Regular readers of the blog will be aware that the design of the new dental clinical teaching facility and student hub planned for the Blantyre Campus of Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS) has progressed through Stages 1 and 2 of the RIBA process. These earlier stages were funded by Scottish Government International Development through The MalDent Project, but the final technical elements of the design process are being funded by the World Bank. After reviewing the original procurement paperwork through which a consortium led by John McAslan and Partners (JMP) had been appointed to undertake the first stages of the design work, the World Bank agreed that JMP should continue as the consultant, working in collaboration with local architects, engineers and quantity surveyors.
On Tuesday 6th February, Peter Lee from JMP was due to arrive in Malawi for a series of meetings to take the project forward. Peter is a Senior Associate with JMP and has taken over from Paul East as Head of the Edinburgh Studio. Peter Chimimba and I went to Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe to meet Peter off his plane. When we arrived, his flight had already landed and passengers were disembarking into the airport shuttle buses.
Following the usual formalities of visa purchase, immigration desk, baggage collection and security, Peter emerged through the arrivals channel.
Following the drive to the Sunbird Capital Hotel in Lilongwe, Peter took a couple of hours to rest before meeting members of the team, including Mr Benjamin Kamanga, the consultant who had produced the Environmental and Social Management Plan. This document is essential because the World Bank will only support a construction project if the design abides by its requirements.
Once this meeting was concluded, we enjoyed a meal together. Peter Lee embraced African cuisine by choosing crocodile tail, and conversation relating to the design project continued.
On the morning of 7th February we attended an early morning meeting with the Planning & Implementation Unit (PIU) which has been established to manage the large grant from the World Bank to fund the ‘Skills for a Vibrant Economy’ (SAVE) Project. The $5.2m that has been allocated to the construction of the new building on the Blantyre Campus of KUHeS is being provided by the SAVE Project.
The team assembled with the various technical experts from the PIU. The meeting was led by Grenard Nkwende who chairs the PIU.
I gave a brief 15 minute overview of The MalDent Project to provide context for the subsequent detailed presentation on the building design by Peter Lee. This ‘double act’ was to be repeated twice more during the week and seemed to work well.
Following the presentations there was an extended discussion and agreement that we all needed to work as swiftly as possible, because the SAVE Project funding expires in 2026.
Following the conclusion oƒ the meeting, we set off on the journey down to Blantyre. En route we stopped for lunch at Dedza Pottery.
Watching the skilled artisans at work producing and decorating the wide range of items sold by Dedza Pottery brought back childhood memories of watching my father, also a potter, at work in the studio he had created at our family home.
The shop was stocked with many beautiful items, including some stunning arrays of tiles.
After visiting the factory and shop we enjoyed lunch, sitting outside with beautiful views to admire.
We had been advised that in addition to producing pottery, there was also a brick-making factory on the site. As you will realise from the rest of this post, much thought is now going into finalising the materials that will be used for construction of the new building and Peter was keen to learn as much as possible about locally derived materials whilst he was visiting. Following a request from Peter to the Dedza Pottery staff, we were led out through the back of the pottery studio into another building in which the brick making was underway.
The bricks are individually made by hand using a mould as shown in the following video clip:
The bricks are then stacked to air dry …
… before they are fired in a kiln.
One of the key features of the materials chosen for the building is that they must satisfy the sustainability requirements as dictated by the Environmental and Social Management Plan mentioned earlier. In the case of kiln-fired bricks, evidence must be produced that the wood used to fire the kilns originates from a sustainable source.
Following our lunch break and tour of the brick-making factory we continued on the journey to Blantyre. Our next stop was at a roadside yard that sold stone and gravel for the construction industry. Mwapatsa knew the proprietor, who was keen to show us around. There were piles of stones and gravel of every size, shape and colour.
We were taken to the far side of the yard where the first stage in gravel preparation was underway. Large stones were being hammered by hand into smaller stones – very hard and repetitive work:
Nearer to the road, the next stage was underway as the gravel was loaded into a sieve …
… and then shaken by hand to provide a smaller sized aggregate:
One possible surface under consideration for the floors of the new building is terrazzo, for which materials from a yard such as this could be suitable.
After our arrival in Blantyre, we spent a quiet evening at the hotel, in readiness for a busy time the next day.
On the Thursday morning, Peter Chimimba picked us up and drove us to the Blantyre Campus of KUHeS. On arrival in the office, Peter Lee presented Peter Chimimba with a copy of a book entitled ‘Making Architecture’, which details many of the amazing projects completed over the years by JMP. We very much hope that the next volume will include the completed student hub and clinical dental teaching facility at KUHeS!
The morning meeting started in the Board Room, where Peter Lee met the local team, including Patrick Calisse from MOD Architects, the Mechanical and Electrical Engineer, Structural Engineer, Quantity Surveyor and members of Mwapatsa’s team working on the SAVE Project. Those present were brought up to speed with the current position and some preliminary discussion took place.
We then moved out and took a tour of the proposed location of the building. This was Peter Lee’s first opportunity to see the site and surrounding environment.
Following the site visit we returned to the Board Room. Mwapatsa and I took some time out to purchase pizzas for the team so that they could work on without significant interruption.
We had been informed by the PIU that they had organised a meeting for us to attend at 4pm at the Malawi University of Business and Science (formerly the Polytechnic) with Ministry of Education officials – the Principal Secretary for Education, the Director of Higher Education, and the Director of Science, Technology & Innovation. The Vice-Chancellor of KUHeS was also invited. The PIU asked us to deliver the same ‘double act’ presentation that Peter and I had used at the meeting on the Wednesday morning in Lilongwe. We delivered our presentation, answered questions, and acknowledged the need to move the project along quickly
and the KUHeS Vice-Chancellor
On the Friday morning we attended a meeting of the KUHeS Senior Management Team. The meeting was chaired by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Dr Belinda Gombachika. Peter and I delivered our presentations for the third time and once again responded to a range of questions with input from the KUHeS SAVE team.
The outcome of the meeting was that the design was approved and the contract between JMP and KUHeS was signed. This was a significant moment which now allows the monies from the World Bank to begin flowing, the final design details to be resolved, the tender for a constructor to be issued and work on site to begin in July this year.
Following our meeting with the KUHeS Senior Management, Mwapatsa took Peter and I to the Durabric factory in Blantyre, where we met with Patrick. Durabric produces what are known as soil stabilised bricks (SSBs).
These bricks are not kiln-fired and therefore the issue of wood from non-sustainable sources being burned is not an issue.
Patrick, the MOD architect, had informed us that he had concerns about breakdown of the bricks if they were subjected to significant water contact. The factory was itself built with Durabrics and in places there was evidence of significant erosion despite the fact it had only been opened in 2019. In areas that were protected from water contact, the bricks remained in good condition.
Samson, the site supervisor, informed us that the factory was not currently producing SSBs because of the downturn in the construction industry following the recent 44% devaluation of the Malawian currency. However, he showed us the machine which produces the SSBs. A recipe of 9 parts of fine, sieved gravel, 3 parts river sand and 1 part cement is used as the mix with water, and each brick is allowed to dry and cure for seven days.
Following our visit to the Durabric factory we visited the nearby Terrastone factory. This was a much larger business and brick-making was in full swing.
Patrick knew the manager and soon we were heading into the depths of the factory to view the process of creating their kiln-fired bricks.
The process of making the bricks in a mould was semi-automated compared with the method we had seen at Dedza, but it was still a very hard and repetitive task:
We passed into large warehouses where literally thousands of bricks were stacked to dry;
After the specified drying period the bricks are stacked in large kilns before they are fired.
After our visit around the factory we had a lengthy discussion about terrazzo flooring, which is attractive, easy to clean and very durable.
As our visit was nearing an end, Mr Jose Dacosta appeared. Mr Dacosta moved to Malawi from Mozambique in the early 1960’s and is the founder of Terrastone. He is an expert in terrazzo flooring and therefore we may well be seeing more of him in due course!
Just before we left Terrastone we were shown the stack of blue gum timber used to fire the kilns. If the team decides to use kiln-fired bricks from Terrastone we will need to have written evidence that the wood is from a sustainable source.
Following our fascinating visit to Terrastone, we turned our attention to a different construction medium – wood. At Patrick’s direction we headed to SR Nicholas, a well-established construction company with factories in both Blantyre and Lilongwe. Once through the security gates we parked the vehicles and feasted our eyes on a massive wooden structure being constructed on a concrete block jig. The manager explained that this was a roof structure for a new building. The design was extremely complex, so the individual elements were being hand-cut and assembled in the yard, after which it would be dis-assembled, transported to the project site and re-built in situ.
The manager then explained that the structure was made of laminated rubber wood. SR Nicholas owns a large rubber plantation (1.2 million trees) in the North of Malawi. Rubber trees only yield rubber for a finite period of time and every 32 years they are cut down and replaced with saplings that take 7 years to mature. This renders rubber wood a sustainable material for construction.
The felled trees are converted in a saw mill in Northern Malawi and laminated with a strong waterproof adhesive to produce the timber used by industry, for example in furniture making and building construction.
The laminated rubber wood can be produced in many different shapes and sizes.
After our fascinating ‘brick and timber crawl’ Peter and I headed to the offices of MOD Architects for a final series of meetings with Patrick and the technical team.
The interior of the facility was beautifully appointed …
… and we headed to the Board Room for a final round of discussions on technical aspects of the building and finalisation of the work plan over the coming weeks.
After the meeting, Patrick showed Peter and I around the studios in the practice …
… taking in a cork model that Patrick had constructed many years ago when he was a junior in the practice:
Patrick kindly gave Peter and I a lift back to our hotel and shortly after our arrival I picked up a message from Peter Chimimba to let us know that he was treating us to dinner at Grill 21 in Ryall’s Hotel, to celebrate the signing of the contract. This was also Peter Lee’s last evening in Malawi, so it was a fitting way to round off the very successful week and typical of Peter Chimimba’s generosity and courtesy.
The next morning I accompanied Peter from the hotel …
… to Chileka Airport at Blantyre.
It had been a whirlwind few days. Peter’s grasp of the project, excellent presentations and rapidly established rapport with our Malawian colleagues had made a deep impression on the team. There is a lot of work to do over the next few months, but Peter’s visit has galvanised us all into action, with an absolute commitment to ensuring construction starts later this year. Watch this blog for photos of the earthworks getting underway!
Great effort! Thank you for the details. And all the very best to fulfill this mission. Brick and motor home for dental school is important and in a country with limited resources, large population, a community based clinical education or a virtual dental home (referral source) maybe the way to go in future.
This is a great news and bring me back good memories of my years during the early 2000 in Balaka as a trainer for dental technicians. Hope in this new facility you are taking in account also the needs for dental technicians.