Foreword: I apologize for the untidiness of the first post but the internet was working so badly and I had planned so badly that post that it was bound to happen. As a very quick summary I’d like to tell you that in the first 2 days we met the client, Lydia, went for a first visit to the site and then had a few rides around to get the feeling for the country.
The natural beauty of the landscape is perfectly complemented by the friendliness of it’s People, that are warm and welcoming although poor and very needing. They seem to have a great appreciation for Queen Victoria’s role as alley to their King Mashoeshoe in establishing Lesotho as an independent country! But I divert… The country’s mountain/desert like landscape is unique and produces an effect that is really difficult to explain. Charming and peaceful, that is only broken when you remember how poorly and disease infested these people have to live their lives. Aids is a real problem and with it the ageing of the population becomes an issue that will be hard to tackle leaving more and more children in the hands of elderly women. The Centre as I’ve explained is for children which are even in a worse situation, they’ve been abused or maltreated.
On our small drive we found several examples of traditional forms and were enchanted as much by them as by the landscape. They occupy always prime sites and are built with simple but lasting details, decorated or not but always with an impeccable feel of pride and achievement. Despite these examples, most of the people live in miserable tin roof shacks, the situation of the housing estate is alarming. Yes there are some well built buildings to be found only in Maseru, but those are for the elite, built in total contrast with the housing of the poor. These better houses are surrounded by barb-wire and normally guarded 24 hours by private security. The quality of the others is honestly a problem, walls are badly built and cracked, infra-structures poor or inexistent, the sizes of some of them were as Martin said “smaller than a toilet” (in the UK). Building techniques are still very basic and it was not once that we saw, presumably for a “better house” a double skin wall of brick being built but not even a cavity between or an attempt to tie both walls together.
I think I’ll leave my apologies at that and go on to today’s report.
Report 1
We started the survey and after not long Problems which are many and some of them not that easy to fix where found;
The floor slab in the east part of the building has partially collapsed and is now pushing the retaining wall outwards, the builder tried to fix this and introduced buttresses that are only tied to the non-bearing part of the walls therefore doing nothing. This is our main problem.
Another serious issue is the fact that the building has differences of up to 700mm in the floor levels and the ceiling heights, this means the introduction of level changes and a complicated roof system.
Both the plumbing and the electrical provisions are badly made and in the wrong position. Then there’s finally another major problem, there is only one exit from the building so in the case of a fire or a disaster many could get trapped.
In order to fix these and to try and elevate the general value of the project we have started to think about creating a cloister that would deal with the distribution, creating at the same time a shaded and protected space for the children within the courtyard. Breaking up the building, introducing movement/expansion joints, and using the septic tank to build an embankment and prop up the building would solve a big part of the structural problems of this building. Part of the slabs might have to be re-casted but by keeping most of the building we might manage to keep the final cost of finishing it low and also the have the time to do it.
Another problem to be solved has to do with the servicing of the different spaces, electrical and plumbing provisions are insufficient.
Big part of the discussion has been is whether there is any point in trying to keep what was made. The problem is that if we don’t do it the investors might get scared and cut the funding. At the same time the children need it finished so to restart puts a lot of unnecessary stress on Lydia and the kids. And a restart would obviously bring up multiple other options. Ex. Opening of the building to the Lanscape.
However with a clever intervention it is possible to re-use a big part of the building, making some adjustments to both the program and the spaces in order to still have a chance of finishing it within the original time scale.
A slightly more radical approach making bigger changes both structurally, formal a programmatically pose moral/programmatic issue. Whether one should use a form, that is so full of meaning within the vernacular culture of these people, for another purpose/space. This might be a question that is not a problem, because Lydia (the client) might not feel strongly about it, for she had already proposed to use one of these Rondavlos(circular space, original shape of the Lesotho traditional house) as an office space. However now the issue is the other way around, to put one of the rooms for the children not in one of the Rondavlos but in one of the square link blocks?
The natural beauty of the landscape is perfectly complemented by the friendliness of it’s People, that are warm and welcoming although poor and very needing. They seem to have a great appreciation for Queen Victoria’s role as alley to their King Mashoeshoe in establishing Lesotho as an independent country! But I divert… The country’s mountain/desert like landscape is unique and produces an effect that is really difficult to explain. Charming and peaceful, that is only broken when you remember how poorly and disease infested these people have to live their lives. Aids is a real problem and with it the ageing of the population becomes an issue that will be hard to tackle leaving more and more children in the hands of elderly women. The Centre as I’ve explained is for children which are even in a worse situation, they’ve been abused or maltreated.
On our small drive we found several examples of traditional forms and were enchanted as much by them as by the landscape. They occupy always prime sites and are built with simple but lasting details, decorated or not but always with an impeccable feel of pride and achievement. Despite these examples, most of the people live in miserable tin roof shacks, the situation of the housing estate is alarming. Yes there are some well built buildings to be found only in Maseru, but those are for the elite, built in total contrast with the housing of the poor. These better houses are surrounded by barb-wire and normally guarded 24 hours by private security. The quality of the others is honestly a problem, walls are badly built and cracked, infra-structures poor or inexistent, the sizes of some of them were as Martin said “smaller than a toilet” (in the UK). Building techniques are still very basic and it was not once that we saw, presumably for a “better house” a double skin wall of brick being built but not even a cavity between or an attempt to tie both walls together.
I think I’ll leave my apologies at that and go on to today’s report.
Report 1
We started the survey and after not long Problems which are many and some of them not that easy to fix where found;
The floor slab in the east part of the building has partially collapsed and is now pushing the retaining wall outwards, the builder tried to fix this and introduced buttresses that are only tied to the non-bearing part of the walls therefore doing nothing. This is our main problem.
Another serious issue is the fact that the building has differences of up to 700mm in the floor levels and the ceiling heights, this means the introduction of level changes and a complicated roof system.
Both the plumbing and the electrical provisions are badly made and in the wrong position. Then there’s finally another major problem, there is only one exit from the building so in the case of a fire or a disaster many could get trapped.
In order to fix these and to try and elevate the general value of the project we have started to think about creating a cloister that would deal with the distribution, creating at the same time a shaded and protected space for the children within the courtyard. Breaking up the building, introducing movement/expansion joints, and using the septic tank to build an embankment and prop up the building would solve a big part of the structural problems of this building. Part of the slabs might have to be re-casted but by keeping most of the building we might manage to keep the final cost of finishing it low and also the have the time to do it.
Another problem to be solved has to do with the servicing of the different spaces, electrical and plumbing provisions are insufficient.
Big part of the discussion has been is whether there is any point in trying to keep what was made. The problem is that if we don’t do it the investors might get scared and cut the funding. At the same time the children need it finished so to restart puts a lot of unnecessary stress on Lydia and the kids. And a restart would obviously bring up multiple other options. Ex. Opening of the building to the Lanscape.
However with a clever intervention it is possible to re-use a big part of the building, making some adjustments to both the program and the spaces in order to still have a chance of finishing it within the original time scale.
A slightly more radical approach making bigger changes both structurally, formal a programmatically pose moral/programmatic issue. Whether one should use a form, that is so full of meaning within the vernacular culture of these people, for another purpose/space. This might be a question that is not a problem, because Lydia (the client) might not feel strongly about it, for she had already proposed to use one of these Rondavlos(circular space, original shape of the Lesotho traditional house) as an office space. However now the issue is the other way around, to put one of the rooms for the children not in one of the Rondavlos but in one of the square link blocks?
1 comment:
pedrocas apesar da beleza natural parece que os problemas da contrução não vão ser tarefa fácil no entanto penso que vão conseguir resolver o problema da melhor maneira possível. um grande beijinho da mãe
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