On Au­gust 21st 2018 at 5.30 pm, mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­sti­tute of Ar­chi­tects (TTIA) were about to at­tend a pre­sen­ta­tion en­ti­tled “Mex­i­co City: Earth­quake and In­no­v­a­tive Ar­chi­tec­ture.” At 5.31 pm, Trinidad and To­ba­go was struck by a 6.9 mag­ni­tude earth­quake.

Thank­ful­ly, there were no re­ports of any deaths. How­ev­er, this rais­es the ques­tion of why there is still no na­tion­al build­ing code in T&T? Build­ing codes are ex­treme­ly im­por­tant as they es­tab­lish the min­i­mum stan­dard for the pro­tec­tion of the health and safe­ty of the pub­lic - a must for any coun­try. As we hope­ful­ly move for­ward in this re­gard, there are two facts re­gard­ing codes that must first be un­der­stood:

1. Build­ing codes are most ef­fec­tive when tai­lored to a spe­cif­ic con­text and in­ter­pret­ed and im­ple­ment­ed by trained pro­fes­sion­als.

In the ab­sence of a lo­cal build­ing code, and prompt­ed by a sense of pro­fes­sion­al du­ty, lo­cal­ly reg­is­tered ar­chi­tects and en­gi­neers have adopt­ed in­ter­na­tion­al codes and stan­dards. These in­clude the In­ter­na­tion­al Build­ing Code (IBC), the US Na­tion­al Fire Pro­tec­tion As­so­ci­a­tion (NF­PA) and Amer­i­can In­sti­tute of Steel Con­struc­tion (AISC) stan­dards.

How­ev­er, a code specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored to the speci­fici­ties of our cli­mate and seis­mic ac­tiv­i­ty is cru­cial.

Al­so, the term “reg­is­tered” is crit­i­cal, as it demon­strates that an ar­chi­tect or en­gi­neer has un­der­gone the rigour of years of ed­u­ca­tion, train­ing and test­ing. Fur­ther­more, up­on be­ing reg­is­tered, they are re­quired to im­prove their skills through con­tin­ued pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment (CPD) pro­grammes.

Both ar­chi­tects and en­gi­neers have pre­sent­ed amend­ments to their re­spec­tive Acts which would make reg­is­tra­tion manda­to­ry for prac­tice in the re­spec­tive fields, as is cur­rent­ly the case for plumbers, elec­tri­cians, doc­tors and lawyers. The amend­ments to the fol­low­ing acts have been sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Works and are await­ing ac­tion:

i. Amend­ments to the En­gi­neer­ing Pro­fes­sion Act Chap­ter 90:01 (Act 34 of 1985) - sub­mit­ted by the Board of En­gi­neer­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOETT)

ii. Amend­ments to the Ar­chi­tec­ture Pro­fes­sion Act No. 19 of 1992 - sub­mit­ted ear­li­er this year by the Board of Ar­chi­tec­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOATT)

Both of these acts would be fur­ther bol­stered by the Plan­ning and Fa­cil­i­ta­tion of De­vel­op­ment Act 2014, which out­lines mech­a­nisms for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Na­tion­al Plan­ning Au­thor­i­ty. This body would ad­vise the Min­is­ter of Plan­ning on mat­ters such as de­vel­op­ment reg­u­la­tions, stan­dards and prac­tices for build­ing and en­gi­neer­ing op­er­a­tions.

But even with these mea­sures in place, progress would not be achieved with­out the in­volve­ment of com­pe­tent con­trac­tors. To date, there is still no li­cenc­ing re­quire­ment for con­trac­tors. The pub­lic re­mains at risk, as was the case with five-year-old Pawaan Granger, who was crushed to death by a falling wall at his Fyz­abad home ear­li­er this year.

2 In or­der to be ef­fec­tive, the en­force­ment of codes is vi­tal.

The earth­quakes in To­ba­go in 1982 re­sult­ed in sig­nif­i­cant dam­age and in 1997 caused US$25m in de­struc­tion and left sev­er­al home­less. This event prompt­ed the pub­li­ca­tion of the “Guide to the De­sign and Con­struc­tion of Small Build­ings,” which was an ex­em­plary joint ef­fort be­tween the Trinidad and To­ba­go Bu­reau of Stan­dards (TTBS), the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers of Trinidad and To­ba­go (APETT) and BOETT. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, as ben­e­fi­cial as it is, no one is re­quired by law to con­form to this guide.

When the en­force­ment of codes and stan­dards is in­clud­ed in leg­is­la­tion, then the Gov­ern­ment and its cit­i­zens pos­sess a pow­er­ful tool to hold per­sons/en­ti­ties ac­count­able in cas­es of neg­li­gence.

The proac­tive mind­set of our reg­is­tered ar­chi­tects, en­gi­neers and com­pe­tent con­trac­tors has pro­tect­ed us thus far but we must not be com­pla­cent. Hav­ing been clear­ly warned by The UWI Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre, the Gov­ern­ment has an oblig­a­tion and a man­date to take im­me­di­ate ac­tion to im­ple­ment and en­force build­ing codes. Every cit­i­zen of this coun­try de­serves no less.

Ronald Am­mon is a reg­is­tered ar­chi­tect and pres­i­dent of the T&T In­stitue of Ar­chi­tects.