Caldecott Hill Broadcasting Center
Facility Management-Little-known Anecdotes
by Lim Yao Ching
Introduction
I joined Mediacorp in 1997. The following are some little-known anecdotes that I personally experienced on the Hill and some tidbits of the entire project relocation, to share with you.
The Caldecott Hill Broadcasting Center(CBC) covers an area of about 7 hectares. The following buildings were constructed in different periods:
a. Old Broadcasting House: Built in the 1950s (1st to 2nd floors)
b. TV Building (TV Building): Built in 1964 (four floors) in 1972 and expanded in 1986.
c. Radio Building: Built in 1983 (sixth floor)
d, East Wing (East Wing): Built in 1982 (single floor with three underground floors)
e. West Wing: Built in 1983 (5 stories underground)
f. Annex Building: Built in 1995 (5 stories underground)
g. Media Academy: Built in 1984 (three floors)
h. Multi-storey car park building (MSCP Building): Built in 1990 (5 floors, 4 underground floors)
The original CBC started from the old broadcast building and consisted of separate buildings, as follows:
Blk A (Building A)
2-story wooden structure used as outdoor production office (drama/variety show)
Blk D (Building D)
This single-storey building on the edge of the TV building is dedicated to storing wardrobe supplies. It contains clothing, headwear and footwear from different eras and races.
Blk E (Building E)
Although the appearance of this single-story wooden structure is old, it is neat and tidy. It is one of the unforgettable places for artists who often come here for makeup and haircuts.
Blk F (Building F)
The single-story wardrobe collection and distribution center is also frequently visited by entertainers and extras. Provide various clothing-related services, including clothing modification, laundry, matching and retrieval of clothing used for shooting.
Blk G (Building G)
This single-story building is an audio station responsible for dubbing services, audio/music mixing, etc.
25.12.02 The old radio room fire incident
On December 25, 2002, a prop storage room behind Building F caught fire due to an electrical short circuit.
When I arrived at the Radio Gate (one of the gates of Broadcasting Center), I was shocked to see thick smoke rising from the building behind the makeup building of Building F in the old broadcast building. At that time, I was so shocked that my hands and feet were cold, and I couldn't make a smooth call even when I tried to call my boss.
At that time, the security guard on duty had tried to control the access to the fire scene. When I entered the fire scene, I saw many people rushing into the audio room of Building F to rescue the equipment and tapes in the recording room. Suddenly I was worried about their safety. I tried to prevent them from entering, they ignored my appeal.
Although firefighters were spraying water on the roof at the time, dense fog appeared on the roofs of several single-story wooden buildings due to the high temperature. The scene was frightening. Fortunately, the closet storage room was only a single floor, and the firefighters quickly controlled the fire.
Due to the timely control of the fire, the fire did not spread to neighboring buildings. After the fire was brought under control, James Tan, then director of the Civil Defence Agency of Singapore, personally visited the fire scene.
3. Build a new item warehouse
After the fire in the old broadcasting building destroyed the storage building, as part of the insurance claim conditions, we built a new warehouse for prop storage. The figure below shows the building during the construction phase.
Studio production facilities
The Caldecott Hill Broadcasting Center contains 6 studios, Studio A (located in the Broadcasting Building), the overall design is an auditorium, movie studio (located in the old Broadcasting Building for TV/film production) and a TV theater (located in the multi-storey parking lot) Inside the building)
Studio 1 is used for English drama/sitcom production
Studio 2 for Chinese news/current affairs
Studio 3 was produced by Caldecott Mountain of Gary Valley (made for external clients)
Studios 4 and 6 are produced by Chinese theater
Photo studio 5 is used for temporary production and production company reservations.
In the center of all studios there is a temporary set hall for storing props for the studio.
Street scene
At the beginning of drama production, part of the old broadcasting building was used to construct street scenes for drama production.
However, when the amount of drama production increased, the new street scene called "TV World" was built as a production place for local dramas of the old period. It is located next to the checkpoint of the second passage in Malaysia and Tuas.
"TV World" occupies a land area equivalent to four football fields and was completed in 1992. It has two wings, the local street scene in the 1950s and 1960s and the old Chinese street scene. The buildings built are old cinemas, railway stations, fire stations, churches, buildings and traditional shops.
There is also an artificial river for shooting in the television world.
New Media uses nostalgic props and backgrounds from the TV world to produce many memorable Chinese TV series for Channel 8. Some of the TV series that have been filmed here are: "Adventure 3" (released in 1995), Tofu Street, Tofu Street (1996), "The Price of Peace" (1997), "The Pot of Life" Fuman Renjian (1999) and Hainan Kopi Tales Qiongyuan Coffee Fragrance (2000).
In 2001, due to high maintenance costs and low utilization, New Media decided to abandon the Tuas TV World. If required by the plot, the crew will shoot in Malaysia, China or Calgary Valley Broadcasting Center.
TV building catches fire
Another minor fire (smoke) incident in the TV building (unknown year and month-probably around 2003/2004?) caused the users of the TV building to evacuate. The fire was contained in the AHU room, and was contained before any damage could be caused.
After subsequent investigations, it was found that the cigarette butts were inhaled into the air inlet and contacted with the AHU pre-filter material, causing the flame to slowly burn and emit a large amount of smoke.
Buildings in disrepair (water seepage in the TV building)-Digital Media Center (DMC)_April 24, 2004, due to water seepage, interrupted the transmission of Channel 5
A staff member noticed that water seeped in from the ceiling of the Digital Media Center (DMC) near the power switch cabinet around 2.45 pm that day. The manager of the live broadcast room took emergency rescue measures and protected the equipment with plastic sheets around the area where water seepage was found.
When the staff cleaned up the chaos at the scene, the channel 5 signal was interrupted. Later, it was discovered that other parts of the ceiling of the Digital Media Center (DMC) and Satellite Operations Center (SOC) (the satellite operations center next to the Digital Media Center) also had water seepage problems, affecting the racks that house the fifth channel equipment. Due to the failure of the audio equipment, the fifth channel has intermittent audio interruption when playing.
Channel 5 was interrupted for about 19 minutes and resumed before 3.10 pm. No other channels are affected.
Wall reinforcement of TV building
The TV building is constructed using a traditional beam-slab system. The TV Building was built in 1964 and expanded in 1972 and 1986.
Some parts of the TV building are covered with a steel roof, while the substation is covered with a reinforced concrete structure RC flat roof. The steel roof is supported by steel bars, which in turn are supported by steel trusses. These anchored on reinforced concrete structural columns were visually inspected by professional engineers for 5 years.
The structural inspection was carried out by a professional contractor from September 20, 2010 to November 30, 2010.
The report recommends more comprehensive core testing and regular maintenance work, because low concrete strength is generally found in TV buildings, so repair and reinforcement should be carried out according to the recommendations of the first report.
Three carbonization test samples were carried out. All samples were from the first floor and were tested immediately after core extraction. The test results show that the possibility of steel corrosion is very high.
-Monitoring of 100 pillars per week 5 times a week, these pillars cannot be reinforced with fiber wrapping.
-Fiber wrapped to strengthen 20 columns accessible. 20 pillars that can be sprayed with anti-carbon coating
According to the first structural research report, the decrease in the strength of concrete tested in the first batch of core tests indicates that the strength of concrete in key structural members is consistently low.
It can be clearly seen from the test results that this 47-year-old TV building has been adversely affected by the environment and suffered carbonization damage for at least 15 years. As a result, the strength of the concrete was reduced by nearly 50%, and signs of concrete deterioration, such as cracks, flaking, and rust, appeared.
The weak and porous condition of concrete will accelerate the penetration of concrete by atmospheric carbon dioxide and water-based chloride ions from the environment, and make the concrete deteriorate at a faster rate. In the next 5 to 10 years, the concrete strength may decrease from the current level to the range of 8 N/mm2 to 10 N/mm2. It is expected that there will be more concrete signs of deterioration during this period.
Therefore, it is essential to repair those severely deteriorated concrete components as soon as possible to prevent further deterioration. Considering the availability of repair work, repair as many unsatisfactory columns as possible. The column after maintenance work will be safe under the existing loading conditions.
Taking into account that the building will not be occupied for more than 5 years, we will also limit the maintenance work to the 20 pillars mainly located in the square, carry out reinforcement works on the pillars, and continue to monitor the rest of the columns every other month.
In the end, we used unidirectional glass fiber epoxy resin to repair the undesirable column to enhance the structure of the column
9. Develop a master plan for the Gary Valley Mountain Broadcasting Center
a. Redevelopment of the old broadcasting room and renovation of other buildings
After several fire incidents and major water seepage incidents, the complex obviously needs a major comprehensive renovation or renovation project that will be carried out long ago.
According to the records I found, in the early days of the Singapore media company MCS, the company has conducted extensive research on the possibility of developing a new campus to replace the existing Cale Valley Broadcasting Center. In fact, a site at No. 6 Bukit Batok West Street was purchased in 1994 as an alternative site for the Calgary Hill Broadcasting Center. I don't know the reason why the redevelopment plan of Bukit Batok has not been carried out, but it may be related to cost feasibility.
According to our 2005 research, in fact, it is more cost-effective to redevelop part of the Gary Valley Mountain Broadcasting Center and remodel existing buildings.
I was the main facilitator in the development of a master plan that aims to upgrade the building of the Gary Valley Mountain Broadcasting Center and redevelop the old broadcast room with new buildings. I personally drafted the tender documents to appoint consultants to develop the master plan for the Gary Valley Mountain Broadcasting Center.
A consortium consisting of the following companies was appointed as the conceptual master plan for the Gary Valley Mountain Broadcasting Center in September 2005.
DP Architects Pte Ltd was appointed as architect
Beca Carter Hollings&Ferner (S.E.Asia) Sdn Bhd was appointed as civil, structural and electromechanical engineer
KPK Quantity Surveyor Pte Ltd was appointed as Quantity Surveyor
The master plan proposal was completed and subsequently submitted to the MediaCorp management in March 2006, but the final decision was to build a new complex on Bukit Batok land. There are obvious advantages to building a house on green space. It is very difficult and inconvenient to upgrade an existing building because it will affect operations, and the studio is very sensitive to noise to cope with the construction process. The supporting theater and entertainment production facilities of the old broadcasting room must also be relocated. It is also much easier to construct a completely new broadcast infrastructure framework in a new building.
After MediaCorp management made a decision, an internal project management team then appointed a project management consultant to oversee the construction of the new complex at Bukit Batok site. In order to understand the requirements of all stakeholders, a comprehensive seminar and discussion were carried out, and a comprehensive technical requirements, specifications and space rationalization plan were developed for the new complex.
However, the project was aborted due to the Great Recession in 2007 before the invitation of the multidisciplinary consulting team.
In 2011, MediaCorp finally decided to purchase a piece of land in One North and build a new site to replace the Gali Valley Mountain Broadcasting Center. The new site is located in Mediapolis, a business park created for the rapidly growing information and communications, media, physical sciences and engineering sectors. One One's 19-hectare hub is supported by a strong IT infrastructure.
The new building has many advanced facilities, including two large studios, post-production facilities, news gathering and broadcasting facilities, a 1,500-seat performing arts theater and office space. There is a comprehensive news editing room that can accommodate 700 reporters from its digital, television, radio and printing units.
I want to share the initial master plan of the Gary Valley Mountain Broadcasting Center developed by the consultant team, which also includes some preliminary design ideas shown below, because some people may be curious to understand it. These points of view are only preliminary descriptions of the design, no further development.
b. The area of the proposed building on the Bukit Batok site is shown below. These are just working drafts at the preliminary stage.
10. I will end this narrative with photos of the cornerstones of two TV stations that I took.
11. The future of the Gali Valley mountain block
On October 14, 2020, Channel News Asia reported that the Galle Valley Mountain Broadcasting Center website had been sold by the owner, Mediacorp. The 75,2015 square foot site is marketed by real estate consultants-CB Richard Ellis Real Estate Consulting and Showsuite Consultancy. The property was sold through an open tender, and the deadline for the tender is December 9, 2020.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has approved Mediacorp to redevelop the site into a two-story villa with a land area of at least 800 square meters (8,611 square feet) per house.
In contrast, this is a relatively small land scale. Usually, the minimum land requirement for first-class villas is 1,400 square meters. However, compared with ordinary villas, the area requirements for first-class villas of this specification are double theirs.
The subdivision plan designed by MediaCorp Architects that can accommodate 67 villa plots must be approved by the relevant authorities.
The land is currently zoned for use by citizens and community institutions and will have to be re-planned as residential land; this will require payment of a premium to the state.
The amount of the premium depends on the developers proposal, the time of application, and the evaluation by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) and the Office of the Chief Appraiser.
In addition, this 99-year leasehold land on the island has a remaining lease term of 73 years. This means that the developer also needs to pay the Singapore Land Authority (Singapore Land Authority) a lease difference to renew it for 99 years.
By: Lim Yao Ching Lin Yaoqing
Yao Qing joined Singapore Television in 1997 and is responsible for its property services department, which includes the maintenance of necessary electrical and mechanical infrastructure. Subsequently, he participated in project management and formulated the overall redevelopment plan. He left MediaCorp in 2012 and is currently working as a project management consultant in a consulting firm for infrastructure development.
Disclaimer:
My narration is based on my documentary record, knowledge and information obtained at the working level and on a personal basis. It does not represent the official version of events.