Blog Observe, Deduce, Eliminate and Conclude.
The Curious Case of the Exploding Windows
Not used as commonly as the word hazardous to describe building materials like asbestos, the word deleterious casts a wider net over what should have equal focus on them. The dictionary definition of deleterious is; “causing harm or damage”. In property, a material is considered deleterious when it doesn’t perform as expected, is a risk […]
The Cracking Story of Mascot Towers
Since 2019, you may have seen mention of Mascot Towers in and out of the [Australian] news ever since its residents were evacuated on 14 June 2019. Often it’s referenced together with Opal Tower in any news related to The Building Commission NSW. However, rather than read about the ongoing drama and heartache experienced by […]
Ceiling Legends: How Australia Molded the Plastering World
How do you accurately identify and age a plaster ceiling? Understanding Australia’s role in the history of plasterwork used throughout the today holds the answer. Decorations made from plaster in New South Wales (NSW) have their history between 1788 and 1939. The earliest known plaster cornice in Australia is 1816 in The Mint, Macquarie Street, […]
Obsolescence or Salvation …or both?
Everything changes and nothing remains still; and you cannot step twice into the same stream Heraclitus How do we and our buildings remain resilient when faced with our own obsolescence? It’s a dog’s life. Hopefully. Open AI was founded in 2015, an AI research and deployment company whose mission is to ensure that artificial general […]
RAAC Attack: Don’t Panic Edition
In 1924 in the city of Yxhult, Sweden, architect and inventor Dr. Johan Axel Eriksson working with Professor Henrik Kreüger at the Royal Institute of Technology patented RAAC: reinforced aerated autoclave concrete. Their organisation, Yxhults Ånghärdade Gasbetong became the first registered building materials brand in the world. Later, cellular concrete brand, Hebel, opened it’s […]
A Space Shuttle Landing On The Shard
After midnight on Wednesday 14 June 2017, in flat 16 on the fourth floor of a twenty-four story residential tower, an electrical fault in a fridge-freezer began a fire. Behailu Kebede was awakened by an unfamiliar beeping sound that would not stop. He got up to investigate, opening the door to his kitchen to find […]
The Building Detective (LI Teaser)
You don’t have to be a building surveyor to call yourself someone who collects data and solves problems. All of us do both every day. You do it when your train is delayed, or when you run out of milk at 6am. You’ve done it to complete a jigsaw puzzle. Say you’ve got yourself a […]