Monday 23rd September 2019 morning was a sad day in Kenya when Kenyans woke up to the sad news of 7 pupils losing their lives after their school collapsed.
This is very unfortunate and we hope and pray that the Almighty God will rest their precious souls in eternal peace.
Nairobi County Planning Department.
In Kenya, the role of ensuring safety of all building structures is vested in the County Government Departments of Planning and Development control.
For Nairobi county where this school lies, this department has its offices in City Hall Annex building in Nairobi CBD.
Procedure for constructing the school.
The right procedure for school construction is that the owner would have hired and architect to design the school and then submit the drawings to the County Government for approvals.
If the owner would have done this, the architect would have advised him that his proposal to set up a double storey building supported on timber structures and carrying a heavy load of suspended concrete floor would not work for a school.
Live and Dead Weight.
Timber tends to rot over time hence unable to support heavy loads. Also, classrooms tend to accommodate alot of people who also can have activities that require jumping up and down, severely impacting on the structural integrity of any building, let alone a building supported by timber.
The weight of the pupils plus the weight of the concrete slab supported by simple timber structures would not have lasted for long.
Timber Supported double storey structures.
The Dagoretti, Riruta, Kikuyu, Kinoo areas have lots of rental units made of timber structures supporting 2 storey floors . Uusally, a concrete slab is laid to prevent water and noise from the upper floor affecting the lower floor.
A quick scan of areas around Riruta will reveal lots of such structures which are disasters waiting to happen. Unless the occupants take their own initiative and move out, the County Government which is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring safety of buildings will most likely allow the building owners to continue operating.
In most cases, these are usually single room structures which can host at most 3 people per room hence not very heavy. Also, the people in the room do not have vigorous activities such as jumping up and down.
Copy Paste.
The school owner must have seen these buildings and assumed that they could be used to accommodate students without considering the heavy loading that classrooms come with . He then copy pasted a construction method that could not work with his type of building use. Its usually the role of the County Government to enforce and force such people to seek architectural services from the available practicing architects so that he builds a safe structure. County Government has various means and resources to ensure developers are working with architects to come up with safe structures eg County Askaris, County garbage, water ans sewer staff that are in the region etc who all report of new construction projects to county planning department for action.
County Government Enforcement.
In this case, there is a very high chance that the County Government officers in charge of this area were aware of the construction process but were either bribed or given instructions by their bosses not to stop the construction.
Its virtually impossible to get away with constructing any visible structure within Nairobi County, meaning that the County government department of planning has very good reach on all construction developments.
Solution.
Solution is for the Nairobi County Government department of planning to ensure that all people in the processs of construction are forced to seek architectural services and where they are not complying, their buildings demolished so as to prevent loss of life unnecessarily.
NCA.
The National Construction Authority is relatively new in its operation and do not have the personnel to identify poor constructions going on around the county like the County Government can. County Government can rely on a lot of its staff doing other roles in the same vicinity eg public health staff, shop licencing staff, roads maintenance staff etc who will report of new buildings coming up. NCA can only be able to deal with large structures such as apartments due to their limited resources so in this case they are not to be blamed since the National Government is the one that created them and did not provide them with necessary resources for proper enforcement.
Dagoretti South MP.
The Dagoretti South MP said that the lack of Government schools in the region would solve the problem and proposed hiving off Lenana School land as a solution. The problem lies in construction standards lack of enforcement by County Government. The same problem is also facing Government schools so hiving off Lenana School land would only pave way for land grabbing and more unsafe buildings unless elected leaders sit together to look for a way of helping the citizens resolve building safety problems. What the Dagoretti South MP would have done is to pressure the County Government Planning department to ensure such unsafe buildings dont come up in both public and private schools.
Nearby public Primary Schools such as Ngong forest primary school can be upgraded into several storey blocks to accomodate for a larger intake.
Lenana school land, approximately 200 acres, can be expanded to house a girls high school which can share the numerous extra curricular activities such as music school, soccer, rugby, volley ball, basket ball pitches etc.
Going Forward.
Buidings in Kenya have been collapsing and resulting to unnecessary deaths to Kenyans for the last 10 years with an increase in frequency. People discuss the tragedies online but after the dust settles, nothing is done, County Governments continue looking the other way as developers create death traps for unsuspecting public. Its sad that the County Government and National Government will not be able to ensure developers comply.
This analysis done here below by www.a4architect.com on why the Langata Southern Bypass building colapsed in 2011 recommends same remedy to resolve this issue of building colapse. 8 Years later, situation on the ground is still the same.
‘safety starts with you’
Citizens should ensure their own safety sadly, as in ‘safety starts with you’ . Ideally, citizens have Governments that make sure their buildings are safe but in this situation, with a County Government unable to take that role up to perfection, its up to citizens to ensure their won personal safety. Thousands of Nairobians in Riruta, Dagoretti and environs living in double storey houses supported by timber structures will need to take the initiative and move to safer structures since the highest likelihood is that the County Government wil not enforce the developers to ensure safety, just like it has been happening the last 10-15 years or so.
Architect Francis Gichuhi kamau.
info@a4architect.com
0721410684
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