ABSTRACT
The author named first had the chance of working for some years in Tanzania where he was confronted with the problems of building in countries of the ‘Third World’. Building is especially difficult where without external help small scale development projects are to be realized in rural regions-‘up-country’. There is an enormous shortage of skilled workers and building materials. Even where project managers succeed in securing cement and reinforcing steel the difficulty of manufacturing the shuttering still remains. Often
Abstract Low cost housing projects in developing countries often suffer from
both lack of structural timber as well as skilled workers to manufacture the shuttering for R.C. floor slabs. In this contribution a formwork system and its load-carrying behaviour is described by which structural timber can be substituted through cementitious “lost” formwork elements reinforced with sisal fibres. Among various forms archshaped units (sectroids), placed in between prefabricated beams have turned out to be most favourable.
