Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		Lightweight steel frame in Mozambique _____________________________________________________ Author: Wegelin, Hans In: Artefacts April Date: 2014 _____________________________________________________
Lightweight steel frame in Mozambique The construction of several buildings for the Gorongosa National Park Scientific Services Centre in the north-west of Mozambique consists of lightweight steel frame with cavity insulation in walls and magnesium oxide (MgO) board cladding. Steel frames were manufactured in South Africa, while the boards were imported from China. Girders resting on hollow section galvanised steel piles, pneumatically driven in the ground, provide the substructure. Flooring is steel troweled polypropylene reinforced concrete on permanent corrugated steel shuttering. Pile caps are termite proofed. Local wood was used for roof trusses, posts and beams, decking, windows and doors, softening the industrial look of the prefabs. Local chamfuti was specified but found to be unobtainable due to massive exports to the east! Local saligna was used instead. Ceilings are locally produced 50mm thick tongue-and-groove low-density palm wood boards, providing insulation equal to that of a conventional ceiling with insulation. The building accommodates passive cooling by means of floor and ceiling vents. MgO (or more commonly called magnesia) is a cementitious mineral unfamiliar to most South Africans. No deposits are found on African soil. The major deposits are found in China, Europe and Canada. The White Mountains in China, where the Great Wall was built with magnesia, has huge deposits. It is widely used in the East in the manufacture of cement. Magnesia board, unlike our familiar monolithic fibre cement board, is a composite board, consisting of a sandwich of thin facings reinforced with a nonwoven fabric or fibreglass net onto a core of a mixture of MgO, MgCl , sawdust and perlite. The natural colour is light grey. Magnesia board, mainly used in place of traditional gypsum dry wall cladding and ceilings, and as a substitute for fibre-cement products like fascias, and is locally available. Architects: Crafford & Crafford, Pretoria Contractor: E4 Construction
Buildings linked to this article Gorongosa National Park Scientific Services Centre, n.d., Chitengo, Mozambique. pp