Blast Mitigation and Static Loading Strengthening to National Gallery Singapore using TYFO^® Fibrwrap^® Composite System

Being the first national monument to receive the Green Mark GoldPLUS Award by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), The National Gallery Singapore (Gallery) consists of two monumental buildings, the City Hall and the former Supreme Court, with City hall being the focal point of many important historical moments in Singapore’s history. It was in the City Hall building, where the Japanese forces surrendered in 1945, and the undertaking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Oaths of Office by the first prime minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, and his Cabinet members in 1959.

Gazetted in 1992 as a national monument, the buildings are located in the heart of the Civil District. Standing at 60,000 square meters, the new gallery will be the largest visual arts venue in the region.

The upgrading works at the Gallery proved to be a very delicate and crucial job due to the prominent and monumental profile. Designed based on old design code, the slabs at the former Supreme Court required extensive strengthening to achieve the new required live load of 4kPa. On top of the new load requirement, the buildings were also required to be able to resist projectiles in the event of blast. However, all these requirements to the old building were posed as an almost impossible task due to the amount of architectural features that were classified under conservation. This impossible task was made achievable by using the TYFO^® Fibrwrap^® Composite System. For static loading, slabs to a total of 4 levels were strengthened using the TYFO^® Fibrwrap^® Composite System. The strengthening is to both top and bottom of the slabs. Beams and walls were also strengthened with the TYFO^® Fibrwrap^® Composite System for blast mitigation. A total of 2 levels of beam soffit, 3 levels of slab top, and majority of the façade walls were retrofitted for this purpose.