Over the past month or so, I’ve been observing with fascination the rise of the adjacent building right next to our office window. The pictures below have been taken over the past week; the most exciting thing in construction is the “Sabbeh”, when cement is poured over the grid of steel bars to make reinforced concrete. Normally, the “sabbeh” starts very early in the morning, with prayers for clear weather conditions. It’s quite a milestone in the progress of any building’s construction.
This whole thing brings different thoughts to my mind every time I stare out the window. The first thing that occurred to me when I saw these workers in action from such proximity is the lack of safety conditions provided to them. You see them bending over, hanging over poles, carrying huge steel bars and wood panes, with non of the yellow protective helmets you see in shiny construction advertisements, or some kind of gloves or I don’t know what kind of things that provide some degree of protection. I don’t want to jump into conclusions, but I wonder how fairly compensated these workers are in case of accidents and physical damage. Just a thought…
Another thought that pops into my head is construction methods here. During the documentary filmmaking workshop I attended in March, we watched a film that I absolutely loved, called Blue Vinyl; a deeply personal and amazing documentary in which award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand alongside co-director Daniel B Gold sets out to explore the potential risks of PVC, extensively used as siding for homes in suburb America. She wanted to convince her parents to take out the Blue Vinyl which they used to re-side their house, and yet it was a huge challenge to find a reasonable, environmentally-friendly, and cost-effective alternative.
That film made me look at houses and construction in Amman in a different light, with newfound appreciation for the material we use and how it is all put together. We were taught in school that cement (and phosphate) tops the tiny list of natural resources that Jordan can humbly claim, but I realized what that really meant, until I saw the film and the struggle to find some decent and safe building material.
Here are more photos (click to view large size). I won’t be having this view for long, and not just because of their rapid building speed… but that’s a story for another post ;)
This whole thing brings different thoughts to my mind every time I stare out the window. The first thing that occurred to me when I saw these workers in action from such proximity is the lack of safety conditions provided to them. You see them bending over, hanging over poles, carrying huge steel bars and wood panes, with non of the yellow protective helmets you see in shiny construction advertisements, or some kind of gloves or I don’t know what kind of things that provide some degree of protection. I don’t want to jump into conclusions, but I wonder how fairly compensated these workers are in case of accidents and physical damage. Just a thought…
Another thought that pops into my head is construction methods here. During the documentary filmmaking workshop I attended in March, we watched a film that I absolutely loved, called Blue Vinyl; a deeply personal and amazing documentary in which award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand alongside co-director Daniel B Gold sets out to explore the potential risks of PVC, extensively used as siding for homes in suburb America. She wanted to convince her parents to take out the Blue Vinyl which they used to re-side their house, and yet it was a huge challenge to find a reasonable, environmentally-friendly, and cost-effective alternative.
That film made me look at houses and construction in Amman in a different light, with newfound appreciation for the material we use and how it is all put together. We were taught in school that cement (and phosphate) tops the tiny list of natural resources that Jordan can humbly claim, but I realized what that really meant, until I saw the film and the struggle to find some decent and safe building material.
Here are more photos (click to view large size). I won’t be having this view for long, and not just because of their rapid building speed… but that’s a story for another post ;)
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