Materials and capacity assessment
The choice of materials needs to account for:
• Cost. Many materials can be designed for safety but may
not be cost-effective in all contexts.
• Quality. Material choices should be excluded if they are
unlikely to result in a safe school, especially in light of
labour capacity.
• Labour capacity. Community approaches tend to have
more success when local skilled tradespeople and
unskilled labourers are familiar with most of the materials
and construction techniques. Likewise, new materials and
construction techniques can be successful when coupled
with adequate training.
• Material availability. Where communities supply part of
the construction material, the quantity and quality of these
materials needs verification before Design Stage. Where
the quality of material is unknown, engineers may first
need to test the material strength to determine whether
and how it can be incorporated into school design.
In post-disaster contexts, construction materials are in
high demand. Program managers need to assess if and
how salvaged materials can be used safely and what
materials can be readily acquired. When material needs
to be imported, program managers also need to take
care these materials are appropriate for environmental
conditions. For example, timber and plywood imported
into tropical climates may deteriorate rapidly or be highly
susceptible to insect attack, undermining the safety
of the school after a few years of use. Even if they are
environmentally appropriate, imported materials may not
be harvested sustainably or may be difficult to repair
without the costly exercise of importing more materials.
• Community preference. Communities often have strong
preferences about building materials. Their preferences
may stem from familiarity and availability or from an
appearance of wealth and modernity associated with
some materials. These preferences should be valued
highly, but where such preferences compromise the
hazard resistance of school buildings, minor adjustments
or substitutions may be necessary. A community’s
understanding of modernity may need to shift, as was
the case in one Ghanaian project highlighted in the
Construction Stage (see the Community Design Stage
case study).
IN CONTEXT
Safe construction and cost
Keywords: cost, building practice, community
perception
Community members may initially turn hazardresistant construction down, thinking of it as too
costly and complex. Yet safe construction is often
more about doing construction differently rather
than simply investing more in brick, cement and
reinforcing steel. While some hazard-resistant
construction may add marginal costs to school
construction, at other times it may result in cost
savings. Traditional construction practices pour
resources into the wrong elements – for example,
building thick walls and slabs rather than adding
more reinforcing steel shear ties to the columns.
Helping communities understand what aspects of
design are most important to safety can increase
their confidence in safer construction practices.
• Capacity-building potential. The fourth key principle
of the community-based approach is ensuring school
construction builds local knowledge and skills for hazardresistant construction. New materials and hazard-resistant
construction techniques should be transferable to other
construction projects, like housing and small-scale
commercial construction (see In context: Building too fast
in the Community Design Stage section).
SECTION III: PLANNING
One of the major characteristics of the community-based
approach to school construction is that the design and
construction are tuned to local context through use of local
materials and construction techniques. Although local
practices can decrease costs, these reductions must be
evaluated alongside impacts on school safety.
The school management committee, with support from
the program manager, should consult with local builders
and other identified local resource-providers to better
understand the local materials and construction capacity in
their community. If the program manager or committee has
already identified the design team, the committee should
work closely with them to complete this assessment. If a
design team has not been identified, local engineers, master
builders, or construction specialists within the implementing
agency may provide good support.
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