Fire Examination of Superhigh-Rise Apartment Building "Wooshin Golden Suites" in Busan, Korea

Abstract

With rapid advance of construction technology, buildings have become much larger and higher. East Asian cities also have a forest of superhigh-rise buildings backed by their economic development. With many buildings, cities changed their skylines and superhigh-rise buildings with characteristic appearance are now regarded as the landmark of the city. As superhigh-rise buildings are built by fully integrating state-of-the-art construction technology, construction of superhigh-rise buildings and formation of cities having those tall buildings represent the technological or economic strength of the nation. In fact many people believe they are the symbol of the nation. To give some examples of superhigh-rise building fires in recent years, there are cases including destruction of World Trade Center by terrorism in New York, USA in 2001, Windsor building fire in Madrid, Spain in 2005 and CCTV high-rise building fire in Beijing, China in 2009 among others. As seen in these examples, fires in superhighrise buildings often burnt down and entirely destroyed the building, and yet the overcrowding trend of cities seems to continue. Under such circumstances, South Korea entered the rush to build superhigh-rise residential buildings in 1990s mainly in Seoul starting with the construction of 30-story residential building in early 1990s. Eventually in 2000s, buildings principally designed for residential use including superhigh-rise residential and commercial complexes or officetels (buildings with units that can be used as either office or house) became higher than 70 stories. South Korea shows different tendency from other advanced nations in situations that led to build superhigh-rise buildings. The reasons are described here.