The construction industry has a lot to learn

The last construction boom was in the Eighties. At the time, this was fuelled by government dishing out plots of land for the Home Ownership scheme, coupled with a semi-legal sprawl of construction in all areas. Generally developments were typically two to four storeys high, with the only exception being the 13-storey Preluna Hotel in Sliema.

In recent years, the general consensus was that we had raped enough virgin land in Malta, and that areas for development had to be contained. This led to the next issue. If you could not sprawl, to produce the same built-up area you had to go up or down. In effect, we did both, we built higher buildings on a smaller footprint and dug deeper to put our cars in.

In addition to this, the fact that we built vertically meant more service shafts to take down the numerous services. Naturally, building higher meant more lifts and liftshafts. Because we are not using materials and building types suited to our climate, we require air-conditioning.

To further complicate matters, we now demand more and more services: telephone, Internet, cable or satellite TV, intruder alarm, video intercom. These are more or less standard. Now there is an additional development: smarthomes. All these services lead to a spaghetti-like web of cables, ducts, etc.

All these services need to be integrated into our buildings, and space needs to be provided for them. However, unfortunately, we are still retro-fitting these services, resulting in inadequate design and shoddy workmanship. The design process of modern buildings needs to change drastically.

Buildings require design by a multi-disciplinary team of experts in the various fields of architecture, structural design, mechanical and electrical services design, interior design, landscape design, environmental engineering design, and so on.

This team needs to be led and managed not by the traditional "perit". This person has to acquire experience and skills in the various aspects of complex building design, enough to be able to manage the gaggle of experts he has to engage, to produce a successful modern building, answering to the various needs.

Furthermore, the constraints of building higher and denser buildings with more flexibility and more complexity requires different types of construction materials to those used in the past and up to now. We used to build predominantly in natural franka stone (globigerina limestone), using concrete only for beams and floor slabs.

However, the spread of buildings over land which might have been quarried, coupled with the accelerated use of the existing quarries has depleted our good quality stone reserves, and stone is nowadays reserved for decorative features in buildings.

Generally, we have replaced stone with hollow concrete blocks. These have started out based on a certain standard, which in time has deteriorated as the number of block-making factories increased. The wall thickness of hollow blocks used to be 75 mm for double density blocks (tad-dobblu).

There was also in production a thin-skinned block used generally for internal walls with 50 mm wall thickness (tas-singlu). These two types of block have given way to a block with a wall thickness of 45 mm. This was reportedly done to be able to construct concrete-filled and sometimes also reinforced block walls.

This is a very dangerous practice, as it is heavily reliant on the workmanship of the so-called mason, who builds the wall on piecework basis and pretends to fill the blockwork with what the architect hopes is concrete. This folly is exposed as soon as the mechanical and electrical contractor comes on site and starts chasing the walls to install the services!

It is high time that we started to develop a solid lightweight concrete block that can be easily lifted and produces solid walls that behave better structurally and are not so reliant on workmanship. In addition, the 'grammar' of the building needs to be revisited, so that the structural elements are clearly defined and unobtrusive enough to allow flexibility in design of the interior space.

Thus, solid construction, be it concrete or blockwork walls, should ideally only be used to define the common parts of the building, as well as service shafts and wet areas, with the rest of the walls being constructed as stud partition walls with suitable insulation and gypsum layers. Alternatively, other materials, such as glass fibre, laminate and other drywall construction may be adapted. This will serve to facilitate customisation of the individual interior spaces to the eventual purchaser's wishes.

The building envelope needs to accommodate the requirements of allowing occupants to enjoy a view, while at the same time, taking into consideration the impact on the internal environment caused by exposure to sun, wind and external noise.

Hence the use of double glazing and frames fitted with thermal break, as well as adequate seals around apertures. But we have forgotten the use of louvres and sunscreens. Unfortunately, it is commonplace to see apertures with louvres placed inside, behind the glazed aluminum aperture. This is a very bad environmental practice and ought to be discouraged in the interest of lower electricity consumption from air-conditioning systems.

Some form of solar shading is a must on south, east and west facing apertures. Nowadays there are various types of such sun protection in various materials, from wood to steel and aluminum, and from low-tech manual systems to automated power systems that respond to environmental conditions. The external protection can be used to work for the building insofar as it can be clad with special panels made up of photovoltaic cells. These types of cells are made up of materials that when exposed to sunlight, produce electricity. A variety of these, which are transparent, is also available. On large glazed façades, linked together, these PV systems can be used to offset part of the electric power requirements of the building, or sold back to the utility company.

A further consideration on glazed façades should be the provision for cleaning the façade. I have seen none of the systems one normally expects on glass-walled buildings installed locally. The use of self-cleaning glass only works in countries with an abundance of rain to activate the cleaning properties of the glass - definitely not in Malta!

Research has shown that the greatest consumption in a domestic environment results from water heating, air-conditioning, and refrigeration. Thus, in order to design more energy-efficient buildings, we need to start looking at introducing solar heating and absorbtion refrigeration using the sun: solar cooling. Do not laugh! This is perfectly feasible and plants using solar cooling are available on the market. External walls used to be double-skin stone cavity walls which worked fine for our climate. These have degenerated to a variety of stucco-faced hollow concrete block walls without adequate insulation. If one had to check the thermal performance of such walls, I am sure they will not be adequate for our climate.

This will result in higher electricity consumption in winter for heating and in summer for cooling. Technical guidelines for minimum requirements of energy performace of buildings issued in 2006 are currently mandatory on new buildings, and it is up to the architect to ensure that these are satisfied, so hopefully we should be seeing more energy-efficient buildings.

One must not forget accessibility. There are several new buildings where the design is strongly influenced by pecuniary considerations. Naturally, the developer wants maximum return for his investment and space is a premium, so the first areas to suffer are vertical circulation spaces and services access.

With traditional services and low buildings this might have worked. In buildings up to four floors with a vertical face onto a vehicular access road, it is still possible to have small stairwells and small lift cabins and then get the furniture and appliances up by crane or hoist through the balcony. But with larger developments, having communal spaces and pedestrian precincts with vehicular access limited to the lower service floors, provision must be made at the design stage to solve this problem, possibly by having a service lift, which can cope with taking up building components for uncompleted developments and/or taking up appliances and furniture belonging to the purchasers when they move into their property.

Furthermore, complex buildings of this nature ought to have adequate provision for mass evacuation with clear indication of exits and places of refuge in cases of fire, natural calamities or even terrorist attacks. Thus the puny staircases and miniscule lifts are clearly inadequate for such situations.

When I see glossy advertising in property pages of newspapers about this or that development promising a heaven on earth, I hope and pray that the design team has taken all this into consideration, that the developer is aware of his responsibility to future owners, and that the contractors involved are also aware of their responsibility to the surrounding property and to the purchasers of the property they will build. I think the construction industry has a lot to learn!

fsaid@saidfamily.com