The site revealed..

Now that demolition has finished the true size of the site can be seen.

Preserving a little of Singapores (and UWCSEAs) history

As all of us in Singapore for a while know, history is often measured in decades and not in centuries. For a building to reach into its 50s is a real milestone! with this sort of heritage at hand it is fascinating to look at the "old" building techniques of time gone by and compare with modern practice. For all those that have stopped counting birthdays you will be pleased to note, at least in this context, that the old days were definitely did things better!

We have salvaged many items from the site and we hope to use them with our "heritage cafe" which forms part of the new building. If you have anything that you could donate towards this heritage project, please do get in touch.

Some highlights below:

Bakelite Ceiling Rose with Teak KO Box - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite  Interestingly all the trunking to contain the cables was made of wood!  A good time to be a carpenter (and a fireman) I would of thought.

Not such a clear picture I am afraid but an old fuse box with all porcelin breakers shipped all the way from Birmingham, England and still working after some 40 years until the building was demolished..(I can just hear the collective swelling of national pride)

Even the bricks have a story to tell, here you can see a brick made specially for PUB, we also have bricks from the Alexandria and Jurong brickworks. As Singapore long ago gave the job of making bricks to someone else, they are literally not making these anymore! These will be used to form the walls of the new cafe. More on the brickworks of Singapore at:

http://rememberingsingapore.blogspot.sg/2013/11/alexandra-brickworks.html   

 http://iamtheopium.blogspot.sg/2010/03/still-looking-for-bricks-with-words.html

The old library - I believe in the 1970s, in the latter years it became a staff room (If you are in the photo please do correct me if I am wrong)

The staircase today. Dismantled and ready for reassembly in the new building.

Even the paving stones have some history....If you met your future wife at one of these tables whilst resting on these stones, you may want to consider an anniversary gift?

Demolition Complete (at least the bit you can see)

Phew, we have now completed the demolition of the building above the ground.  The poor building didn't stand a chance! Unfortunately buildings are a little like icebergs and there is still a significant amount of building that we need to extract from the ground..

Above the ground..

Below the ground.....

Bob and other builders visit the Kindergarten.

In support of the K1 unit of inquiry about building and construction, the project team were asked to come and answer some of their questions. See how many you can answer:

1) What is the machine that looks like a dinosaur?

2) How many dump trucks will it take to dig out the new car park

3) Where do the builders sleep at night?

4) What do the different coloured hats mean

Alex, Project Manager, Kim Seng Heng contractors, 30 years in construction, but never too old to pick up some continuing education from the students

 "We get a big machine and it chomps the building up into small pieces with its teeth"

What is that triangle thing with the telescope?

Demolition in Progress

We are taking advantage of the school holiday period to carry out the demolition of the old languages block.  

Perhaps not what you are expecting, the demolition of the building is not so dramatic. We use a excavator fitted with a special jaw which literately chews the building into smaller pieces!

You can see the excavator spraying water on the building to keep the dust down.

The old library and staff room during demolition, the method of demolition is to clear a hole into the building and then rotate and start moving down the building in parallel, a bit like a large pac man.

Day One Progress

Demolition starting on our small Hall..

Completing the temporary road

6 hours to go to finish the road before school opens and it starts to pour down.  Time to deploy a special kind of super hero...