Determined to urgently resettle the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) rendered homeless by insurgents in the North-eastern part of the country, the Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers (NISE), the structural division of the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE), has unveiled low cost houses designed to fast-track their resettlement.
The President of NSE, Engineer Samuel Ilugbekhai, in his opening address at the 28th Annual Conference of the Institute themed: “Structural Engineering Excellence In an Environment Inundated with Collapse,” disclosed that the low cost housing design for resettling the displaced persons would cost about N250,000 to realise.
Ilugbekhai said it was part of the association’s corporate social responsibility and that the institute had challenged students of engineering and architecture in all Nigerian universities to make design entries for low cost houses that would take into consideration structural stability, safety, cultural consideration, durability and use of local materials, among others.
“Twelve entries were submitted for the competition where the Earth Bag Housing solution, a team of three 400 level architectural students from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria emerged the winner with a prize of N1 million, while the second prize of N500,000 goes to House 1111 team, and the I-DARE team came third with N250,000 prize,” he added.
Ilugbekhai said the institute adopted the house design as CSR to encourage students of engineering and architecture in tertiary institutions across the country.
The NSE boss, who lamented the frequent collapse of buildings in the country over the years, stressed that since the institute was established in 1968, no member has been involved in a single collapsed building incident.
“We are rising up to the occasion, once again, to address the negative effects of the wanton collapse of buildings in our environment with a view to achieving safer buildings and ensure that the phenomenon of collapsed buildings in Nigeria is a thing of the past.
“It is regrettable that more and more buildings are collapsing all over the country despite the well-meaning efforts of organisations such as ours in combating the menace. Most of the incidences reported in the last couple of months were dangerous and fatal.”
-Leadership