CONSTRUCTION SEASONS IN SINGAPORE

I read about construction excellence by Japanese and Swiss and wonder why modern Singapore can't achieve this.

THE REASONS ARE SIMPLE:

1. Four seasons define the milestone of their construction work. For example, your windows need to be fitted on site before winter comes. Failing to do so, materials in and outside the building may crack and collapse.

2. Workers mostly have to speak 1 language. The Swiss construction excellence is usually about the Swiss German community. In Singapore, large construction site require 7 languages to express safety measures.

3. Tradesmen are trained formally before allowed to be on site.

We only want to talk about season as milestone in Singapore. We all know that Tropical season are impromptu : rain , hot, hotter and really hottest.

Culturally in the construction industry, there maybe more definitive seasons that are related to temperate 4 seasons.

SINGAPORE SEASONS :

A. Christmas, New Year and Chinese New year. Let us call this XNYCNY. Singapore having a strong Chinese community obviously celebrates Chinese New Year the largest. It is about spring time and reunion. Our operational business language is English so Christmas becomes a western favourite although Easter is not that significant as Christmas celebration here. During this period of XNYCNY which spans about 3-4 months period and entire Singapore community see them as favorite completion date. This creates a manpower crunch. This period therefore spans between winter and start of spring.

B. Chinese Lunar 7th month sometimes known as ghost month. Somewhat like western Season of Hallo or Halloween. It is taboo to start construction work on the first day of seventh month. It is also commonly better to start before this month and end off by December because of the manpower crunch during the XNYCNY. It is also believed that accidents happen during this month. I reckon in fact, accidents spans between 7th month to Halloween. This falls some time during the Fall harvest month.

C. Months between are sub divided by the 7th month.

You can see from here Singapore although tropical and non agricultural, have their working months defined by temperate culture celebrations.

Construction projects usually fall is an SMLXL category.

S = 3 - 4 months usually a retail shop or restaurant should begin latest at end of 7th month and concluding by December.

M = 8 - 9 months usually a small residential house should start construction in march and end in December.

L= 2.5 year usually large size multi storey building need to avoid as many XNYCNY so make sense to start in march.

XL should do the same as large projects but can also be extremely long like the Esplanade or Woodsville interchange.

Singapore seasons are also further defined by temperate 4 seasons because almost everything in Singapore is imported. It involves products from Europe and China. Certain season are too hot or too cold for certain trades. China also culturally rest on the month of the lunar new year.

PLAN YOUR TIME LIKE A GERMAN OR JAPANESE

If your are planning to build something in Singapore you should plan your timing to these requirements. You should not just look at construction period as numbers but instead as working periods. Meaning to say if your construction period is 9 month long but crosses XNYCNY  the you need to factor an extra 3-4 months into it.

When you factor an extra 3 - 4 months the project becomes less profitable and more expensive for builder and owner.

In short, when planning things in Singapore, plan it like your are in a temperate climate.