The cultural complex building is located in the centre of Kuala Lumpur. The structure was built in 1893 as the Victoria Institution and had deteriorated over time due to human activity, weathering and a fire damage in 1999. The building was upgraded in an adaptive reuse of a cultural heritage building into an auditorium.
JTK Consult (JTK) undertook the structural condition survey and provided the corresponding remedial design. A comprehensive redesign was required to achieve the adaptive reuse requirements. This included redesigning the roof structure such that intermediate columns could be removed. To keep to the period of construction and the heritage requirements, the roof support system was redesigned in keeping with a structure designed and built by the same architect in the 1890s, the St Mary’s Church. Following an intensive materials study, JTK provided the necessary upgrading requirements while maintaining the historical significance of the structure and supervised the upgrading works. This included reinsting the bell tower to its original design based on historical photos, underpinning of the foundation to overcome localised settlement and structurally reinstating the masonry arches by pinning the cracked sections with steel rods and a structural grade epoxy. The intervention was awarded a silver medal of excellance by the Association of Consulting Engineers.
Heritage Structures and Sustainability:
structural audit, supervision work
Datuk Ir Joseph M Rajaratnam :
Board Director
Datuk Ir Rajaratnam has over 50 years of experience in the engineering industry. He has worked in Malaysia and South Africa holding senior management positions in Jabatan Telekom Malaysia, Telekom Malaysia Berhad and Telkom South Africa respectively over the period August 1964 to June 2002. He was instrumental in establishing and developing staff training facilities and programmes for Telkom South Africa and while at Telekom Malaysia was intimately involved in developing new infrastructure facilities including buildings to house the growing Telcom business.
Since joining JTK Consult as Director, he has used his in depth understanding of the built environment garnered over several years of management and implementation of construction projects throughout Malaysia in supporting the JTK consultancy. Besides overseeing JTK projects, he also undertakes peer reviews and acts as a critique to ensure that our projects are not only delivered to the highest standards but also are appropriate for the requirements at hand and are technically sound.
Dr Kribanandan : Managing Director
Dr Kribanandan has a keen interest in design, materials technology and forensics in civil engineering. He has, over the years, built a wealth of knowledge and experience in value engineering, construction and technical risk management, concrete technology, forensic engineering, the appropriate use of NDT diagnostic tools, undertaking durability assurance audits and design life prediction for an entire spectrum of buildings and civil structures. He also often acts as an expert in dispute resolution.
Starting his career with Taylor Woodrow in the UK, he then spent three years in southern Africa working as a consultant to the Botswana Technology Centre where he focused on harnessing alternative and appropriate technologies for design and construction including considerations in Rain water harvesting, Ferro cement technology, Earth construction, and Passive solar design in projects ranging from housing and office buildings to product development for construction.
He returned to Malaysia in 1993 as technical manager and then director of Taywood Engineering, a subsidiary of Taylor Woodrow, covering Singapore and Malaysia. He was responsible for setting up and developing Taylor Woodrow’s unique Design and Technology consultancy in Malaysia and in this capacity delivered projects over a wide geographic area including in the UK, Middle East, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. In 2001, following a management buyout, Taywood Engineering merged with JTK Consult and he assumed the role of managing director.
He is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (MICE) UK and a member of the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (MIEM). He represented Malaysia in the ISO Committee TC59/SC14 on Design Life of Buildings and chaired the local committee spearheading the implementation of this new standard. He was the founding president of the American Concrete Institute KL Chapter and has been on the steering committee for the conference series on durability of building materials and components (DBMC) which is held every 3 years since the 10th DBMC in 2007. He has published extensively and is the author of over 250 Technical Reports in various aspects of engineering.