The PETRONAS Twin Towers

The idea to build the twin towers was issued by former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who realized Malaysia is the less known among five of Southeast-Asia countries to the world. Since then, the PETRONAS took the challenge to develop the PETRONAS Twin Towers in 1991. The project that became a symbol of Malaysian pride and modernity was a carefully planned development to provide the capital city with an efficient and sophisticated center for urban activity, trade and commerce encircling a vast, open green lung. It brought together the world’s leading practitioners of engineering, building technology and construction.

            The Twin Towers were planned to be built on the site of the former Selangor Turf Club, the Kuala Lumpur race track which was flat, green land. However, the proposed site was configured to be unstable due to the irregularities of the limestone bedrock down under and located at the edge of a cliff. The structure engineer, Charlie Thornton together with the developer decided to move the location 60m southeast of the initial site to achieve better support. The towers were built on the world’s deepest foundations of 120 meters within 12 months by Bachy Soletanche. The basement was continuously poured with 13,200 cubic meters of concrete for more than 52 hours in order to eliminate construction joints in the pile mat and achieve a smooth finish.

            The 88-storeys towers of breathtaking 452 meters height are uniquely built by two construction companies where Tower 1 were built by Japanese consortium, the Hazama Corporation while Tower 2 by the Korean contractors, Samsung C&T and Kukdong Engineering

& Construction. The Tower 1 led by foremen Bob Pratt and foremen Jon Dunsford at Tower 2. The project construction took about 6 years to complete from early March 1993 until December 1999 after a push back about eight months in 1992 because of the unsatisfied design. At the end the PETRONAS Twin Towers has made it a unique and glorious mega structure.

Project Management Overview

Scope                          : two towers, 88-storeys, connecting bridge, pinnacles on top, glass

  window, Malaysian design inspired by Islamic art, tallest building

Time frame                 : 6 years from early March 1993 until December 1999

Cost                             : USD$ 760 million

Quality                         : a symbol of Malaysian pride and modernity to provide the capital city

                                      with an efficient and sophisticated center for urban activity, trade and

                                      commerce

Project Manager         : Bob Pratt (Tower 1), Jon Dunsford (Tower 2), Charlie Thornton (chief

  engineer)

Project Owner             : PETRONAS, KLCCB

Stakeholder                 : Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, PETRONAS< KLCCB, Bovis Land Lease,

                                      Otis Lifts, Cesar Pelli and Djay Cerico (Julius Gold Consultant), Bachy

                                      Solantache (French and local companies, Dragages-Bachy-First

                                      Nationwide Sdn. Bhd, Domo Obiasse and colleagues Aris Battista and

                                      Princess D Battista (structural framework design), Bob Pratt, Jon

  Dunsford, Charlie Thornton, Charlie Chelliah (logistic manager), Krish

  Krisnaswami (concrete supervisor), Wong Chin Fung (floor construction

  manager)

Contractors                 : Hazama Corporation (Tower 1), Samsung C&T and Kukdong

                                      Engineering & Construction (Tower 2)

Constraints                  : push back of 8 months because of the unsatisfied towers design,

                                      Unstable bedrock, heavy rain, aggressive weather, strong wind,

                                      Lack of light steels, tender concrete