Making construction more bearable

I have seen several letters in the press from both locals and tourists lamenting the fact that Malta is rapidly becoming a permanent construction site. This is very true, and is compounded by the additional fact that developers will go for sites in tourist or upmarket areas to develop existing properties.

As Malta's population increases, and as more and more tourists or foreign residents come to our fantastic island, the need for more buildings is there, and developers will develop and make more money. The multiplier effect causes the economy to grow, and you'll see a lot of smiles on television. People will start talking again of the "feel-good factor". All this is well and good, but there's one snag. Development comes with a big penalty on the environment and on people's pockets.

However, if good sense prevailed, if the persons involved - developers, contractors, architects, politicians - stopped for a while and thought about the consequences rather than about other things, the situation might become a bit more bearable.

Our construction industry, climate and local resources contribute to make life more difficult. Developers tend to go for the most straightforward and cheap solution that will give them most yield per square metre. Contractors tend to use the equipment and work methods that are the cheapest and most effective irrespective of environmental cost. Legislators are wary of introducing stringent controls for fear of losing votes or burdening the economy. Architects tend to design around available equipment and work methods.

The greatest nuisances are generally caused by noise, vibration, and dust. All these nuisances result from demolition and excavation works. Unfortunately, our limestone generally crumbles producing fine dust which permeates everywhere around a building site. Thus one must be very careful in selecting the method of demolition and excavation being used.

If buildings are dismantled rather than demolished, far less dust results and some of the building materials may be recycled. Excavations are essential if one needs to accommodate higher density dwellings or commercial premises that attract an ever larger number of cars which need to be located off the street. But how one excavates can be controlled. Rather than excavation by hydraulic impact hammers which generate noise and vibration, excavation (especially in hard monolithic rock) can be carried out using diamond wire cutting.

This system is widely used to cut marble in quarries and it has been used successfully locally. The equipment is relatively simple consisting of a number of nylon pulleys, a hydraulic tensioner and motor, and diamond impregnated wire rope usually 12 mm in diameter.

Unfortunately no local contractor as yet has caught on to this idea. In reality it requires a lower capital outlay than getting a state-of-the-art hydraulic impact breaker. The beauty of the system is that you can cut blocks which can be hoisted out by crane, stacked on a flat-bed truck and taken away for recycling. Far less dust is generated in this way, and no significant noise or vibration will result. In this way, excavation can be safely carried out right up to an existing wall.

Buildings are more and more being constructed with hollow concrete blockwork walls rather than natural stone walls. This is an inevitable result of utilisation of a non-renewable resource such as our local franka stone. As time goes on we are realising that it is wasteful to use large chunks of good quality stone rather than using it to effect in parts of the building where it can be most decorative.

The increased use of hollow concrete blockwork has introduced a further source of noise and dust pollution. While 30 years ago, the traditional mason's tools used to be the try square (skwerra), stone mallet (pal), and the stone axe (mterqa); nowadays a mason has the ever present "chaser" a disc cutter with steel cutting discs for cutting steel reinforcement and mesh and carborandum cutting discs for blockwork. Additionally, one finds various stone-cutting machines and band saws.

Naturally, all these power tools generate vast quantities of dust. You can probably recognise the mason on site by his dust-covered face. All this dust may be reduced if architects design buildings and openings based on the block or half block modules. This will reduce the amount of cutting required. Furthermore, I have seen hydraulic block splitters that could be adapted to cut blocks rather than using carborandum cutting discs.

Block manufacturers should also try and produce blocks with possible half or third block cutting locations. At this point, I can see all those sceptical readers with raised eyebrows thinking all this to be a pipe dream. I don't expect things to change overnight. However, I have been a practising architect for the last 30 years, and I remember that 30 years ago there was only one concrete batching plant in Malta and contractors would rather employ 11 men and mix concrete on site using a concrete mixer, than trusting a ready-mix plant. There are over 30 batching plants in Malta today - more than there are in all the UK!

There were only two truck-mounted concrete pumps in Malta, and most contractors would tell you that concrete pumps are not good for Malta. There are about a dozen truck-mounted concrete pumps in Malta today and they're all working, including the original two bought in 1978! So, I'm sure that gradual legislation, pressure from the public and environmental groups, and proper specification and controls from architects, will change the mindset of contractors and developers.

Finally, we require more site discipline. Building sites must be kept cleaner and the public must be protected from construction site nuisances. I was in Bishop Auckland General Hospital in the UK in 2000. The hospital was being redeveloped. There were parts of it being demolished and reconstructed while other departments were still operational.

Can you imagine a similar situation happening in Malta! Yet it can be done, obviously at a cost. But we must stop considering only the pecuniary aspect and instead start considering the environmental gain. It can happen. But we must make it happen lest we lose all we've gained in the last 30 years.