As Novac writes on the 28th of May, 2020, recently, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) held another in a series of meetings by which the chamber brings together relevant institutions and professions that will participate in the Zagreb earthquake reconstruction process.
After the topics of urgent rehabilitation works were discussed, along with the development of guidelines for the renovation and the use of Croatian products were presented to engineers, contractors, chimney sweeps and building managers, designers then became part of the dialogue.
“This crisis could have hit the construction industry much worse than it ended up hitting it. The Croatian Chamber of Commerce sought preconditions for its survival during the strictest epidemiological measures through the continuation of work on construction sites and in construction material stores, as well as the movement of workers in that field. The incorporation of Croatian products in the Zagreb earthquake reconstruction is the next and key step on the road to recovery. The call to be responsible in such a crisis has a much broader meaning, and it includes responsibility through economic activity,” said the Vice President of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce for Construction, Transport and Communications, Mirjana Cagalj, at the meeting where the Association of Technical Design and the Association of Architects were presented with some guidelines.
Cagalj commented on the activities of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, the Ministry of Construction and Physical Planning, the Faculty of Civil Engineering and the Croatian Chamber of Civil Engineers, emphasising the role of building managers as the key to connecting people with the profession and establishing the Zagreb Group of Managers inside the Croatian Chamber of Commerce as the the platform through which such a move can be done.
State Secretary at the Ministry of Construction and Physical Planning, Zeljko Uhlir, spoke about the urgent work on the protection of buildings and the application that is being prepared which will enable the monitoring of bills and costs involved in it all. Regarding the question of the profession for the design and restoration of the original condition of the buildings, Uhlir said that the current regulations define urgent and necessary repairs.
“Amendments to the Technical Regulation for Building Structures are also being drafted,” Uhlir noted, as this regulation will enable part of the work to be carried out on buildings harmed by the Zagreb earthquake until the law is passed.
“We now need manuals and guidelines for emergency repairs, budget methodologies and remediation technologies. From that side, we can help in this scientific segment. We’ll present a proposal for an emergency programme. The protocols must be clearly defined in order to know who is responsible for which segment,” said the dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Stjepan Lakusic.
The manual was presented by the leader of the team of experts for checking the statics of the buildings and the professor of the Faculty of Civil Engineering Josip Atalic, who stressed that there is a big problem in fact that there is no awareness of earthquake risk, as such, he asked all professions to work together.
The manual defines different levels of renovation: the repair of non-structural elements, the repair of the structure, the reinforcement of the structure and then complete renovation. Several technical solutions for the profession and for people have been offered.
“These are the bare bones of the programme, which will be supplemented and changed in order to best help the profession,” Atalic emphasised. The manual was prepared by the Faculty of Civil Engineering and the Croatian Chamber of Civil Engineers, whose president, Nina Drazin Lovrec, also attended the meeting.
The manual also includes the Catalog of Croatian Products, which was prepared by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce with the intention of presenting domestic production to customers of goods and services with detailed information on those products, especially during the preparation of all of the tender documentation. As part of the Ugradimo hrvatsko campaign, a special category of products and companies for reconstruction following the Zagreb earthquake has been created.
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