troduction of the industrialised method of construction reduced the amount of work to be done at the building site to the minimum thereby eliminating the slow progress of work due to weather conditions.
(v) Due to the spectacular economic
recovery in the post war years, fewer workers took up jobs in the building industry, thereby creating a great discrepancy in the wages between the building industry workers and the fac- tory workers. The introduction of the industrialised method of construction was to create а maximum amount of work to be done in covered factories and so reduce the work at the building site to an absolute minimum. In this way, even if the working hours for each unit of building were the same there would be saving in cost due to the difference in wages between workers in the covered factories and the workers em- ployed at the building site. (vi) The building industry in the European countries had perienced unprecedented pros- perity. Much capital had been accumulated by the industry itself for investment and the adoption of the industrialised method of construction fitted in nicely to absorb the excess capital.
ex-
(vii) After the Second World War, there was a steady increase in wages in the European coun- tries. The introduction of the industrialised method of con- struction was in keeping with the trend in all industries to increase the investment in ma- chinery and to reduce human labour and working hours. (viii) The industrialised method of construction requires big invest- ments. For the industry to be successful, there must be a con- tinuous market for the products. Due to the rise in the standard of living and the increased sav- ing, there was a strong and
continuous demand for con- struction of houses, schools, factories, etc. These conditions were ideal for the success of the industrialised method of
construction.
(ix) Europe was the cradle of the
industrial revolution and in the last 150 years a great deal of knowledge and technical skill had been acquired on the run- ning of industry on the con- veyor belt system of production. Therefore, the adoption of the industrialised method of con- struction did not have to face the difficulty of training special technical personnel as there were sufficient skilled personnel within the various industries for the production of building com- ponents.
From the above it would appear that all these factors leading to the industrialised method of construction are not in existence in Malaysia. However, as the industrialised tech- nique of construction will be intro- duced eventually, the Board was quite prepared to carry out a suitable ex- periment in the industrialised method of construction to study its applica- tion in Singapore conditions.
Expert Advice
a
A local firm was formed in Singapore in 1963 to use a French system of construction and they of- fered to construct for the Board ten blocks of ten-storey flats of 1,200 units in MacPherson Road (South) at cost slightly lower than our traditional method of construction. The offer was carefully studied by the Board and was accepted. This marked the beginning of the intro- duction of prefabricated methods of construction into Singapore.
The French engineers from the firm which designed the patented structures came to Singapore to study the site conditions and to give expert advice to the local firm. After the initial teething troubles construc- tion proceeded very much behind the time schedule and by the end of 1964
Far East Architect & Builder July, 1965
the structures for the first two blocks were more or less completed.
However, the firm has now realis- ed that their offer of less than M$4 per square foot for the building contract was uneconomical and they are no longer in a position to com- plete the remaining eight blocks.
An analysis has been made by the officers of the Board and the follow- ing are the general conclusions: (i)
The building industry in Singa- pore is extremely efficient in spite of very little equipment being used at the work sites. The construction cost for multi- storey flats in Singapore is among the lowest in the world. Therefore, it is extremely dif- ficult for
of a foreign system construction, without modifica- tions, to compete successfully with the efficient traditional method of construction.
(ii) The capital investment on
ma-
chinery in the local building in- dustry is extremely low as only power concrete
mixers, power hoists,
circular power
saws, power vibrators, power ram and other traditional building tools are used at the building sites. The industrialised method of construction requires compara-
Prefabricated construction at MacPherson Estate, Singapore
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