Climb of Petronas Tower, Kuala Lumpur

It was scary enough walking across the air-bridge between the two towers, and that was on the inside. See this article
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5juf0vvCj2N4MMSUl-1IwIMjcKSlg

Bigger trucks, bigger loads

Well said IPENZ
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/new-zealand/news/article.cfm?l_id=71&objectid=10588233

Building collapses around the world

The list of building collapses continues. Go to http://twitter.com/KLWalls
Where is the engineering input and compliance with building codes?

Building collapses - where is the engineering input?

One of many building collapses - Haiti
http://bildingblocks.blogspot.com/2008/11/building-collapse-in-haiti.html

Burundi, East Africa - 10 July 2009
http://www.congoo.com/news/2009July10/Fourteen-dead-partially-constructed-building

Barisal, Bangladesh - 12 July 2009
http://www.southasianmedia.net/cnn.cfm?id=593726&category=Social%20Sectors&Country=BANGLADESH

Lagos, Nigeria - 13 July 2009. More government legislation called for.
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/homes_property/article15//indexn3_html?pdate=130709&ptitle=Engineers,%20others%20urge%20multi-disciplinary%20strategies%20to%20curb%20building%20collapse&cpdate=130709

Boston, USA - 13 July 2009
http://wbztv.com/local/huntington.avenue.building.2.1083188.html

Istanbul, Turkey - 14 July 2009
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=180853&bolum=100

Bridge collapse, India - 14 July 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h00UNGeKcIley2uxzOV0-lPAsuoQD99DBDDO0

Karachi, Pakistan - 15 July 2009 - collapse resulting from a fire
http://www.geo.tv/7-15-2009/46008.htm

House in Ahmedabad - 15 July 2009
http://in.news.yahoo.com/20/20090715/1416/tnl-two-killed-in-building-collapse.html

East Delhi, India - 16 July 2009
http://in.news.yahoo.com/20/20090715/1416/tnl-two-persons-injured-in-building-coll.html

Brazil - 19 July 2009

http://www.news.ino.com/headlines/?newsid=689972776678790

Ogbomoso, Nigeria - 20 July 2009
http://www.tribune.com.ng/20072009/news/news5.html

Traditional divine powershift from engineers to physicists?

Traditional divine powershift from engineers to physicists with a change in paradigm in relation to earthquake design for buildings?
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Science/story?id=8112569&page=1

Do you think the economic downturn could be positive?

The downturn could be positive from an environmental point of view. Doing more with less seems like a good idea for those of us concerned about an insatiable use of resources and the sustainability of the world. Developing better technology and doing things smarter in a recession should be an experience we could use in the long term, even when the economic situation has improved. Those companies that are in tune with this approach to business are going to be those who flourish in the future.

Six die in high-rise fire in London

Deja vu. Fire knows no political boundaries or differences between developed and developing countries.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/07/03/london.fire/index.html?eref=rss_latest

http://bildingblocks.blogspot.com/2009/02/fire-in-astrakhan-russia.html

Earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy - April 2009

Naturally we cannot prevent earthquakes from happening, but is it a case of deja vu? I mean the seemingly unnecessary death and destruction in L'Aquila, Italy, due to the earthquake on about 6 April 2009.

Italy ranks with some other countries such as New Zealand, Japan and the US in having the most highly developed and advanced seismic design abilities, and yet the San Salvatore public hospital which was built in 2000, was able to collapse along with historic churches and stone houses. Did other modern buildings suffer from similar damage? How could this happen?

Italy is so much involved in advanced engineering research and seismic design that it is the base of the new Global Earthquake Model (GEM). Take a look at these websites.

http://www.globalquakemodel.org/
http://www.globalquakemodel.org/RossSteinsVisionSpeech.html

The answer to the vexing question of how this could happen may be amongst the reports of relative chaos in the way building controls are administered in Italy. As one commentator said,
"In a country littered with illegal buildings and construction eyesores, experts blamed the use of low-quality cement and inadequate supporting iron rods, saying tens of thousands of palaces, schools and hospitals were at risk".

Elsewhere in this blog I have said that we must realise that the investment in enforcing seismic codes on a nation-wide basis and strengthening unsafe structures in risk areas is a smaller price to pay than the pain and suffering, the economics of lost livelihoods, bankrupt businesses and the fear and guilt.

50-50 Sustainability Dilemma – Is it Ethical?

These musings relate to buildings, civil engineering developments and our whole built environment. The terms “house” and “building” are used for brevity.

An energy-efficient house is not environmentally friendly. Every building covers ground that would otherwise be organically productive or useful in some other way, thereby making it functionally sterile. Every building reduces the area of the earth that is capable of keeping the earth in balance due to the natural interactions between soil, sun and water. What is the link between sustainable building as an ethical issue and building design and construction as pragmatic activities? All human activities produce green-house gases that are said to be detrimental to the functioning of the earth from the point of view of human habitation.

The main mitigating factor with new building is that they remain relevant and useful for a maximum period of time and that they are designed to be capable of minimal modification in dealing with changing user needs during the life of the building.

While most of us learn from direct experience with feedback – that is facing the consequences of our actions, this does not apply to the notion of sustainability as we are usually unable to observe the consequences of our actions due to such long time-frames. Sometimes, however, we are able to make those observations but forget what existed several decades ago in our lifetime. Degradation to the environment is so gradual that most people are not able to discern or forget changes over a long period of time. Younger people just accept the status quo of the environment that 'it has always been like that'.

The construction and use of buildings consume up to 50% of all energy consumption and 50% of all material taken from nature. They also produce 50% of all waste and 50% of all CFC and HCFC production.

Humans are the only animals that create waste. Buildings provide human habitat. In contrast to what natural undeveloped land does, buildings fail on all other aspects of life principles. Some of these other principles are to create clean air and water, store water, create its own food, create rich soil, use and store solar energy, provide wildlife habitat, moderate climate and weather and consume its own waste.

If the above musings have any credence, then what are the answers for going forward? Ethics codes as adopted by professional organisations such as IPENZ and RICS, both of which I am a member, purport to deal with members’ advice and actions relating to sustainability. While I could never admit to breaching these codes of ethics I can genuinely say that mitigating the adverse consequences of my actions is paramount. But given that each mitigating action still continues to have incremental adverse results for the long-term sustainability of the earth may leave us all in a slight dilemma.

Fire in Astrakhan, Russia

There are reports of a fire in a residential building in the Astrakhan region of Russia on 17 February 2009 in which 18 people died. Is this another lesson not learned? This follows on the heals of another recent tragic fire in a home for elderly persons. Just two days earlier, on 15 February 2009 there was a fire in an old apartment building in Independence, US, where 3 people died. I have mentioned two other examples in this blog, but the potential list is endless. When is all the carnage and destruction going to end?

This will only happen when government and building control authorities start taking more seriously the need for greater levels of fire protection systems and emergency escape systems from buildings. All too often older buildings and buildings that have undergone a change to residential accommodation are set up to house people with no cognisance of the fire safety of the building, or at best with only the most rudimentary consideration having been given to such important safety issues.

Proposal for an Essential Services Act in New Zealand

On 3 and 4 February 2009 parts of Auckland suffered from more electricity blackouts, apparently due to ageing components of the infrastructure. These are unacceptable third world events in what is supposed to be a fine city in a developed country. My proposal to assist the problem is to introduce some new legislation so that obligations of electricity and other commodity suppliers are sheeted home. I hope the engineering fraternity, including IPENZ and ACENZ, will support the proposal.

Objective
An Act to consolidate and reform the law relating to essential services and to provide for better protection and control of essential services with enhanced protection to the public, economy and the environment.

Services to be included within the new legislation
(1) The distribution or transmission by pipeline of natural or manufactured gas, petroleum, or
geothermal energy.
(2) Electricity operators or electrical supply authorities as defined by the Electricity Act 1968.
(3) The distribution of potable water for supply.
(4) The operation of community sewerage treatment and disposal systems.
(5) The stewardship and maintenance of state and provincial highways.
(6) The stewardship and maintenance of bridges on state and provincial highways.
(7) The telecommunications industry.

Why these services should be provided for under the proposed legislation
Most of the supplies of these commodities are natural monopolies. While some of them may be run on increasing free-market commercial models, they can never be operated and controlled fully on the principles of unfettered free market supply and demand, as there is not the opportunity for other competitors to enter the market with a competitive parallel offer. For instance, there is not the opportunity for an entrepreneur to duplicate a given section of state highway and operate it on free market principles.

Even although consumers have the opportunity to change their electricity supplier nothing changes physically. The same electrons flow from the same generator along the same wires to the receiving houses or businesses.

The new legislation would be a factor which would most likely lead to the best protection of the health, safety and welfare of all New Zealanders and to better protect the economy and environment against a future major crisis.

With the implementation of such an Act, there would be better assurance that in future major disruption to society did not occur, in the event of a potential unforeseen happening occurring. It is less likely that Auckland would have electricity crises, such has what occurred in 1998, 2006 and 2009, a hydro-electric dam would collapse, or the contamination of the water supply to a part of Wellington would occur.

The proposed model for the new legislation is the Building Act 2004. The model proposed for the Essential Services Act could be partly based the Building Act 2004. Sections 100 - 111 deal with compliance schedules and building warrants of fitness. These relate to features of all buildings such as lifts, air conditioning and fire control systems. Such features are included in a formalised schedule which is registered with the TA. The features have to be inspected and maintained at specified intervals of time in order to ensure there is continued protection of occupants. Such technical inspection and maintenance work is carried out by Independent Qualified Persons (IQPs), private sector contractors working for building owners.

The proposed Essential Services Act could be controlled by a small statutory body, similar to the former Building Industry Authority (BIA) which controlled the Building Act, over the day-to-day control which is administered by TAs. The Essential Services Act equivalent of IQPs in the Building Act regime would be private sector professionals, who would be commissioned by the network utility operator to carry out mandatory technical audits at prescribed intervals of time. These would be similar to mandatory financial audits which companies have to undertake.

The respective industries in question would formulate their own compliance schedules, which would specify the inspection, maintenance and reporting procedures for the continued operation of the essential services. The proposed compliance schedules could be publicly notified to invite submissions to be considered before formal adoption.

In some cases inspection and maintenance requirements will be specific to a particular type of equipment. This will be taken into account in the formulation of the draft compliance schedule for public notification.

Essential Services Authority

An Essential Services Authority (ESA), a Crown agency, would be established under the Essential Services Act, as the sole regulatory authority for essential service controls in New Zealand. It would be responsible for registering the equivalent of independent qualified persons (IQPs) under that Act. The IQPs would be the only persons allowed to carry out the technical audits. Registration would allow an IQP to work over the whole of New Zealand

This crown agency would directly control the relatively small number of essential services throughout New Zealand, without the need to involve the territorial authorities, as they presently are administering sections 100 - 111 of the Building Act 2004.

Fire in Rawalpindi, Pakistan

The fire in a 400 shop mall in Rawalpindi in which at least 18 persons are reported to have died is another reminder that all is not well in terms of fire safety in buildings. Reports indicate that most victims became trapped and could not escape. My experience in several countries is that retail, commercial and hotel buildings are commonly unsafe in relation to their design features to protect occupants from fire. Perhaps the most common problem in developing and developed countries alike is that egress doors have locks that cannot be opened in a fire and escape routes are cluttered with stored goods.
Was this the case in this latest tragic example in Rawalpindi?