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A Way to Construct Cheap Floating Homes

For low-cost housing and for various other building purposes, ferrocement materials and techniques are more than proving their worth
Bangkok : Klong Toey Is * modem port which acts as a powerful magnet, attracting the poor who then settle on the surrounding swamp.
The swamp has grown into one of Bangkok's most crowded squatter settlements, it is where ferrocement — a new, but not-so-new building material — will make its debut on the mass housing scene.
Low-cost housing for slum dwellers is hard to come by. Wood, as a building material. Is becoming scarce. And there ■re few lightweight materials that can replace wood.
Another problem in Klong Toey is that much of the slum area is swamp land where manual construction is difficult. A house in the squatter settlement must also be designed with a capacity for easy dismantling, for relocation or renovation purposes. And it should be affordable for poor people.
Enter ferrocement, a mix of cement plastered around steel (form) bars and wire mesh formed to whatever shape a builder has in rplnd. Ferrocement technology has long been widely known, but only recently has It come into intensive use as a way of combatting the housing shortage.
The Bangkok-based Asian Institute of Technology (AFT), which will oversee the Klong Toey ferrocement housing, has come up with a low-cost floating house designed with the squatter settlement much in mind.
The floating ferrocement houses are meant for a family ^of five with an average annual
income of 4,103 bath . (US# 160).
The ferrocement house stands on a series of interconnected ferrocement pontoons which measure 4.5 metres by 7 metres. The pontoons are suitable for areas with a water depth of at least a metre. The ferrocement house on top measures 3.2 m by 4.2 m. The rest of the floor areas Is used for recreation or domestic chores.
The house is made of ferrocement walls and wooden roof trusses, with prefabricated asbestos sheets to keep it lighwelght. In Thailand, strong winds cause a building to "bend," a problem more pronounced in Klong Toey as It is in an exposed area near the harbour. One way to build the floating house is to have the walls as the main structural support for the upper structure. This provides good resistance to strong winds.
Floating houses are particularly, vulnerable to winds. To make 11 more stable, the house is tied by cable to fixed piles or anchored lo the ground.
White a single pontoon Is more buoyant, a series of rectangular ferrocement
pontoons can be built one at a time — suitbale for families which will build the floating houses themselves, depending on their capability and resources.
A series of pontoons also reduces the chances of the structure sinking. If a leak occurs tn one pontoon, the damage is localised and easily fixed.
According to AIT engineers, a floating ferrocement house has many advantages. It uses locally available materials, can be towed from place to place and does not require skilled labour for its construction.
Ferrocement is a durable material In harsh conditions. It resists corrosion and docs not deteriorate through being constantly underwater. Such floating structures can also be used for recreation and as work stations tn marine projects, etc.
In November 1990, the Aslan Institute of Technology conducted a training course on ferrocement technology for Ihe construction industry. The five-week course Included analysis, design and testing procedures and practical construction methods.
The 19 participants from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines built various structures, like a 2-cublc-metre water tank, a 4-square-metre hyperbolic-paraboloid roof, and a 6 m footbridge — all made out of ferrocement. The choice of the design projects reflected the national development needs identified by the participants.
Three of the participants were engineers from ihe Philippines, staff members of the Capiz Development Foundation, Inc. (CDFI), which is active in the promotion and construction of ferrocement waler tanks, tn Ckptz province, central Philippines. White at AIT, the three prepared a technology dissemination plan for ferrocement.
Upon returning to the Philippines, the engineers built two hyperbolic-paraboloid roofs in two Capiz villages. They also started to find means to reduce the cost of a 4,000-lttre ferrocement water tank by 20 per cent without compromising quality.
The CDFI Itself was chosCn as a training centre for ferrocement technology for central Philippines, a joint project of the AIT and the
Ferrocement Information Nelwork-Phllipplnes, or F1N-Phllippines.
The Ferrocement Information Network was established by AIT's International Ferrocement Information Centre. Its members Include ferrocement users *ln developing countries : China, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Malaysia. Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Sdudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago. United Kingdom, Vietnam and the Virgin Islands.
FIN-Vtetnam Is involved in research and design of ferrocement structures : boats, pontoons, barges. fish breeding tanks, gates for dams, floor slabs, prefabricated floor ilabs and floating homes.
All designs are included in a primer on ferrocement which FIN-Vtetnam distributes.
In Cuba, more than 1,400 passenger and cargo boats have been built using ferrocement.
The first ferrocement swimming pool — 25 metres long — was built in 1982. Many Others followed as the cost was eight times less than a concrete swimming pool.
In Santiago de Cuba city, a theme park features a Prehistoric Valley complete with dinosaur figures up to 12 metres high — made of ferrocement. The first ferrocement house was built in Santiago de Cuba province in 1986.
It ted to a little village of 42 ferrocement houses constructed In Just three months by unskilled local labour.
—- Depthnews Asia