Question lang mga CE tsikoteers sirs...

A 2 storey house with firewall on 1 side hence the columns are eccentric, if the 2nd floor slab is 4.8M from the footing, do I need a strap/tie beam in addition to the ground floor beam/wall footing?

My architect says we don't need anymore so that I can save money he says, but I am not comfy.

The plan has a drawing of a tie beam but the structural analysis he says does not provide for one. The plan drawings were done by another architect and the struct analysis was done by a CE and also revised the steel requirement from 8pcs 16mm/column to 8pcs 20mm/column. Isn't this an overdesign? The steel diff alone is worth another 300k.