Building novices clueless
HAVE we missed something? Do we still have the wool over our eyes or right over our faces?
Surely by now someone should have realised that we cannot simply move from one segment in time empty handed. I fully agree that we need to change with the times but not necessarily just offload and upload. Many of the keys of yesteryear are more functional than those we sit with today. Let us take a realistic look at what I refer to. In the past it was important to do a trade (an apprenticeship) in the building industry. A trade meant hands-on training under a qualified person.
There was also a trade test after a three-year period where you had to build up a corner, construct a cavity wall with brick ties, walls level and plumb etc. and the joints, i.e. recessed, raked or convex joints to mention a few, had to be perfectly formed. It was more than just a matter of purchasing a trowel and a level and you call yourself a brickie.
We now find ourselves in a new segment flooded with all sorts of professionals, architects, engineers, project managers etc. They were not in the past segment and have no clue of what went on there. So what do we have in what should be an advanced modern segment?
A couple of old hands on deck for not much longer with the new highly qualified and paid, inexperienced new breed taking over. True artisans, craftsmen will no longer exist and while construction companies will be driven by finance departments watching charts and share indexes without a clue of what is happening in the trenches and on the scaffolds.
This coupled with the financial departments of municipalities honouring payments without the means or experience to validate the certificate is one reason the much needed housing requirement of the people is increasing.
For us to construct homes that do not collapse or leak we must move a segment back. Cut out all the fancy consultants, dump this whole green building first-world approach, stop the construction of fancy unoccupied office parks and the expensive apartments for the rich, but rather create in-house building teams. In this way municipalities will be providing houses and not be subjected to consultants.
Consultants? Use the students at tech and varsities and use the sites as skills development centres and let us the old boys keep an eye on it. Why not?