss
ends fixed to the concrete structure by a revolutionary spring and
collapsible washer system that is able to absorb any building
movement.
• Peirce Villas – Due to the customised design for every bungalow,
the marble flooring for each bungalow is unique in terms of patterns,
border designs, skirting, etc. The marble panels are subjected to dry
lay inspections prior to actual delivery and site laying. This is to
ensure that the natural veins of the marble slabs are well matched.

17. The remaining 7 Award winning projects are Fritz Logistics Warehouse,
Ang Mo Kio Autopoint, Institute of Molecular Agrobiology, Parc Vista
Condomimium, Costa Rhu Condominium, Signature Park Condominium Phase 1
& 2, and Signature Park Condominium Phase 3. The 13 Certificate of Merit
winners are UE Square, Capital Square, Commerce Point, West Mall, ST
Assembly Test Services Factory, Rebuilding of Outram Secondary School at York
Hill, Redevelopment at Jurong Camp I, Fifth Avenue Condominium, Aspen
Heights Condominium, Palm Mansions, Summerlea Green, Woodlands N5 C4,
and Holland Road/Farrer Road/Queensway Interchange.
18. The BCA Awards for Construction Excellence is the most prestigious award
given in Singapore that accord recognition to construction projects which have
demonstrated a high standard of performance and construction excellence. The
large number of recipients this year testifies to the industry’s progress towards
being a world class builder in the new millennium.
Issued by the Building and Construction Authority on 9 May 2000