| Parry
Associates’ newly-developed steel frame building method –
the Jig Block System – has caught the eye of a UK domiciled, Somali-run
business in Birmingham, the Astonbrook Housing Association. The directors,
who have relatives in business in Hargeysa and Berbera, are embarking
on a development project constructing high quality, middle income housing
for sale and rent. However, the need for speed and the shortage of tradesmen’s
skills in the areas concerned suggest that it would be ideal to adopt
steel frame construction methods. Accordingly, JPA were instructed to
supply two complete bolt-together frameworks. One frame will provide the
skeleton for a 10m x 5m workshop and the second for a 5½m diameter
hexagonal office.
The remaining elements of the buildings will be made on site using moulds
and machines supplied by Parry Associates. These will include semi sheets,
Roman tiles and a variety of interlocking ‘jigblocks’ which
fit between the stanchions of the steel frames. The consignment was loaded
on 25 November into a P.O. Container ready for shipment on the next sailing.
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| Expansion
continues of schools building activity using Parry technologies in
Africa
|
News in from
west, central and southern Africa confirms the successful introduction
of vibrated concrete technology to localise the production of materials
used in the education sector. In the West African state of The Gambia,
the Swedish ngo Future in our Hands are forging ahead with countrywide
construction of school classrooms using Parry Super Roman tiles for the
roofs and are past the 100 mark of classrooms completed. In Mozambique
we learn that, though floods are temporarily forgotten with drought now
more on people’s mind, construction of High Schools (two storey
buildings of which the upper floor can be used for emergency refuge) has
continued and new schools are going into service.
High
School near Chokwe, Mozambique; The ground floor provides an airy
classroom for local pupils. |
High school building
team with new project nearing completion |
Potentially
the largest area of activity is in Malawi in central southern Africa.
Here production of Parry semi sheets has commenced in regional centres
throughout the country following supply of equipment and training earlier
in 2003. News just in is that an Indent has arrived from Lilongwe to a
British procurement agency authorising purchase of up to ten further production
plants which will result in the tripling of semi sheet manufacturing capacity
in the country.
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MARKET RECOVERY IN SMALL PLANT CONSIGNMENTS CONTINUES INTO AUTUMN
|
JPA’s
market for intermediate technology building materials equipment virtually
disappeared over the period of the Iraq War and immediate aftermath, indicating
general nervousness about the future and the unwillingness of technical
staff to travel.
From September
onward there have been signs of a modest revival with a scattering of
new orders from Angola – hand powered machine and moulds, Sri Lanka
– semi sheet machinery, Malawi, the same and in Ghana, a private
individual, Mr Konadu buying a multi-product plant with equipment to produce
concrete floor, wall and roofing tiles.
The small
Malawi order which was purchased with the help of the Burden Foundation
provides semi sheet equipment to be used in addition to a successful small
roofing tile plant operated by the Hand in Hand organisation, an ngo based
in Blantyre.
A spate
of new enquiries in recent days reflect the better prospects for peace
in Liberia, two enquiries indicating further expansion of Parry activity
in Sierra Leone two enquiries from the Sudan and, of considerable interest,
a prospective order which we understand is to go to the World Food Programme
in Afghanistan.
And Parry
Associates have received its first serious enquiry from Iraq, where there
is plenty of need for “swordsmen” to take up ploughing and
other peaceful activities.
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TURKISH UNIVERSITY GROUP PLAN TECHNOLOGY CENTRE DEMONSTRATING PARRY
SYSTEMS
|
Representatives
of the Faculty of Architecture at the Middle East Technical University
in Ankara visited Cradley Heath in October to begin to implement a long-standing
plan. This is to apply the JPA approach for production of building materials
at an Eco-Center established in the mountain village of Kerkenes in Central
Turkey.
The leader
of the METU deputation Francoise Summers, originally from Mauritius, had
attended a practical training course at Parry Workshops in the 1980’s
when she saw some of the now well-establ ished technologies, prior to
commercialisation. In contrast to the relative wealth of urbanised Turkey,
the mountain people have to live much simpler lives, burning firewood
and living in traditionally constructed houses. These, though crude in
appearance, are actually suited to a dry, semi-tropical climate where
the thick walls even out the temperature which is high in daytime, cold
at night.
The Eco-center’s
plan is to modernise the traditional method of construction by using machine-pressed
mud blocks which are very consistent in size and dimension, and large
format micro concrete roofing materials which require far less supporting
timber in the roof structure than the traditional clay tiles presently
used. It is also planned to introduce rain water storage using the Parry
curved interlocking block method of construction. Work on the project
will be done by Kerkenes villagers assisted by students from the university.
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MANGO DROP TEST
|
Test roof in
Mzuzu, Malawi |
As a follow-up
to the expansion of semi sheet manufacture in Malawi a component of the
national education programme’s school building project, one of the
producers, in Mzuzu in the north, has been in touch with Parry Associates
regarding the risk of semi sheet roofs being damaged by large mangoes
falling from overhanging trees. A test procedure has been devised involving
the actual dropping of mangoes from various heights on to a test roof
built at ground level. Although a single impact by a 200g mango dropped
from a height of 5m does not cause damage, as with coconut trees, the
most sensible advice appears to be ‘don’t build your roofs
underneath them’. Full results are available from ecoarch@sdnp.org.mw
(Centre for Appropriate Technology, Malawi).
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PROSPECTS FOR POWER FROM AGRICULTURAL WASTE
|
ToParry
Associates’ new contract to devise means of disposing of agricultural
by-products has led to a new line of enquiry.
The recent large failures in electric power supply – on the east
coast of America, in London and northern Italy may be a wake up call.
We cannot always take continuous power supply for granted. Wind energy
generators are growing like daffodils around the British coast –
surely a good thing providing that all of the energy “sunk”
in foundations, towers and turbines is made up reasonably quickly by power
produced from the “free” source of wind.
A 25 megawatt
power station at Tyseley sufficient to power 25,000 homes seems unglamorous
by comparison. The fact that it cleanly and quietly converts 73% of domestic
rubbish of Birmingham into electric power is actually an achievement of
great magnitude worth emulating. Elsewhere in Britain 81% of domestic
rubbish goes to landfill.
A big unresolved
issue is agricultural waste, which comes both from agro industries such
as cheese but also from animal droppings which exceed the volume consumed
as natural fertilizer. Keeping up the policy of turning bad things into
good things, Parry Associates have begun looking into generating electric
power from waste incineration. If, as seems possible, this can be achieved
cleanly, it will reduce road haulage and requirement for landfill while
generating electricity and low grade heat for buildings and greenhouses.
This work
has now begun.
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RUNNING SHOE WASTE MAKES BUILDING WITH BLOCKS FASTER?
|
The Vietnam
office of International Finance Corporation (World Bank) was in touch
with Parry Associates in August following publication of early information
on the use of plastic waste as a substitute for natural aggregate in concrete
in Parry News Issue No. 36. Subsequently nine different samples of waste
material produced by large shoe factories in Ho Chi Minh City were sent
to the UK for some preliminary trials. Seven out of ten samples have given
promising results and discussions are in hand regarding larger scale trials
in what could be a valuable environmental development, reducing the need
for landfill for disposal of the waste and saving scarce natural aggregate.
As a light
weight aggregate, it will speed up the handling and transport of the products.
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