Night in Tunisia

Concrete

I don't know whether we've mentionned anywhere else in this blog, but the predominant construction method in Tunisia is brick and concrete. Everything in the house is Brick and Concrete - the walls, the floors... For support beams, the bricks are packed full of concrete (normally they're hollow). For extra couches/chairs/beds, a concrete base is built and rugs or pillows are set on top of it. This all comes about because both bricks and concrete are subsidised by the government in an effort to alleviate housing deficiencies, and are therefore cheap. Consequently, if people are unhappy with a particular wall in their house, they take a sledge to it, and if they want a new floor (up to a safe maximum of three) they just build stairs in a corner, blast out a section of roof and build up. The lack of preciousness and the self-actualizing attitude are quite neat, and very refreshing.

The downside, though, and everything has to have a downside, is that the remains of old construction are all over the place. People mix their concrete in the street, for example, which eventually hardens into little lumps all over the place. And everybody mixes their concrete on the street - whether for a house or a massive apartment complex - so that the little chunky lumpies are all over the place and contribute to wear and tear on the road (think logging road washboard effect). Also, one of the most common sights on abandonned lots is of piles of red chunkies that are the leavings of once-bricks that either got crushed or trimmed in the precision hack-at-with-trowel method that though imprecise, is quite handy.

Ah well, these are the little differences that make such an experience interesting. The upside of the construction with brick is that people have incredible liberty to build all manner of shapes and orientations of buildings, without the canadian limitations brought on by the strength of either poured cement (and the moulds that hold it in place) or the of wood beams. The result is an interesting array of different forms, and an absence of uniformity or rote construction that keeps the eye engaged.

posted by Loren @ 11:23 a.m.