Minimizing problems and maximizing benefits from underground space use

Abstract

For thousands of years, humans have used the underground for many purposes and we are now in an era when such uses are becoming more important to support our living patterns, our material needs and to improve the sustainability of our way of life. Many underground facilities serve their intended function well and have proven to have long lifetimes. Some have not been so successful for a variety of reasons or have been retired as no longer meeting the original purpose and not being suitable for conversion to another purpose. While the difference between success and failure is often tied to the specifics of a particular project, this paper seeks to extract some of the general principles that underlie the benefits or drawbacks of different types of underground space uses and how to maximize “success”. The paper is a mixture of the general and the specific because both play a role in success. The paper draws significantly from a recent study of the “lessons learned” from 42 worldwide underground facilities with an average of over 37 years of service mixed with other observations by the author from a career of studying underground space use and underground construction technologies.

Keywords

Underground space / Design / Life cycle / Evaluation

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Declaration of competing interest

Dr. Raymond L. Sterling is an honorary editor-in-chief for Underground Space and was not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article. The author declares that there are no competing interests.

Acknowledgement

This paper draws from multiple sources. As has been pointed out in the paper, a major source of information for this paper was the lessons learned study funded and conducted by Surbana Jurong (SJ) Consultants Pte Ltd, Singapore. Key participants from SJ working with myself on the study were Thomas Tang, Richard Ting and Clayton Wong. The study also was made possible, however, by the willingness of owners, managers, operators, planners, architects and engineers to take the time to share their experiences with their facilities - both specifically for this study and over many years of formal and informal discussions about underground space uses.

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