Category: Saturday Magazine

Otunba Dele Ajayi Smith is Chairman/Chief Executive, Hammersmith Projects Solutions Limited. Smith, who is a member, Membership Committee of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, believes that accommodation should be the least of the problems of Nigerians. In this interview with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf, he talks about alternative building methods and how to avert building hazards in Nigeria

It is very difficult for an average Nigerian to build a house because of the continuous rise in the price of building materials, especially cement, in fact government has asked Nigerians to look for alternative ways of building houses. What is the way out?

I think Nigerians should deemphasise the use of cement. I would suggest what is called monolithic dome housing. For centuries, Nigerians know one simple housing system, the one made of cement, sand and stones; the nearest alternative are the burnt bricks used in the same conventional four square style. Monolithic dome housing is unique in several senses; dome is a house that has several features, a house that can survive most natural and manmade disasters: tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, fires bullets, rot, mold and termites. Of course you will likely argue that we do not have most of those natural disasters in our country, that we do not have hurricanes, that we do not have incidences of earthquakes, of course we do have powerful flooding, violent storms and winds and, we do constantly have incidences of those manmade disasters, we do have great insecurity which could lead to severe stray bullets and so many other related negative occurrences.

This new technology stands against all these natural and manmade disasters, it is a unique housing system; it is the safest house in the world. Monolithic Dome is so beautiful; it can be decorated from both inside and outside. It is really fantastic, so when I saw this building personally and slept inside it for days, I was very excited, I appreciated it because I have been involved in the industrial insulation technology for many years, for over three decades, so when I saw the Dome House, it was very attractive because it is a combination of industrial insulation and also the features of conventional building technology I am used to. So putting these two technologies together, we were sure it is going to be something absolutely NEW! For our climate also and, the fact of the growing climate change and its consequences, especially, it is more serious with us in Africa because we do not have solid safety-net against disasters.

The beauty of a Dome House is that when you build the usual conventional house here. You are only thinking about this house lasting some decades, in the case of Monolithic Dome, you must be thinking of several centuries. Take for instance that the Rome’s Pantheon Dome built in 126 A. D. is still there in use and remains strong. So many Dome houses that I personally visited in the US are all looking good as new even though some are 30 years old, you won’t see any sign of stress on any of the Dome houses, but most houses that are conventional, the maintenance costs are even so high to keep them strong or else dilapidation sets in.

The cost of a Dome House is about the same cost with that of our known conventional buildings and for our Ecoshell Dome, it could be 10 to 25 percent cheaper than the cost of conventional building and by the time you put all other things into consideration; the period of construction which is faster with the Dome House and, then with the fact that maintenance cost is almost 50 per cent cheaper after the construction, especially when you consider energy savings.

When you talk about dome, what readily comes to mind is something ancient, how relevant is it for the modern day?

No, the kind of dome we are talking about comes in different shapes and forms of designs, they are beautiful than the old mud dome you use to see in the northern part of Nigeria. I am talking about modern day Domes; they are classical and beautiful, more than any conventional buildings both internally and externally. They are really beautiful and, when you consider some of the areas our people sink their hard-earned hundreds of millions of naira in constructing their homes like all the Lekki axis, the best form of building structures that will not make them lose their investment or their sleeps are the Dome houses and, Dome house can go up to 25 storeys or levels so that there is nothing you need you don’t get from a Dome building. We have all forms of designs you can build a beautiful bungalow, single or two storey building, you can build multiple storey building, up to 25- storey building, it is a building for all seasons.

Take a look at those conventional buildings along Ahmadu Bello Way on Victoria Island in Lagos directly facing the Atlantic ocean, almost all the tenants have run away several years back, they can’t live there any longer and those are huge investments, if they were Dome structures, they will have no problems, they will remain there, they will remain good neigbbours to the Atlantic ocean, nothing to drive them away from that neighbourhood.

When you now look at those structures you have along Lekki Phase I, Phase II, and all those other estates directly behind the Atlantic Ocean, their best built are the Dome houses because they will have no problems at all times. When you think places like Abuja, of course, they are on solid ground, but the growing climate change doesn’t promise anyone anywhere of a sure safety or good tidings, anything could happen at any time.

If you know the psyche of Nigerians, anytime they want to do something, they think about the cost implication, how affordable is this to an average Nigerian?

It is very affordable. It is cheaper for the low income-earner to maintain than maintaining the old conventional house. That is why you see many of our houses; they get easily deteriorated because of what it must cost to maintain them. The only disadvantage that the Monolithic Dome will have on the low income-earners is that of raising their sense of beauty, consciousness and good standard of living.

If you look at most of our universities, most of them are not residential, how useful can this monolithic houses help in accommodating the students?

You’re very right, take for instance, Olabisi Onabanjo University, (OOU) is a 30-year-old institution and they don’t have hostel for their students, they have population of over 14,000 students new students of about 6,000 enter into the university every year and they have to scramble for local accommodation all around those cities within the proximity of the institution, some of these students have to live several miles away from their campuses, yet they don’t have comfortable places to live, coupled with incompatible culture with the local people which often leads to chaos. We have just introduced Echoshell Dome to the university. Dome will prevent man-made disaster that often occurs where a multitude lives. We have introduced the alternative building technology to the university and, the institution is very excited and wishes to be the first university to adopt the alternative building technology.

If you recall, early this year, the federal government beginning to advocate for alternative building technology, the president specifically mentioned it, some of the state governors also talked about huge cost of building a house. Cement is expensive, but the truth is that cement accounts for less than 15 per cent of all the building materials. Cement is not really the major cost in a building process, you are going to talk about planks to do so many things in a structure.

When you see various designs of Dome houses, you will see that they are better than conventional homes, they are more easily decorated, when you see many of these designs you will be so happy, you can tailor your decoration so well that you do it at a very lowest cost.

Apart from housing sector, the Domes are best for banking hall, especially these days with security challenges, Domes are so appropriate for banking hall all over the country especially when you consider the bullet proof feature, the safety of numbers of customers usually within the banking hall, etc.