Implementing international engineering standards in Kuwait

Kuwait Government / Hackney, Roderick Peter. General Specification for Building and Engineering Works of the Ministry of Public Works of the Government of Kuwait.

$3,908.00

Implementing international standards in Kuwait: official guidelines for all kinds of building and engineering work, prepared by the Kuwait Government. Provides guidance for workers and contractors, including instructions for electrical and gas work, air conditioning, road work, the safe construction of cars and elevators, and the appropriate accommodation of the engineers on-site. Enriched with rare material on social housing projects, all designed, drawn, and signed by the British architect Rod Hackney (b. 1942). The set includes three plans of the "Low Cost Housing Project" with type A and B houses, and four plans of the "Kuwait Housing Project" with floor plans and elevations. In an effort to provide affordable housing to its growing population, the government of Kuwait started financing the construction of apartment buildings in the 1950s, dedicated to non-Kuwaitis who had begun to emigrate to Kuwait after the discovery of oil. In his memoirs Hackney describes similar housing projects in Libya in 1967/68: "My work involved drawing up large proposals based on the usual Arab arrangement of placing homes around a central courtyard. They were single-storey, built with concrete blocks and then rendered; some were terraced and some were detached. The homes had to be designed to take account of other local customs, too. For example, the interior plan had to work in such a way that the women didn't have to mix with the men, and the courtyard had to act as an area for entertaining friends".