Building Collapse: Architect Wants Govt To Checkmate Craftsmen

Worried by the spate of
irregularities in the building environment and reports of building collapse, an architect, Leonard  Ibe, has called on both the State and Federal  governments to  checkmate and curtail  the activities of draftsmen in the sector.
Ibe  who made this known in an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt, recently while  reacting to the problem of building collapse, said that some draftmen  have posed as architects.
He said some members of the public  have been patronising these draftsmen because of the cheap fees they pay to them,  without minding the implication at the end.
According to him, a lot of quackery has been going on in the system, where people who are not trained on specific  jobs claim to be capable of doing such jobs.
“As  architects, we don’t canvas or publicise our work. Collapse of building does not come from the design  of a well trained and proficient architect. There are quacks all over the place.
“I call on government to curtail activities of draftsmen because they have their specific  function. A craftsman  can not do the work of an architect, because he is not trained  for that, and any one becomes  quark, when he does any job that he is not trained for,” he said.
Ibe, who is a member of the Nigerian  Institute of Architects (NIA), Rivers  State Branch, also called  on colleagues  to do  designs  that will have minimal  negative impact on the environment.
He said “There is no life without architects, and there is no space  without  time. Architects are agents of change Urbanization is a process,  but not an  event  and architects should be advocates and let the society be  our client”.