At a ceremony held on 26 May the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) awarded the 2010 merit for Excellence in Design and Engineering Safety to Arup, for the design and engineering of the Singapore Flyer. The annual event celebrates excellence in the built environment in the areas of safety, quality, sustainability and user-friendliness.
The engineering-led design of the Singapore Flyer, the world’s largest Giant Observation Wheel, ensured a design for the moving structure that is resilient, comfortable for passengers and aesthetically unique. The result is a two-dimensional ladder truss structure that creates a lightweight and elegant icon for the Singapore skyline.
A small site area coupled with the structure's need to withstand sudden and strong gusts of winds and ensure passenger comfort, made the design of the 165m-tall horizontal wheel particularly complex. Arup provided structural, civil, geotechnical, mechanical, electrical, public health, traffic and fire engineering services for the project, with staff collaborating from Arup offices in Australia, Japan, the UK and Singapore to tackle these and other design challenges.
Using experience gained during the design of the London Eye Arup developed a revolutionary new rim design and cable arrangement that improves the stability of the structure. To overcome the support structure limitations and space constraints on site Arup adopted an innovative vertical erection method in which the wheel was erected in a 'pie slice' fashion, with each segment being rotated until all segments had been installed. Extensive wind research and dynamic modelling was also carried out to ensure the comfort and safety of passengers in windy weather.
“With Arup’s award winning design of The Singapore Flyer, the landmark has become a globally recognisable Singapore icon that contributes not only to tourism efforts, but also stands integral to the landscaping of the new Marina Bay waterfront,” says Jeff Tan, Director of Sales and Marketing, Singapore Flyer.
Groundbreaking was held in September 2005 and the Flyer was officially opened in April 2008 by Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong. Other engineering awards garnered by the Singapore landmark include the ‘Green Mark Award’ in 2007 by BCA, the ‘Structural Steel Design Award’ in 2007 by the Singapore Structural Steel Society, and the ‘Design Excellence Award’ in 2009 by the Association of Consulting Engineers Singapore.