The Nigerian Institute of Architects has urged the government to do more in the area of patronising locally made building materials.
The first vice president of the institute, Mobolaji Adeniyi, made this known while speaking with journalists at the Archibuilt Exposition held in Abuja.
According to her, government policy on local content would be ineffective without patronising professionals who were making strides in sourcing local building materials
She said, “The government has to do more in patronising Nigerian architects and local building materials.
“If the government is putting so much into training professionals, it should be using its professionals. We are looking forward to competitions where major and iconic buildings will be thrown open to the Nigerian architects to show our expertise
“We don’t always have to bring in foreign architects to design particularly buildings that have sensitive security issues. We must make sure that it’s our own professionals that are designing them.
“We now have the local content policy which means the government should be patronising its professionals.”
Meanwhile, the Vice-Chancellor of Bingham University, Prof. William Qurix, has charged architects to help solve the housing deficit by creating suitable designs for mass housing.
He said, “One of the reasons responsible for the deficit is that you find many houses available but people cannot afford to buy the houses and even if they buy, it is difficult to live there because the designs are not good. So, architects will have to design houses that are suitable for use and balance them with cost parameters.
“We must evolve models that allow us to design to specifics while allowing individual flexibility and as an institute, we are looking in that aspect.”
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