Fresh hope for mass housing as new building technology comes with speed, cost saving

A new building technology that increases speed and reduces cost of construction has been introduced into Nigerian building and construction industry, raising fresh hope for mass housing which investors have been avoiding because of inherent challenges that include long construction period, huge construction cost, delayed return on investment and low profit margin.

Known as Aluma EasySet, the new technology introduced into Nigerian by Structura Casa—a real estate investment and development company— has the capacity to increase speed of construction by 50 percent while reducing cost of constructing the concrete carcass of buildings by 20-29 percent.

At the formal launch of the technology in Lagos recently, Structura Casa and their foreign partners—Brand (providers of energy and infrastructure services) explained to a select audience that Aluma EasySet is an integrated forming and shoring system that can be used in virtually any application where reinforced concrete is the specified method of construction.

“Aluma EasySet is an industrialized system for mass construction; it is well suited for mass housing or multiple-unit housing development and any particular concrete configuration including houses, buildings, hotels, prisons, warehouses, columns, etc”, explained Jide Alade, Structura Casa’s MD/CEO.

Continuing, Alade said, “EasySet offers a lightweight, cost-effective and complete aluminum solution for builders and developers of mass housing schemes”, adding that the system is efficient to use, adaptable for different projects, systematic, simple, fast and easy to erect, and offers the best value for money.

In his opening remarks at the launch, Gbolahon Lawal, the Lagos State commissioner for housing, described Aluma EasySet as “the new way to go”, explaining that with the state’s three million housing units deficit which requires the state to build 20,000 housing units every year for the next 20 years, the only way to achieve that was through the new technology.

“Lagos is behind this brand; we are collaborating with Structura Casa because this is very import ant to us at the ministry of housing; it is the new way to go because of its speed and the cost of construction will be reduced by the new technology”, he said, and encouraged developers to adopt it.

Cesare Carini, Brand’s International Sales Manager, informed that the company is a Canadian company specialized in aluminum components, adding that the company whose design and technology are innovative has offices in 30 countries; $3 billion revenue, $2.2 billion asset base and 27,000 workforce.

According to him, the technology which has been used successfully in places like Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, etc, is versatile, easy, economical, fast, weather resistant, improves finishing, and has unique stair forms and strength, adding that the system is most profitable when applied to mass housing.

Alade stressed that because of its speed, the system makes quick return on investment. “The financing cost is low. To adopt this system, the builder needs to have economy of scale in which case he has to be doing multiple units. When you are doing a large number of houses, you will get lower cost per unit and at the same time, produce higher quality. This is where the world is moving to and we have to do so in Nigeria as well”, he said.

Interest in the system, he said, was very low at the initial stage but it is warming up now. “This is a system with which we can produce millions of houses in Nigeria with mostly local materials. We are strong in three states—Lagos, Ogun and Oyo. We have enough housing demand in these states and we need to mature enough to move to other states”, he assured.

CHUKA UROKO