As a Photographer, the founder
has had assignments that
included taking Forensic Photographs of all manner of
Natural (and other) Disasters.
These include Forest,
Brush, Bush and Grass fires, Cyclone, Hurricane, Tornado
and Tsunami, Flooding via Deluge, Spillway failure,
Embankment erosion as well as Oil Spills and Machinery
Failure.
Many times these images were for Insurance
Assessment or to be presented in Law Courts.
The human suffering, personal devastation and
strength required to rebuild homes and lives has been a
factor in applying Creative Thinking to largely
Engineering problems.
Having traveled to more than 40 countries and
witnessed the effects of disaster first hand, I believe
that this approach to change building codes, build
internal shelters and protect people, will ultimately
save human lives, as well as millions of dollars in
rebuilding costs.
Many times, Building Codes have not been adequate, or
have been ignored and certainly lag behind current
infrastructure issues and modern technology.
Now, I am
applying my understanding of some of these issues as
best I can, while calling on others to collaborate,
share, join in, be active, lobby for change and
generally help a fairly broken system.
Other devices and concepts are
visualized by a desire to improve as much as innovate.
Bringing together technology and improved materials
allows us to all to have an improved lifestyle.
I'm not an architect.
Just another engineer.
But I'm old enough to have caught a few courses and been around a few blocks.
One of the things that has amazed me is that the human race has been building
structures for thousands of years, and we have only got to.... here.
We know more about our environment, engineering moments of force and the natural
and man made catastrophes than ever before, and we still have houses blown away,
get burned to the ground, or flooded beyond use. What went wrong?
A big stone castle on a hill, surrounded by a moat should have been a wake up
call, it wasn't. We continue to purchase property in flood zones, cram them in
together creating a fire risk, or build in the lower level of raised homes (ie
Queenslanders) to have more useful space.
I have seen the devastation of Katrina in Louisiana, I have been burnt out of my
home in Australia and lost four close friends to bushfires, I have friends that
have lost their home to Cyclone Yasi, I have family that were prepared but still
huddled terrified while they lost part of their roof and waited for the rest to
go.
Wake up call. It's cheaper to do it well from the start, save on insurance, save
on heartache and maybe even save lives. This is a call to all governments to
create a think tank of people that are willing to look outside the box - a
little lateral thinking - to come up with new standards that fit our lives, the
21st Century.
The ideas that I have been posting will seem naive to the
civil engineers - good -
prove me wrong by doing better. If you want to slam any of my ideas - make sure
you have a better one.
