Sampoong Department Store Collapse - Building Overview

Building Overview

The Sampoong Group began construction of the Sampoong Department Store in 1987 over a tract of land previously used as a landfill. Originally designed as a residential apartment with four floors, it was changed to a large department store during its construction by Lee Joon, the future chairman of the building. This involved cutting away a number of support columns in order to install escalators. When the original contractors refused to carry out these changes, Lee ignored and fired them and hired his own building company for the construction.

The building was completed in late 1989, and the Sampoong Department Store opened to the public on July 7, 1990, attracting an estimated 40,000 people per day during the building's five years of existence. The store consisted of north and south wings, connected by an atrium.

Later on, a fifth floor was added, which was first planned to be a skating rink to comply with zoning regulations that prevented the whole building from being used as a department store. Lee changed the original plan for the fifth floor to include eight restaurants instead. When a construction company tasked to complete the extension advised that the structure would not support another floor, they were fired, and another company was hired to complete the project. The restaurant floor also had a heated concrete base with hot water pipes going through it, as patrons sit on the floor of traditional Korean restaurants, which added a large extra load due to the increase in thickness of the concrete slab.

In addition, the building's air conditioning unit was installed on the roof, creating a load of four times the design limit. Two years before the collapse, the air conditioning units were moved across the delicate roof, which is where the cracking started. The units were moved over the column 5E from which the most visible cracks in the floor of the fifth level were seen before the collapse.