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Media coverage featuring Scott Chen, alongside his own writing on engineering, construction and the built environment.
Reporting & interviews
Reporting and interviews published by media organisations, featuring Scott Chen’s engineering expertise.
Media feature
The New York Times
432 Park Avenue · New York
Scott Chen was interviewed and quoted in The New York Times’ reporting on the structural issues at 432 Park Avenue.
Read in The New York TimesExpert commentary
ABC News
McCrae landslide · Victoria
ABC News quoted Scott Chen on landslide risk on the Mornington Peninsula, including drainage, slope stabilisation and monitoring.
“Mornington Peninsula has a well-documented history of landslides.”
Scott Chen · Civil Engineer
Radio interviews
Conversations with Scott Chen on building safety, structural failures and construction.English summaries · Original interviews in Mandarin
Scott discusses factors behind the rapid spread of the Hong Kong fire and the Australian approach to building safety.
An interview on potential causes of building collapse in the Türkiye earthquake and seismic provisions in Australian building standards.
Scott joins a talkback discussion on the skills and practical preparation needed to take on an owner-builder project.
Scott explains the preliminary engineering findings on cracking at Sydney’s Opal Tower and their implications for building quality.
A discussion of delays, extended waiting periods and the additional costs that can arise in house-and-land packages.
Scott outlines contract issues to consider before paying a deposit or committing to a house-and-land package.
Written by Scott Chen
Scott’s own analysis, professional commentary and observations from practice. Full text, figures and videos are available here.
Before relocating to Australia, I spent a significant chapter of my engineering career in Shanghai, China—a megacity built on challenging deep soft alluvial clay, dealing with high water tables, and home to some of the…
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As a registered Civil/Structural Engineer and Builder in Tasmania, I have been involved in a range of slope and embankment stabilisation projects across the state, together with associated building remediation and structural…
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I recently came across the structural drawings for a childcare centre in Victoria.
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I’ve been working across the NSW building industry for years — as an engineer, a licensed builder, a project manager, and more recently, as an SBBIS inspector.
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Looking at my UNSW civil engineering intern’s timetable, I was genuinely stunned. He can have two weekdays a week with virtually no scheduled classes. For a civil engineering undergraduate program, that is simply unbelievable.
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I was reviewing a complex façade package recently when the inevitable ‘finger-pointing’ began.
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The same deep excavation, two different states, and two completely different levels of safety. Victoria has had a "firewall" in place for decades: Protection Works (Part 7 of the Building Act 1993). As an engineer practising…
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I was recently called to a circa 1920s weatherboard home in Albion for a structural forensic investigation. What I found was a textbook case of "renovation gone wrong"—and a lucky escape for the homeowner.
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As a veteran Forensic Engineer and Project Superintendent in NSW, I’ve been closely monitoring the evolution of our building laws. Recently, two landmark cases have fundamentally redefined the landscape for Owners Corporations…
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As a forensic engineer, I deal with defective and distressed buildings on an almost daily basis. Developers, owners' corporations, property managers and strata managers often ask me very direct questions:
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As a civil structural engineer dealing with stone and concrete every single day, I’ve always been fascinated by one simple yet profound idea:
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Over the past few months, I’ve been involved in a project in Timor-Leste that once again proved a simple truth in structural engineering:
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