Strategies for Mitigating Building Collapse in Nigeria: Roles of Architects and Other Stakeholders in the Building Industry

Abstract

Collapse of buildings is one of the several failures of building projects and results either in loss of lives, properties and in some cases both. Often times the professionals in the building industry made up of Architects, Engineers, Planners, Quantity Surveyors, Land Surveyors, Estate Surveyors, Town Planners,  Builders and Project Manager trade blames on who should be held responsible for the failure. Many factors can be adduced to the continuous occurrences of building collapse which, include inadequate monitoring of construction sites by government officials as a result of the vast and fast pace of developments in many Nigerian urban centres; as well as the use of substandard materials, improper soil investigations, bad design and supervision, poor quality construction and poor funding by clients. Using the secondary source of data collection, the paper discusses the roles the architect could play both in practice and in architectural education in mitigating building collapse. Findings reveal that mitigation of building collapse can be achieved in Nigeria through collaborative efforts of all stakeholders involved and concludes that architectural education could serve a supportive role.

Keywords: Architects, Architectural Education, Building Collapse, Mitigation, Nigeria