Recently, a series of horrible, tragic accidents with many casualties shocked the entire nation of Korea. The poor awareness on safety and safety control system of the country are to be blamed for those tragedies. Since the enactment of the Construction Law, there have been tremendous changes in terms of the construction system, including the new ‘Professional Engineer’ system as a new institution. However, the final authority and responsibility for designing the structure of the building still resides in the hands of the architect who are not experts of the issue, just as they were when the Construction Law was first introduced. In the construction process and the maintenance phase, too, the technicians are of supportive roles, lacking the authority as the designer or the power of the supervisor. Such an improper legal system resulted in negligence with the structural safety and misconceived ideas on safety, leading to tragic and fatal accidents such as the roof-collapse of Manua Resort and the Officetel collapse of Asan Techno Valley.
Since 2002, the departments of architecture in Universities of Korea changed their academic systems to divide the departments into Architectural Departments and Architectural Engineering Departments, which significantly separates the function and aesthetical aspects of building from the structure and constructional aspects.
The hours of education for structure provided to ‘architects’ is dwindling. However, the education and training provided to the would-be structural engineers is ever deepening, and it still requires years of field experience to finally be qualifed as a constructional technician. However, after such profound trainings, the reality of Korean construction law does not allow such experts to take full charge of the structural safety of the building.
In most other countries, it is the structural engineers who are endowed with the authorities and responsibilities during the designing and the supervision phases for the structural integrity of buildings. Even if the architects still could function as the overall organizers and take charge of the aesthetic aspects of a building, they leave the safety of the building only in the qualified structural engineers.
It is very heart-breaking to witness such tragic recent accidents in Korea. Now, it is time to throw away collectivism and economy-centered logics to make the wrongs of the past right. The normalization of the abnormal in terms of the construction safety must be realized at any cost.