Architects court support for building code

THE Ghana Institute of Architects (GIA) has called for public support as the institute pushes for the establishment of a building code to regulate town and city planning in the country.
The President of the association, Mr Osei Kwame Agyemang, who made call, said the focus of the agitation was to ensure that cities were constructed in a manner that would promote national development.
Mr Agyemang was speaking with the Daily Graphic to commemorate World Day of Architecture, which fell on October 7, 2010.
He said the GIA would urge the crafting of a national building code to weed out charlatans whose actions ran parallel to internationally acceptable architectural standards and practices.
He accused some building contractors of conniving with real estate developers and draughtsmen who paraded as architects to win huge contracts for the construction of buildings and end up doing shoddy work.
Mr Agyemang expressed concern over the seeming lack of interest on the part of the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing to engage the GIA to craft a national building code to weed out charlatans in the industry.
He said the institute would continue to push for the establishment of a building code and called on architects across the country who were not registered members of the GIA to register in order to unite their front to protect the integrity of the profession.
In a separate interview, Mr Theophilus Sowah, an architect, expressed the belief that the increasing rate at which buildings were collapsing as a result of shoddy work was what could eventually expose the charlatans in the industry.
A consultant from Scurr Architects in Britain, Mr Reginald Longdon, and a lecturer at the Architecture Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Dr Victor Kootin-Sanwu, stressed the need for architects to observe international standards and procedures to ensure that their competencies reflected in their work.
Dr Kootin-Sanwu, during a presentation on energy efficiency in buildings, urged architects to create designs that would provide enough ventilation in the buildings they designed to avoid the use of excessive energy as a result of heat.