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Steel buildings gaining ground

Kawsar Khan
Steel buildings are gradually making a strong hold in Bangladesh's construction sector, as around 16 companies construct over 100 such buildings every year on average.
Sector people put the annual turnover of the construction segment at aboutTk 1,000 crore.
They said cost-effectiveness, less time-consuming for construction, lightweight. resale value and less vulnerability than RCC buildings are some advantages of steel buildings.
The construction of steel building began for the first time with the inception of Chittagong Export Processing Zone in 1984. Now such building is a common scene in all the industrial areas.
Though the main purposes were to house industries and silos in these buildings at the initial stage, hotels, garment factories, restaurants, garage and schools are now constructed with steel.
If you, by any chance, had been in Gazipur industrial belt, steel buildings would not spare your eyes.
Besides factory buildings, some corporate offices like Grameenphone headquarters in Gulshan in the capital and hotels such as 20-storey Hotel Sarena are some other examples of steel building.
To construct it, all equipment, generally imported from Korea, Japan, China, Russia and India, are first engineered at a factory as per sizes and later assembled on the construction site, which is why it is also known as pre-engineered building.
Such buildings are very popular across the world mainly because it gives a huge architectural flexibility.
"Now we are constructing an industrial building with a 150-feet floor without having any pillar. If it was made of concrete, it would have been very costly," said Rafiqul Islam, general manager of Quantam Builders and Engineering Ltd.
Another advantageous side of steel building is it can be constructed within a very short time.
" It takes six to seven month to construct a 5-storey steel building, while for a conventional RCC (reinforced cement concrete) building it requires not less than two years," said M Akkas Ali, managing director of Multi-Concept Steel Building Products that has made 2.2 million sq ft areas of steel building during its lifetime.
Every year a constructor receives 6-7 offers to build steel establishments, the heights of which range from 2 to 7 storey. Presently garment-related industry owners are the main customers for those buildings, as they do not like to wait for years to get their industry buildings completed.
"If you go to the industrial areas outside Dhaka, you will see many 5-6 storey buildings constructed with steel,” said Siraj Chowdhury, vice president of McDonald Steel Building Products Ltd which has constructed over 500 steel buildings over the last 20 years.
Talking about the cost of steel buildings M Akkas Ali, also president of the proposed
Steel Building Manufacturers Association of Bangladesh, said if construction cost of RCC building is Tk 500 per square feet, it is Tk250-Tk300 fpr every unit ofasteel building. But costs increase in case of high-rise buildings, he added.
Lightweight is another advantageous point.
If designed accurately, weight of a steel building becomes 20 per cent to 30 per cent lower than any RCC building.
When the RCC buildings have no resell value because it is not possible to shift from one place to another, it is very easy for a steel building to dismantle and shift, enabling it to get 80 per cent resale value of its original cost.
Some software available in the market will cater to your need for designing steel buildings. If all necessary information such as height and weight of the building you want to construct is put into the software it automatically gives construction measurements.
On the prospect of such buildings in the country, Ahmed Salah, Bangladesh sales manager of Saudi Arabia-based Zamil Steel, said:" It's very good."
He, however, did not elaborate how his globally renowned company do its business here.
kawsar@thedailystar.net