Former LH executives and employees connected to thirteen of the fifteen architectural firms that left out steel bars[Exclusive]

An underground parking lot of an apartment in Geomdan, Incheon collapsed after essential steel bars were left out during construction. On July 5, GS Engineering & Construction, the company in charge of construction, announced plans to completely rebuild the entire apartment complex where the accident occurred. Thus, a total of 1,666 units in seventeen buildings will be rebuilt. Yonhap News

Most of the architectural firms that designed fifteen public housing complexes constructed without essential steel bars had hired former employees of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH). The reason the steel bars were missing was mostly because of errors in the design, raising suspicions about the housing corporation’s responsibility in selecting the firms.

According to a joint analysis by the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice and the Kyunghyang Shinmun on August 1, the architectural firms of thirteen of the fifteen complexes where the problem was discovered had connections with former LH employees and executives--former LH employees were either still working there or had worked as the CEO or senior executive for a long time.

Ten complexes were missing steel bars because of problems in the building design, and at least eight architectural firms overseeing these complexes had ties with former LH executives, including the SI Architecture Design Group, which designed the a34 complex in Unjeong, Paju, and Eardam, which designed the complex in Dangsu, Suwon.

The errors by the design firms can be broadly categorized as errors in structural calculation, missing calculations, missing details in the architectural drawings, and omissions in drawings and specifications for the report on the commencement of the construction work. In the case of calculation errors, the value that the structural designer input is likely to have been incorrect. Missing structural calculations mean the calculation itself was omitted. Missing details in the architectural drawings and omissions in drawings and specifications when reporting the commencement of the construction work refer to mistakes that occurred in the process of marking the calculated values on other drawings.

Orders placed as a favor to former LH executives, which hinder competition in technical skills, are cited as one of several reasons for such wide-spread poor performance. Ahn Hong-seob, a professor of architectural engineering at Kunsan National University said, “When a bid is placed for architectural design or supervision, companies go all out to lobby the people reviewing the candidates. It is the general view in the industry that for project orders made by LH, it is favorable when former LH employees jump into sales.” Park Moon-seo, a professor of architecture at Seoul National University also said, “Technical skills should be key, but in the bidding today, prices and lobbying are the main factors.”

On Monday, the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice requested an audit for public interest claiming that a company with connections to LH obtained most of the work in a private contract for architectural designs in a project in Geomdan, Incheon--a project commissioned by LH.

Currently, in the design process, when a working-level junior employee who handles the structural design makes the calculations to acquire values using a computer, a higher-ranking middle manager and ultimately the director of the architectural design firm have to check for any errors. But in the field, it appears they failed to detect the initial errors during the review. Some argue that the reason such problems occur so often is because the firms are not able to assign enough human resources to the task, because the unit cost is set too low for the entire designing process including structural designs.

Lee Eun-hyung, a researcher at the Korea Research Institute for Construction Policy, said, “The standard construction cost applied to buildings like public rental housing is low, so they handle the design and structural design with too little money.” Professor Park Moon-seo said, “Since the unit cost for skilled technical manpower is low, work can be handled poorly as one person takes on the work that should be handled by two people.” He also said, “Another problem is the skills of structural design engineers, who rely too heavily on computer systems due to the recent advances in technology.”

Tuesday, President Yoon spoke on the apartment complexes missing necessary steel bars and said, “The fundamental cause is the cartel of interests in the construction industry,” and argued, “No innovation or reforms will be possible unless we eliminate the cartel of interests, the cartel of corruption.” Earlier, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong also mentioned a cartel of interests on construction sites and announced plans to report companies linked to LH, such as architectural firms, if any illegal activity was uncovered. Strong measures seem likely for companies that hired former LH employees.

LH distributed a press release and said, “There have been countless internal and external inspections (audits) in the past, and there was no case of illegal activities concerning favors for former employees and executives.” The company further said, “After the implementation of LH innovation plans and the enforcement of the Act on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest Related to Duties of Public Servants in 2021, we have actively blocked any possibility of interests getting involved, such as favors for former employees and executives, by composing a review board completely (100%) of outside figures when selecting service providers.”