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Probably my most prestigious design to date, the Ministry of Welfare, Youth and Sport Headquarters building is a ten story , reinforced concrete framed building with an attached theatre. The frame is expressed externally, a feature which also adds shade against the fierce equatorial sun. A twin depth flat slab was adopted to span the 7.5m x 5m grid. At Lower ground floor level a massive transfer structure was designed to provide a wide central aisle for the car park. As seen below corbelled beams maintained headroom in the central aisle, preventing the car park from feeling cramped. I am particularly proud of introducing a number of features which, while not unusual elsewhere, were quite innovative in Brunei. This was one of the first major buildings in Brunei to be supported on large diameter bored piles, founded in the underlying mudstones and shales. The normal approach in Brunei is to flatten any site and sit the building square in the middle of it. The result is that buildings commonly have one corner on rock while the other is sitting on up to 20m of fill overlying an old swamp. Clearly not a very satisfactory approach structurally it also fails to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the striking topography. After some lengthy discussion we persuaded the design team to re-orientate our buildings along the crest of the existing hill. In doing so we ensured a striking location, preserved the woodland covering the slope of the hill and minimised the foundation and earthworks costs. I am particularly proud of the external works. The original design carpeted the site in asphalt, with parking ranged around the edges. We broke up the parking into bays, separated by paths and tree planting for shade. We halved the area of hard surfacing, reducing costs and rainfall runoff substantially, and converted a bleak desert of tarmac into a garden - with no loss of parking spaces. Another innovation was the use of Reinforced Earth for the approach road. The embankment rises to a maximum height of 10m and sits on an existing 1:2 slope. Reinforced Earth allowed us to re-use excavated material for the structure and minimised the cost of facing material. A stone facing was used at the main entrance whereas elsewhere the embankment was seeded with vines. Lastly, expansion joints are the source of terrible problems in Brunei. With its high rainfall and merciless sun, joints are severely tested. Unfortunately they are generally treated as an afterthought. Again after considerable discussion we elevated their status to a central feature of the design -channeling water away from them and relocating all architectural elements that bridged them. |
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