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Ancient Construction Tech Adopted by High End Architects [2019]

Ancient Construction Tech Adopted by High End Architects [2019] Ambakisye-Okang Dukuzumurenyi 57 Views • 5 years ago

(13 Jan 2019) LEADIN:Rammed earth is a construction method that has been around for millennia, but it's attracting renewed interest in countries like the USA and Australia. In Ghana a construction company is returning to the technique of rammed earth building, promoting its eco-friendly and economical technique. STORYLINE: This construction worker is part of a team building an eco-friendly house near Ghana's capital city, Accra.He is compressing a mixture of raw materials mostly sourced from within two kilometres.When the temporary structure is later removed it will reveal a solid wall – the beginning of a house. The technique is called rammed earth, as co-founder of Hive Earth Kwame de Heer explains."Rammed earth is a really old technique. Here in Ghana we have always built houses using mud, but here we have modernised it. We use a mixture of laterite which contains sand, a bit of silt, clay and some stones. We pour this into a temporary structure after being mixed. After pouring in eight inches we compress it to about four inches. We are mimicking a sedimentary rock, but speeding up the process. It's man-made stone."About five percent of the raw materials used in this method requires imported cement, which is necessary as a stabiliser.As well as being more eco-friendly, Hive Earth says it costs a third less than building with sandcrete blocks, commonly used in Ghana. Foster Osae-Akonnor heads up Ghana's Green Building Council:"Once you can get materials from the locality that you are working, then it helps to reduce the carbon footprint. In addition, comparing rammed earth to concrete, you save all the embodied energy that will be required in the manufacturing of cement."Compared to other building materials, a very high amount of energy is consumed to produce cement. In addition cement is imported into Ghana. Another of Hive Earth's rammed earth projects, in Accra, reveals its interesting aesthetic, which is the result of the ramming process.The technique is well suited to the hot climate of Ghana as it keeps the room temperature cool, says co-owner of Hive Earth, British-Ghanaian entrepreneur Joelle Eyeson."Rammed earth is sound proof, it's termite proof, it's thermally insulative – so it regulates the internal room temperature. Because the walls are so thick it takes a while for the heat to penetrate through to the internal room. Our walls can be anything from 12 to 15 inches thick. It's earthquake resistant as well, due to the monolithic nature of the walls as compared to sandcrete blocks, because the walls are monolithic. With sandcrete blocks you have the mortar joints so it's easier for the wall to shake and become disinbursed, whereas with rammed earth it's just one straight monolithic wall. It's as strong as concrete as well – it can last for hundreds of years." A long-standing example of rammed earth is the Great Wall of China.Williams Nimailo from the Ghana Bureau of Standards helped draw up the country's new building code.Allowance is made for rammed earth under both traditional and green building construction methods. Provision is made for modern materials such as clay-fired bricks or cement blocks. Akosua Obeng is an architect who contracted Hive Earth to build the external walls of a luxury complex in Accra.Obeng believes using rammed earth techniques in a high-end development will help to change perceptions about how earth materials can enhance design and architecture.Hive Earth have produced eight rammed earth projects since starting up in 2016, and have many more projects planned in Ghana and regionally.Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metad....ata/youtube/7a9be64b

'Piracy' in Somalia & Nigeria | People & Power | 17 Nov 2016

'Piracy' in Somalia & Nigeria | People & Power | 17 Nov 2016 Ambakisye-Okang Dukuzumurenyi 23 Views • 5 years ago

The event followed a now familiar pattern: a small convoy of dusty 4x4 vehicles drove on to the edge of the airstrip at Galkayo in Puntland, north-central Somalia; armed security guards took up watchful positions nearby and a number of bemused-looking men stepped gingerly from the cars and lined up to have their photographs taken by the media.

On this occasion there were 11 of them; all had been hostages until that morning. They were sailors from a Malaysian cargo vessel that had been hijacked by Somali pirates a few years ago and held until a ransom was paid for their release.

One of them gave a brief account of what had happened. "On November 26, 2010 our ship was hijacked in the Indian Ocean. Their demand was 20 million. After that, they threatened the owner. You now increase money or we will shoot the crew. The owner didn't increase the money and then one Indian is shot with just three bullets. Then they hit us and tortured us. Tell your family to bring us money, otherwise we will kill you!"

The crew had been held for three and a half years but they were the fortunate ones. Five of their crew mates had died in that time. Now the survivors were going home and a UN plane with two envoys on board was flying in to see them to safety.

Such scenes have become relatively commonplace in Galkayo in recent times. Eighty percent of global trade is carried by sea and Somalia sits on a key maritime route linking Europe and Asia. More than 18,000 ships pass its shores every year. Over the past decade, Somali pirates, often former fishermen whose traditional livelihoods have been destroyed by foreign trawlers and toxic waste dumping, have attacked more than 300 vessels and kidnapped 700 people.

Faced with such a threat, the international community responded aggressively. In 2008, European states, the US and others began sending naval forces to these seas. They are still there today - warships, planes and helicopters patrolling thousands of square miles and doing a fair job of keeping the hijackers at bay. The UN and others have also played an increasing role in facilitating negotiations for the release of hostages - such as those set free at places such as Galkayo - for whose liberty large ransoms have been paid.

But if the problem is now slowly coming under control in Somalia, the same cannot be said for other parts of the world where piracy is on the increase. Lawlessness, desperation, poverty, greed and even political radicalism have brought the phenomenon to the waters of South America, Asia and, perhaps most aggressively, to West Africa.

In an effort to understand the reasons why, Bertrand Monnet, a French academic and filmmaker, has been travelling to piracy hot spots around the coast of Africa. In an extraordinary and very tense series of encounters, he came to face to face with heavily armed pirate gangs operating in and around the Niger Delta, where Nigeria's huge offshore oil industry, which employs thousands of expatriates, offers rich ransom pickings. It gradually became clear that piracy in West Africa has many of the same root causes as piracy in Somalia and elsewhere, not least of which is that those who don't share in the benefits and profits of global trade have ever fewer reasons these days to respect the security of those who do.

Source: Al Jazeera

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