Building without blocks - moladi launch in Nigeria - DesignMind

Building without blocks - moladi launch in Nigeria:

"Building without blocks - moladi launch in Nigeria"

By Allwell Okpi
June 17, 2010 12:10AM

The presentation pulled quite a crowd at the venue of the Lagos Housing Fair 2010, which held from April 26 to May 1. Abraham Adewale and his assistants awed there audience with tales of how they can build two concrete three-bedroom flats from foundation to finish in about a month-- without cement blocks.Demonstrating with a sample of a concrete wall about two feet high, about four feet wide and six inches thick, Mr Adewale explained, “We use these crates. Once we set it up, we pour the concrete and we ensure we pour it at the same time so that it will be homogenous. Before we pour the concrete, we would have put all the pipes and conduits so that when it sets, they are already fixed in it.”The building innovation, which was imported by Moladi Nigeria Limited from South Africa, is likely to revolutionise mass housing delivery in Nigeria, and particularly in Lagos where the need for housing is overwhelming.With the ability to deliver a hundred houses in a few months and at a relatively lower price, the innovation may enhance the provision of high quality houses to the not-so-rich in the society.Like most of the other visitors to the stand, Solomon Etteh was amazed by the building style.“I mean, this is very nice. It is solid; it is smooth. If you have this one, you don’t need to worry about collapse or anything. Mere touching the wall now you see that it is strong; you can’t compare it with those blocks that you will hit and they will scatter,” Mr Etteh said.Another visitor, Kelechi Abazie, a real estate developer, said if fully embraced, the innovation will address issues surrounding quality housing and will put Nigeria in the league of more developed nations.“This is good. We should start looking more into quality of the houses that we build. Now they’ve been using this method to build houses in South Africa since, and I know it is also being used in some European countries, like Spain and France. Those people believe in quality. I think this method should be promoted and supported by government at least, if not for any other thing, to reduce the number of people who are injured or who die as a result of incidents of building collapse, most of which are caused by poor materials like weak blocks,” he said.The sample building, which serves as the office of Moladi Nigeria (a franchise of the South African company), a two wing-three-bedroom flat, off Agege Motor Road, Oshodi, is the first of its kind in the country.Blocks vs no-blocksAccording to Mr Adewale, the advantage of the Moladi style of building is that it is cost effective because it takes little time.“This is basically for mass housing; our target is real estate developers, private mortgage, government parastatals. One thing you have to understand is that quality is cost and time is cost. If you factor all that into cost, you’ll discover that this method is cheaper. These two-wing, three-bedroom flats cost between 7.9 to 8.1 million naira. That is everything, from foundation to finishing. That takes about 35 days: three days to set up the crates (the Moladi formwork) and pour the mortar (concrete without stone plus plasticizer) and remove them, takes about three days, then 28 days of full curing. Everything is planned before we start,” he said.According to Mr Adewale, who is the Managing Director of Moladi Nigeria, the structure is far more durable than block-work.“The strength of our structure has been tested and measured as 11 Newton per millimetre, while that of block is 3.4 Newton per millimetre. It is like building a bridge. It a homogenous structure, so its durability can be compared to that of a well-built bridge,” he said.

For more information on moladi plastic formwork construction system - www.moladi.net