OTGV #18 - Jets & Flats
Broadcasted on 25/11/02
Singapore used to have civilian airports right in middle of the island.
As the population grew, the airport gets displaced by residential areas, from Kallang to Paya Lebar then finally to Changi.
However, there are some airports which can't be easily moved for national security reasons -- these are the military airports.
Hi, welcome to On the Grapevine with me Chong Ching Liang.
"I'm sitting in a park off Jurong St 65, under normal circumstances a very quiet, peaceful place where you can scarcely hear the noise of traffic. Occasionally, you can hear the sound of children playing, laughing."
But this remarkable peace is sometimes interrupted according to a couple of residents who spoke.
"It's very noisy because the very sound you know. Sometimes go up no noisy. Sometimes go very low right? That time very noisy. Saturday, Sunday only the children are home, that people no work. That time flight also going very low lah. That time very noisy. Some people take rest in the afternoon. That time also very problem you know."
"The jet planes sometimes disturb the surroundings. My small brother sleeps ah, they have to wake up when they hear the jet planes. Very noisy ah. It's very loud lah. Like so loud that even when baby sleeping still can wake up. It often happens. er, one week five times. [So is there anyway you all can stop the noise from coming to your house?] I think not possible lah."
An Australian acoustic designer Michael Dowsett is amazed that residential flats are built in areas like Jurong West or Paya Lebar at all.
"to be completely blunt and honest, from a planning point of view, the apartment should not have been build there is the simple answer. And in fact, planning control really should exist that really prevent all control of non-compatible land use. And in fact, a number of countries do have that kind of experience of that kind of legislation in place. In fact, in Australia there is an Australian standard that specifies design around the airport where you cannot build residential dwellings. if you are inside certain noise contour, you are forbidden basically to build a residential dwelling area. [9 mins 55 secs] If you are within the zone, you can build but with special acoustic treatment."
Non-compatible land use.
But in land-scarce Singapore, such luxuries are not available.
To be fair, the landing and take off path of the Tengah Air Base F-16s didn't always go over the Jurong West estates.
The jets used to go the other way until Malaysia closed the airspace.
So now we have a slight problem of unsold flats in Jurong West HDB precincts.
The flats are remarkably designed, some with wonderful balconies and huge windows.
But for Michael Dowsett, this constitute a design problem that increases sound.
"It is possible to design in appropriate noise controls depending on the noise source. In this rather extreme case of the F-16s, it really means that the apartments need to be air-conditioned. You can’t have natural ventilation and good acoustic performances. in that situation with the aircraft noise, it really should be brick house concrete or double brick really to sort of get a higher level of treatment. The maximum that you can really get from the double glass that we talk about is a 50 decibels reduction. That’s sort of the limiting factor."
So I ask John Ting, President of Singapore Institute of Architects if Singapore architects design blindly without taking into account the overall environment.
"I am glad you [brought] up this point because we have to get a good balance of the openness in the housing unit to the outside so get air flow and light coming through. At the same time as you said you want the ambient place to be comfortable even for noise level. now you can solve that problem through design also. If you design the balcony probably, you can actually deflect some of the sound out of the unit."
How bad is the noise?
So I visited one of the flats and sample the phenomenon of the passing jets.
"[Sound of TV sets on in the living room.] This is the ambient sound of the home with the TV set on. This is the sound of the jets flying pass the home.[Sound of jets over the TV sound and the ambient sound]"
But there may be some aural reprieve.
The Member of Parliament for the area, Minister of State for Defence, Cedric Foo says there's a possibility of using double glazed windows to shut out the sound.
Of course, to that effectively, it means a fully air-conditioned unit, something that will wreaked havoc with the wallet in such tough recessionary times.
Architect John Ting says one must strike a compromise.
"Of course in the hospital we do that because the room is air-conditioned. Now in the residential unit, you can design the balcony in such a way to deflect some of the noise out instead of reflecting them into the unit. Secondly, if you don't want to close the windows all the time, you can introduce fabrics, thick curtains that are maybe eye-level height so that you still get air coming in, and light coming in but the noise is cut down. Thirdly of course, like you said, we can introduce double glazing into all housing units also so that you can choose to open the window partially and cut down the noise by closing some of the windows."
But it is not that the residents in Jurong West or Paya Lebar are constantly petitioning the government to shut down Tengah or Paya Lebar air base.
While they may be irate about the noise but they are aware of the essential role the F-16 fighters play in protecting the country.
For this, Mr Cedric Foo is grateful that they recognised that the planes are not like a bunch of kids playing football into the middle of the night.
Perhaps, the architects and builders of Singaporean homes must help to solve this problem by introducing appropriate design controls at the pre-construction stage,
and not wait till complaints or sluggish sales come about before thinking about highly expensive retrofitting with sound-proofing materials.
This is Chong Ching Liang for Newsradio 938.
===========================
Related Websites:
Newsradio938
http://newsradio.mediacorpradio.com/
Singapore used to have civilian airports right in middle of the island.
As the population grew, the airport gets displaced by residential areas, from Kallang to Paya Lebar then finally to Changi.
However, there are some airports which can't be easily moved for national security reasons -- these are the military airports.
Hi, welcome to On the Grapevine with me Chong Ching Liang.
"I'm sitting in a park off Jurong St 65, under normal circumstances a very quiet, peaceful place where you can scarcely hear the noise of traffic. Occasionally, you can hear the sound of children playing, laughing."
But this remarkable peace is sometimes interrupted according to a couple of residents who spoke.
"It's very noisy because the very sound you know. Sometimes go up no noisy. Sometimes go very low right? That time very noisy. Saturday, Sunday only the children are home, that people no work. That time flight also going very low lah. That time very noisy. Some people take rest in the afternoon. That time also very problem you know."
"The jet planes sometimes disturb the surroundings. My small brother sleeps ah, they have to wake up when they hear the jet planes. Very noisy ah. It's very loud lah. Like so loud that even when baby sleeping still can wake up. It often happens. er, one week five times. [So is there anyway you all can stop the noise from coming to your house?] I think not possible lah."
An Australian acoustic designer Michael Dowsett is amazed that residential flats are built in areas like Jurong West or Paya Lebar at all.
"to be completely blunt and honest, from a planning point of view, the apartment should not have been build there is the simple answer. And in fact, planning control really should exist that really prevent all control of non-compatible land use. And in fact, a number of countries do have that kind of experience of that kind of legislation in place. In fact, in Australia there is an Australian standard that specifies design around the airport where you cannot build residential dwellings. if you are inside certain noise contour, you are forbidden basically to build a residential dwelling area. [9 mins 55 secs] If you are within the zone, you can build but with special acoustic treatment."
Non-compatible land use.
But in land-scarce Singapore, such luxuries are not available.
To be fair, the landing and take off path of the Tengah Air Base F-16s didn't always go over the Jurong West estates.
The jets used to go the other way until Malaysia closed the airspace.
So now we have a slight problem of unsold flats in Jurong West HDB precincts.
The flats are remarkably designed, some with wonderful balconies and huge windows.
But for Michael Dowsett, this constitute a design problem that increases sound.
"It is possible to design in appropriate noise controls depending on the noise source. In this rather extreme case of the F-16s, it really means that the apartments need to be air-conditioned. You can’t have natural ventilation and good acoustic performances. in that situation with the aircraft noise, it really should be brick house concrete or double brick really to sort of get a higher level of treatment. The maximum that you can really get from the double glass that we talk about is a 50 decibels reduction. That’s sort of the limiting factor."
So I ask John Ting, President of Singapore Institute of Architects if Singapore architects design blindly without taking into account the overall environment.
"I am glad you [brought] up this point because we have to get a good balance of the openness in the housing unit to the outside so get air flow and light coming through. At the same time as you said you want the ambient place to be comfortable even for noise level. now you can solve that problem through design also. If you design the balcony probably, you can actually deflect some of the sound out of the unit."
How bad is the noise?
So I visited one of the flats and sample the phenomenon of the passing jets.
"[Sound of TV sets on in the living room.] This is the ambient sound of the home with the TV set on. This is the sound of the jets flying pass the home.[Sound of jets over the TV sound and the ambient sound]"
But there may be some aural reprieve.
The Member of Parliament for the area, Minister of State for Defence, Cedric Foo says there's a possibility of using double glazed windows to shut out the sound.
Of course, to that effectively, it means a fully air-conditioned unit, something that will wreaked havoc with the wallet in such tough recessionary times.
Architect John Ting says one must strike a compromise.
"Of course in the hospital we do that because the room is air-conditioned. Now in the residential unit, you can design the balcony in such a way to deflect some of the noise out instead of reflecting them into the unit. Secondly, if you don't want to close the windows all the time, you can introduce fabrics, thick curtains that are maybe eye-level height so that you still get air coming in, and light coming in but the noise is cut down. Thirdly of course, like you said, we can introduce double glazing into all housing units also so that you can choose to open the window partially and cut down the noise by closing some of the windows."
But it is not that the residents in Jurong West or Paya Lebar are constantly petitioning the government to shut down Tengah or Paya Lebar air base.
While they may be irate about the noise but they are aware of the essential role the F-16 fighters play in protecting the country.
For this, Mr Cedric Foo is grateful that they recognised that the planes are not like a bunch of kids playing football into the middle of the night.
Perhaps, the architects and builders of Singaporean homes must help to solve this problem by introducing appropriate design controls at the pre-construction stage,
and not wait till complaints or sluggish sales come about before thinking about highly expensive retrofitting with sound-proofing materials.
This is Chong Ching Liang for Newsradio 938.
===========================
Related Websites:
Newsradio938
http://newsradio.mediacorpradio.com/
posted by CHONG Ching-liang | 2:34 PM
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