Up-cycling Nepal’s post-earthquake architecture with a model house
However, after relief money was allocated for the removal of material from ruined houses excellent raw material that could have been used for construction were taken away. Once the government got its act together, it dictated the usage of concrete.
Heaps of local building material was wasted, while salvaged timber started to rot in the rain. Families who could afford it started building reinforced concrete houses. This has been a boom time for the cement and rebar industry. Brick infill walls were made in concrete structures, providing business to polluting brick kilns baking Kathmandu’s fertile topsoil. All this new building material had to be transported by trucks spewing black soot.
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One of the lessons not learnt from the earthquake four years ago is the possibility to re-use and up-cycle bricks, metal and timber for reconstruction instead of buying expensive imported material. But it is still not too late.
