Tailoring reconstruction to needs of post-conflict zones
In 2003, Mahmood-Reza Pooyan learned first-hand the difficulty of implementing construction projects in postconflict zones, when he was working with the United Nations on efforts to rebuild Afghanistan. This year, he is graduating with a master’s degree in civil engineering.
There was a lot of pressure: Money was coming in from donor countries and agencies who hoped to see immediate results in the form of rehabilitated infrastructure and stabilized communities.
“We were receiving design requests around the clock,” he recalls. “Postconflict, everything needs to be done yesterday.”
So Pooyan made what felt like a safe bet, adopting the building structure he had used to shelter earthquake victims in Iran and India.
“The plan backfired,” he says. “The design failed to consider cultural and environmental sensitivities.” His team needed to meet international construction standards — in a country where no such standards had existed — yet they hadn’t taken into account local traditions of building design, such as the assumption that every sound building must include a pitched roof.
These difficulties have driven Pooyan’s study of project delivery systems (the orchestration of the project from inception to commissioning) in post-conflict zones.
“Characteristics of post-conflict zones are completely different than those in a normal setting,” says Pooyan. As well, geographical terrain, cultural issues, and security concerns vary in each zone. If the local population rejects the project they will not maintain it after international aid workers depart. Pooyan’s goal is to provide a decision-making model for the managers of donordriven construction projects to help them take into account the huge range of considerations that affect such undertakings.
The field is relatively new and extremely diverse; Pooyan credits his supervisors at Concordia for guiding him through it.
“Without them,” he says, “I’d be all over the place. They have been extremely helpful in suggesting ways to streamline my research and making it more goal oriented.” An emphasis on clear goals reflects Pooyan’s own project.
“The cardinal objective of my work,” says Pooyan, “is to convince upper level managers that there is a need to be more specific, to tailor engineering norms to the particulars of a post-conflict situation.”
Related link:
• Concordia's Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering