Site visit to Borneo Convention Center

My boss has been trying to set up a site visit to the Sarawak Convention and Exhibition Center for some time, so today was an appropriate time to have go.

The concept for this hall is simple (according to wikipedia) - "The centre’s roof is shaped in the form of a “ririg” leaf, a rainforest plant that plays an important daily role in the local indigenous cultures. Rainwater will automatically be channeled down the central vein of the leaf on the rooftop and collected for irrigation through a sub-surface ecological drainage system."

You can see the entire roof structure sloping towards the large drain to the left of the building.


This is a RM200 million project, so it better be worth what we tax payers pay for it (excluding under table / kopi-O fees, of course). After walking up a large ramp (presumably for VVIPs, such as the Prime Minister of Malaysia), we are greeted by a large entrance.


Its indeed a wonder that Malaysian contractors take a bloody long time to complete this project (compared to their Japanese / Western counterparts), but all seems well so far. Most of the current site work is on the interior finishes, which my colleague is involved in.


Everything here is elegantly painted in white. I am interested to see how long can this building stay white, knowing that anything exposed to our regular torrential rain starts to get dirty after a few years.


This is the interior of one of the smaller banquet rooms, which can be used for wedding functions, etc.

While we were there, the workers were happily listening to japanese anime mp3s. Hmm..


This is the entrance to the largest column-free exhibition space which is 2,500 square meters. The transfer beams to support this hall must be freakin' huge.


Inside the hall is still a mess of concrete dust, timber shavings, steel scaffolding and everything else that is common to a Malaysian construction site. Simply put, we Malaysian don't give a damn about site cleanliness (unlike the Japanese).


Bright lights have been installed to help the workers to do their duties in an otherwise pitch-black environment.


Here is another view of the large ''gutter'' thats supposed to channel rainwater to subsurface drains.


As you can see her, a very literal interpretation of tree-like columns are used to support the large steel roof.


This is a view of the Sarawak River you can see from the terrace of the Convention Center.


As my boss says, seeing a physical product of months of hard labour finally before your eyes is something to look forward to always.


You can imagine that for a building this complicated, it requires miles and miles of mechanical and electrical services.


Other parts of the building dedicated for services are semi-enclosed with steel louvres.


Finally, the building is suspended my numerous pillars to house a large carpark below.


After the visit, we headed off to the Pending Seafood Center for lunch.


''Midin'' is a stirfried vegetable dish unique to Sarawak.


We also had stirfried calamari rings...


... & prawns.


I do not know what is this, but it looks like deep-fried cakes of some sort.


We also had cockles...


and a kind of shell (aptly called ''cucup'' due to the sound you make when you try to suck out it contents).
Hopefully when the Convention Center is finally built, I would be able to get a lovely sunset picture of this building beside the Sarawak River.