Away from the basement to the next level – an update on Dental School construction and a Cross-Party Group meeting at the Scottish Parliament

In a previous post I reported on the initial stages of construction of the new Dental School building on the Blantyre Campus of Kamuzu University of Health Sciences. Commencement of the construction works represented a major milestone for The MalDent Project and during my most recent period spent in Malawi, from the beginning of August to mid-September, it was very exciting to watch developments on an almost daily basis. This is a largely pictorial post to illustrate the progress that has been made since the previous blog post, using sequential illustrations.

By early August, the retaining walls for the basement were in place and work was underway to begin construction of the two lift shafts:

The building requires a complex drainage system and channels were dug in preparation for placement of piping in advance of the concrete base being poured:

The site offices, including toilets and other service facilities, had been completed …

… and there was a decent-sized conference room to accommodate meetings.

On 14th August the site was visited by a crew from Times TV who were making a documentary about the various further education and higher education buildings, like ours, that are being funded through the World Bank ‘Skills for a Vibrant Economy’ programme.

A newspaper article followed the visit by Times TV and we await an update on the documentary.

By 21st August, the concrete floor of the basement was undergoing construction…

… which for some reason made the overall footprint of the structure appear much larger:

The excitement of seeing the building emerging is evident in our smiles on this visit to the site:

By 27th August, the rebar steel reinforcement was in place ahead of casting the basement floor plate…

… and by 8th September, scaffolding had been erected in preparation for work on the next level of the building:

Whilst James, Peter and I were visiting the site on 8th September, we met our local structural engineer, Soobhas Sobnack, who has been making very frequent visits to the project to check on progress and accuracy of construction. Soobhas has been involved with the building design from an early stage and is a very good friend of The MalDent Project.

On 13th September there was a formal site meeting, involving the contractor, the local supervisory team, KUHeS and (on-line) John McAslan+ Partners. The meeting commenced with a walk around the site for those present in person …

… followed by a detailed site meeting that was chaired by Patrick Calisse of MOD Architects:

These site meetings will now take place on a monthly basis. One of the highlights was the news that Jess Bailey, a UK-trained architect based in Malawi, has been appointed as the Clerk of Works for the project. Leon Grobbelaar (JMP) and I had met Jess previously when she had provided very valuable local input, as described in an earlier blog post. We look forward to working with Jess over the coming months.

I am currently back in Scotland, but I was recently sent photos taken on 29th September – many thanks to Peter Chimimba and Gift Kayuni for these images. They show significant progress with construction of the next level of the building, which will be the clinical teaching floor. This photo shows a close up view…

… whilst this image is taken from a distance:

The next two images show a view from above …

… as preparations continue for casting of the ground level floor:

The design process and ongoing progress with construction were described in a recent Malawi Cross-Party Group meeting at The Scottish Parliament:

The programme included on-line contributions from Peter Chimimba (KUHeS) and Patrick Calisse (MOD Architects Blantyre), with the bulk of the presentation focused on the design process, which was delivered in person by Peter Lee, Head of the John McAslan + Partners’ Studio in Edinburgh.

The event was chaired by Liam McArthur MSP and was also attended by Alexander Stewart MSP and Sarah Boyack MSP.

Peter Lee gave a detailed description of the design journey and there was a valuable question and answer session to complete the formal part of the event.

For those who attended in person, there was a networking session and an opportunity to enjoy a Malawi gin and tonic or soft drink after the formal part of the meeting had concluded.

For any who missed the CPG and would like to learn more, a recording is available on the Scotland Malawi Partnership web-site here. The WiFi signal in the committee room was somewhat unstable, so apologies for the occasional dropping out of the signal in the Zoom recording.

Acknowledgement

Thanks are due to Gift Kayuni, photographer at KUHeS, and Nasim Vadalia, Communications & Engagement Officer at the Scotland Malawi Partnership, for some of the photographs used in this blog post.